Siptu Call off Bus Strike

Propellerhead

I've taken a twenty percent paycut. It certainly isn't imaginary and when unemployment goes up to 500,000 later this year it will be interesting to see just where exactly all our public servants will get paid from.

AlekSmart

Frankly It`s not the Working Classes I`d be worried about Propellerhead as this group,be they Private OR Public will tend to cut their cloth to suit their measure.

There is virtually total acceptance of the reduced standard of living which will be a feature of Irish life for the foreseeable future.

However,that acceptance does not as yet stretch as far as the significant numbers who are in receipt of Social payments of varying types or more importantly,combinations of such payments.

There are many parts of this country where deriving one`s primary income from DSFA sources became an accepted part of daily life.
Supplementing that with a bit of an oul nixer was viewed as simply being smart and allowing the "Poorer" class to avail of the Tiger Economy`s benefits just like the Silver Spooners were doing.

It remains to be seen if many of those who continue to derive their main "steady" income from DSFA sources will be as adaptable and acceptant of any cuts in their income as those who make up the "workforce" are.

This is one area where I believe any Government is going to require nerves of steel in order to achieve any form of meaningful progress.

shltter

Propellerhead wrote: »

I've taken a twenty percent paycut. It certainly isn't imaginary and when unemployment goes up to 500,000 later this year it will be interesting to see just where exactly all our public servants will get paid from.

Again more shortsightedness


You claim to have taken a 20% pay cut but that in itself tells us nothing Mr Goggin formerly of Bank of Ireland was quick to inform us of his 30% odd paycut that would still have left him on over 2 million euro a year. Poor thing.

This all out assault on Public servants is absolute nonsense people need to stop and think exactly who they are talking about.

Nurses
Gardai
Teachers
Prison Officers
Fire brigade


Most of the Civil servants like those protesting last Thursday are low paid earning less than the average industrial wage. The work they do is vital to this country whether you like it or not this country would cease to function without them Most of these people do not have discretionary income that they can save all their income is spent you reduce that income that is less money in the economy in general less money in shops, they won't change their car, they won't build that extension, they won't move house and on and on. That means more private sector job losses more unemployment and an even bigger hole in the public finances.

People are blindly falling into the trap of blaming the average Public servant for their problems as if taking away their income will somehow make things better it won't it will make thing worse.

While i agree that some of the top civil servants are paid too much we won't rectify that by taking money from the lowest paid. And I have no doubt that there are some people in the Public sector who would not work in a fit but again you don't fix that by attacking those who are working their arse off for this country.

shltter

markpb wrote: »

I never support public transport strikes but shltter makes a huge point here that people are missing. We _NEED_ public transport. Cutting it because the government made a hash of the route planning and the local authorities couldn't organise a bus lane if it killed them, is incredibly short sighted. If people are poorer because they're unemployed or have taken a pay cut, they need public transport more than ever. Removing buses and routes now will just make it harder for poorer people to get to work, will encourage middle income people to buy a car and pay more taxes and will hurt our infrastructure in the long term.

John Lynch wrote a stupid article in the IT a few weeks ago justifying the cuts because of the fall in numbers. He spoke as if there was no way DB could grow it's numbers because so many people had left Ireland. What about all the people sitting in cars beside you, dummy? Do you think they wouldn't take public transport if it was better? Do you think your numbers won't fall further if your service gets worse?

If we made the service better and more efficient, we could save money *and* have a better service. Instead the government opts for the slash and burn approach which destroyes public transport and rises VRT and petrol taxes.

Which was the point I made earlier if those 120 buses are not needed where they are move them to where they are needed. Of course the Department of Transport have wound themselves up in knots with the Mcdowell interpretation of the 1937 act that it is probably easier to scrap 120 buses and spend 5 million euro a year on Dole payments for 160 drivers than it is to move them to where they are needed

mikemac

They'd scrap the buses? :eek:
Sure send them to Cork or Galway where this is massive overcrowding on the single decker buses. Need a Bus Eireann paintjob but that can be easily arranged. In fact for all the abuse Dublin Bus gets it's a far better service then Bus Eireann in other cities.
If it was your first time in Dublin one of the things you'd notice were all the buses everywhere, I did anyway

You could even use them for school bus runs in rural areas. Some of those school buses are crocks.

I don't know the solution to the issue in Dublin. My own route 78A is getting cut. But if the service does get cut we should certainly send the buses somewhere else

Propellerhead

shltter wrote: »

Again more shortsightedness


You claim to have taken a 20% pay cut but that in itself tells us nothing Mr Goggin formerly of Bank of Ireland was quick to inform us of his 30% odd paycut that would still have left him on over 2 million euro a year. Poor thing.

This all out assault on Public servants is absolute nonsense people need to stop and think exactly who they are talking about.

Nurses
Gardai
Teachers
Prison Officers
Fire brigade


Most of the Civil servants like those protesting last Thursday are low paid earning less than the average industrial wage. The work they do is vital to this country whether you like it or not this country would cease to function without them Most of these people do not have discretionary income that they can save all their income is spent you reduce that income that is less money in the economy in general less money in shops, they won't change their car, they won't build that extension, they won't move house and on and on. That means more private sector job losses more unemployment and an even bigger hole in the public finances.

People are blindly falling into the trap of blaming the average Public servant for their problems as if taking away their income will somehow make things better it won't it will make thing worse.

While i agree that some of the top civil servants are paid too much we won't rectify that by taking money from the lowest paid. And I have no doubt that there are some people in the Public sector who would not work in a fit but again you don't fix that by attacking those who are working their arse off for this country.

I'm certainly very, very far from earning €2m a year, just at the average industrial wage.

Again, you are entitled to protect your income, as you are in a far stronger position as a unionised worker in a public sector organisation than I am in a small private company to be able to do so. You will have noted that I did not comment at all on anyones' pay, or anyone's job, simply the ability of the exchequer to pay public sector wages and massively increased social welfare payments on a smaller tax base.

Cowen has signalled tax increases but when I and hundreds of thousands of more like me who pay tax will be made redundant, as I fully expect to be before the end of the year, who will pay the piper then?

What happens sh1tter when you don't get paid because there is no dough generated from gobdaws like me who were the hewers of wood and drawers of water during the boom?

Propellerhead

AlekSmart wrote: »

Frankly It`s not the Working Classes I`d be worried about Propellerhead as this group,be they Private OR Public will tend to cut their cloth to suit their measure.

There is virtually total acceptance of the reduced standard of living which will be a feature of Irish life for the foreseeable future.

However,that acceptance does not as yet stretch as far as the significant numbers who are in receipt of Social payments of varying types or more importantly,combinations of such payments.

There are many parts of this country where deriving one`s primary income from DSFA sources became an accepted part of daily life.
Supplementing that with a bit of an oul nixer was viewed as simply being smart and allowing the "Poorer" class to avail of the Tiger Economy`s benefits just like the Silver Spooners were doing.

It remains to be seen if many of those who continue to derive their main "steady" income from DSFA sources will be as adaptable and acceptant of any cuts in their income as those who make up the "workforce" are.

This is one area where I believe any Government is going to require nerves of steel in order to achieve any form of meaningful progress.

Probably the only growth area of the economy is going to be private security then. Indeed the Garda Siochana may have to take a rest from shooting fish on the side of the road to other more physical duties before the year is out. I smells trouble and lots of it, and I'm not looking forward to what may well be a hot summer but not in the nice way.

AlekSmart

Probably the only growth area of the economy is going to be private security then

U have it in 1 Propellerhead.

Anybody watching the recent Louis Theroux documentary on Law and Order in Sarf Africa will have been given a sneak preview.

There may well have been a bit of forward planning at play when the FF Developer wing built all of these Gated Communities around the place

Now all we need to do is a bit of Trawling through the Companies Office files on Security Companies...??

murphaph

@shltter, you answered (well not really, you just called it all BS) my other points but rather curiously you failed to answer this question:

murphaph wrote: »

So what do you suggest we do to bring in foreign currency? We need to export so what should we export? Bus journeys?

It is the most important question for ALL of us because ultimately ALL our wages comes from outside Ireland as we are an exporting nation (85% of all goods and services). If we don't export SOMETHING we will all be living in a very different Ireland in short order.

Your wages come ultimately from exports from these shores. You maintain we simply can't compete with Poland/China (but you also forget we aren't just competing with them, we are competing with Western Europe too and we can't even compete with our nearest neighbour!). I asked you, since you believe manufacturing is dead, what should we export instead? Financial services <cough>? Seriously, what should we do instead of manufacture goods (which you believe to be a lost cause)?

Sure I expect a 'knowledge economy' waffle answer but the knowledge economy takes years/decades to build up and we have barely started. We are well behind the rest of Western Europe in this regard and so we can go bankrupt and wait for the knowledge economy to 'happen' or we can focus on competitiveness to keep as many of the 2 million people you keep talking about in work right now, because if we keep losing 38,000 people a month we will reach the point of no return quite quickly. But you aren't prepared to lose one penny in your pay, are you?

Now, you maintain that it is untenable to countenance pay cuts/reducing the minimum wage and you maintain that THIRTY EIGHT THOUSAND job losses from an approximate workforce of just TWO MILLION is insignificant and "diversionary" (union speak, wre you a shop steward??). Let me tell you that 38,000/2,000,000 is 2% and of course it is significant to lose 2% of your workforce in 31 days! If we lose jobs at this rate or anything close to it, we will be in SERIOUS TROUBLE.

To those who believe I am in favour of a slash and burn approach to Public transport, well I'm not (as anyone who reads my frequent posts here will know well). I am in favour of redundancies if they are needed and Dublin Bus (and the rest of CIE) is reporting reduced passenger numbers is it not? Reduced patronage in any business or public service should mean a reduced need for services (and consequently those providing the service). It goes without saying that changes to work practice should not even be an issue in this economic reality but let the red flag wave and put your hands up and cover your eyes.

I've said it before but it was missed apparently: the money should be diverted from wages driving reduced passenger numbers around and reduce the service 'for the duration' and instead spent on infrastructure that will actually deliver an efficient route network. Pinch points should be eliminated and private vehicles should be banned where neccessary to accomplish this.

murphaph

AlekSmart wrote: »

Frankly It`s not the Working Classes I`d be worried about Propellerhead as this group,be they Private OR Public will tend to cut their cloth to suit their measure.

There is virtually total acceptance of the reduced standard of living which will be a feature of Irish life for the foreseeable future.

However,that acceptance does not as yet stretch as far as the significant numbers who are in receipt of Social payments of varying types or more importantly,combinations of such payments.

There are many parts of this country where deriving one`s primary income from DSFA sources became an accepted part of daily life.
Supplementing that with a bit of an oul nixer was viewed as simply being smart and allowing the "Poorer" class to avail of the Tiger Economy`s benefits just like the Silver Spooners were doing.

It remains to be seen if many of those who continue to derive their main "steady" income from DSFA sources will be as adaptable and acceptant of any cuts in their income as those who make up the "workforce" are.

This is one area where I believe any Government is going to require nerves of steel in order to achieve any form of meaningful progress.

I agree with the rest of your post Alek and I know you to be a progressive individual who knows what's going on in this world but I disagree that there is virtually total acceptance of a reduced standard of living. I believe that this failure to accept a reduction of living standards exists to a small extent in the private sector and to a much larger extent in the state and semi-state sectors.

You're bang on the money wrt social welfare fraud and its investigation by the DSFA should mean that is one government dept that should receive increased funding this year.

It goes without saying that the likes of Goggina nd his pals receiving astronimal sums for running banks into the ground sickens me but even if we took goggin's salary from him and gave him dole money instead, it would not result in a material difference to the exchequer. The burden for their mistakes (and ours-people did not save, they splurged on all sorts of rubbish for the last 10 years) will fall on us, the ordinary working taxpayer. This does not mean that TDs/bank executives/union executives!!/senior civil servants etc. etc. should not lead by example and see significant cuts to their pay.

paulm17781

shltter wrote: »

Blather you claimed nearly all private sector workers took a pay cut I asked you what was yours and the answer is you have not taken one the rest of your answer is diversionary bull****.

I had to take a 5% cut and lose my bonus. I'll probably have to take another 5% this month. I'm not whinging and striking, I'm working hard to keep my job.

shltter wrote: »

It allowed its currency to devalue

Well if you say so. We'll ignore the risk factor, low VAT rate and crumbling banking and say "it allowed its currency to devalue" you seem to know economics.

shltter wrote: »

No we should start paying 50 cent an hour and give the chinese a run for their money :rolleyes:

What planet are you on? Of course we're not going to do that but 9 euro an hour is far to high a minimum wage. Companies came here because we were a low cost, English speaking country. Now we're a high cost English speaking country. The standard of English in Mumbai is better than Ireland these days. What do you propose we do to keep employed, strike?

shltter wrote: »

What are my wages as a matter of interest

I have no idea, I'd say it's highly inflated compared to other bus drivers (you are a bus driver I believe) in other Western countries though.

shltter wrote: »

It is a diversion and an excuse for you to indulge in your favourite sport public sector bashing

Aye, that's what it is. We love it. It has nothing to do with you little whinge bags striking at every opportunity and bringing the country to it's knees until you get what you want, especially at a time when the country is in real trouble.

AlekSmart

the money should be diverted from wages driving reduced passenger numbers around and reduce the service 'for the duration' and instead spent on infrastructure that will actually deliver an efficient route network. Pinch points should be eliminated and private vehicles should be banned where neccessary to accomplish this.

An interesting and workable general principle for the situation pertaining to the CIE RP (Road Passenger) companies.
I`m veering towards some form of self-supporting wages deferral or other fiscal savings which can be....dare I say it....."Ring Fenced" for the use of the Companies within a reasonable time frame,come the restoration.

However,this suggestion IS one of complexity and would require the great Agencies of State to surender their entitlement to such funding in order to facilitate the greater Public Service ethos of Public Transport.

I believe that the full extent of the current depression has NOT arrived yet.
I do not believe that running a private car will continue to be viable once the new Tax and Duty regiemes are introduced.

This is why I contend that reducing the Public Commuter Bus service "for the duration" is quite the LAST thing which Mr Dempsey and Dr Lynch should be contemplating.

Withdrawing and disposing or "mothballing" over 200 large public service vehicles is of itself a substantial and expensive process.
This is not the Mojave Desert and Buses are remarkable items which rapidly deteriorate once left unused on a regular basis.
The second-hand Bus market in the UK has come to a resounding halt so any projected fillip from sales is unlikely.
This leaves storage or Mothballing which entails locating sufficient space and then regular protective maintenance on the vehicles if they are to be kept serviceable.

I wonder if the Minister,Dr Lynch or Deloitte actually investigated these "hidden costs" of their golden bullet for the Bus Service?.

This brings me (neatly ?) to the remark about "Banning" private vehicles to ensure the efficiency of the Bus service.
Once again I believe that offering a readily available,reliable and REASONABLY priced comprehensive Public Bus and Commuter Coach service is a more desireable option which only requires MARKETING and some centrally supported Suggestive Selling to achieve a significant Modal Shift of enough magnitude to render maintaining current services at least a desireable option.

That desireability is at the nub of the problem for me.
Reading through all of the Departmental and Ministerial Waffle I am struck at the TOTAL absence of ANY references to attracting business or ridership by utilising our present resources to that end.

Even Deloitte,a paragon of commercial good sense,finds itself unable to venture too much in this direction,especially with Dublin Bus.
However Deloitte`s remarks on the Departments unsustainable policies regarding DB`s cash vs prepaid Ticketing anomaly have been seriously overlooked in the discusssion of the Report`s findings.
The ease of use,availability of ticketing options and method of fare calculation form THE basis of any modern focused Public Transport operation....or at least they do in MY mind.

Past history has shown,and experience continues to show that banning stuff in Ireland has in many things quite the opposite result than desired.
With the exception of the Workplace Smoking ban we are not a culture that regards "bans" as items to be respected or enforced.

For my part I would like to see some evidence of a Government willing to look at the CURRENT CIE RP Groups assets as underused and offering far greater potential than currently realized.
Divesting the Country of these assets NOW is going to introduce all sorts of serious issues as we progress further into this abyss.

And yes,you would be correct to assume I have no great faith in Mr Dempsey or in substantial amounts of CIE Senior Management to recognize the worth of that which they seek to destroy. :cool:

MOH

shltter wrote: »

Well if you can manage a well thought out question I will respond in kind

shltter wrote: »

repeat of same yada yada yada as before

Ah, I see. Thanks for that, makes things much clearer, I fully appreciate your viewpoint now.

shltter

paulm17781 wrote: »

I had to take a 5% cut and lose my bonus. I'll probably have to take another 5% this month. I'm not whinging and striking, I'm working hard to keep my job.

5% of what and where do you work anyone can claim anything

paulm17781 wrote: »

Well if you say so. We'll ignore the risk factor, low VAT rate and crumbling banking and say "it allowed its currency to devalue" you seem to know economics.

Did the UK allow its currency to devalue and has it made wages in the UK lower compared to eurozone wages

paulm17781 wrote: »

What planet are you on? Of course we're not going to do that but 9 euro an hour is far to high a minimum wage. Companies came here because we were a low cost, English speaking country. Now we're a high cost English speaking country. The standard of English in Mumbai is better than Ireland these days. What do you propose we do to keep employed, strike?

I'm on the planet that says you can't compete with 50 cent an hour so it is pointless to point at China as an example of competitiveness. And the exporting of jobs to Mumbai was a bandwagon that alot of companies jumped on and many are having serious regrets as you may be able to hire 3 java programmers for the price of one in Dublin but many have learned that does not get you 3 times the work or the quality. And the standard of english is a problem and one that became more obvious as more jobs moved out there many people who have been on to a call centre can attest to that.

paulm17781 wrote: »

I have no idea, I'd say it's highly inflated compared to other bus drivers (you are a bus driver I believe) in other Western countries though.

Your right you have no idea, bus drivers basic pay is about 4000/6000 below the average industrial wage. As we were not included in benchmarking and could not arrange pay improvements outside the national pay deal we only received that pay awards under the national agreements and our wages have fallen further and further behind the average industrial wage. In most EU countries the wage would be around the average industrial wage

paulm17781 wrote: »

Aye, that's what it is. We love it. It has nothing to do with you little whinge bags striking at every opportunity and bringing the country to it's knees until you get what you want, especially at a time when the country is in real trouble.

Again Dublin bus is not in the Public sector it is a commercial semi state company.

paulm17781

shltter wrote: »

5% of what and where do you work anyone can claim anything

That's not for the internet. I'm around the average industrial wage. If it weren't for the interest rate reductions, I'd be having difficulty paying my mortgage. I work in software, I'm a sys admin who is getting less than I should be, even before the pay cut.

I also know 5 people who lost their jobs since January, have a friend who works for a local news paper who's now making less than when she started and saw my company shed ~half of it's work force 50 - 21, a few left since.

I can claim quite a lot because I've seen this happen to friends and to me, get off of your cloud and see what the rest of us are going through.

shltter wrote: »

Did the UK allow its currency to devalue and has it made wages in the UK lower compared to eurozone wages

No, they didn't allow it to devalue, it devalued.

shltter wrote: »

I'm on the planet that says you can't compete with 50 cent an hour so it is pointless to point at China as an example of competitiveness. And the exporting of jobs to Mumbai was a bandwagon that alot of companies jumped on and many are having serious regrets as you may be able to hire 3 java programmers for the price of one in Dublin but many have learned that does not get you 3 times the work or the quality. And the standard of english is a problem and one that became more obvious as more jobs moved out there many people who have been on to a call centre can attest to that.

The call centre thing is the accent, it doesn't mean the standard. It's really not, perhaps you should look at history. We had a low cost, low (council and business) tax, highly educated, English speaking, European work force. It was a good cheap and relatively stable (Eastern Europe was baaad back then) way for American companies to get into Europe and get tax breaks. We are now expensive and they'll move to another part of Europe that has cheap labour with similar conditions to what we had. Say... Poland. English is the only advantage we have over the Polish, if we can reduce our costs, it would help us a lot.

shltter wrote: »

Your right you have no idea, bus drivers basic pay is about 4000/6000 below the average industrial wage. As we were not included in benchmarking and could not arrange pay improvements outside the national pay deal we only received that pay awards under the national agreements and our wages have fallen further and further behind the average industrial wage. In most EU countries the wage would be around the average industrial wage

I'd be near certain the average industrial wage in most of the EU isn't as high as it is here. Oh wait, I've been making that exact point.

shltter wrote: »

Again Dublin bus is not in the Public sector it is a commercial semi state company.

I don't see how that has any bearing on you striking as soon as the country gets into trouble.

shltter

paulm17781 wrote: »

No, they didn't allow it to devalue, it devalued.

Did they try and support it NO therefor they let it devalue which we cannot do
Which gets back to my point about the Uk and the Euro take for example a worker in the UK earning £30,000 that would have been around €45,000 before the pound devalued today it is around €34/35,000. Effectively they have reduced labour costs without reducing wages. That is not an option for us because of the Euro. Also at a time when our property market was booming it was further inflated by low interest rates that suited Germany not ireland if we had had control over our rates they would have been much higher and have stopped the bubble from expanding.
So while people proclaim the Euro as our saviour and undoubtedly it has brought some good the truth is that we would not be in as big a hole if it was not for the Euro as well.

paulm17781 wrote: »

The call centre thing is the accent, it doesn't mean the standard. It's really not, perhaps you should look at history. We had a low cost, low (council and business) tax, highly educated, English speaking, European work force. It was a good cheap and relatively stable (Eastern Europe was baaad back then) way for American companies to get into Europe and get tax breaks. We are now expensive and they'll move to another part of Europe that has cheap labour with similar conditions to what we had. Say... Poland. English is the only advantage we have over the Polish, if we can reduce our costs, it would help us a lot.

I am not talking just about accents I know people who have software developers working with them who are in India and they tell me that the standard and the output is not up to scratch that the time difference and the language differences create huge problems. That the companies jumped on the bandwagon and that in many projects it has cost them more time and money. On paper it looks good but in the actual reality of doing it has been a nightmare.

The labour cost savings are huge at the moment and there is no way that we could bridge the gap between what people need to be paid to just survive in this country and what they can get away with paying in Poland etc.

paulm17781 wrote: »

I'd be near certain the average industrial wage in most of the EU isn't as high as it is here. Oh wait, I've been making that exact point.

Oh you missed the point how unusual,

Bus drivers wages in the EU would be in and around the average industrial wage for the respective country in ireland they are already €4000-€6000 below that level.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/germany.shtml

Shows average wages in Germany in 2005 and a bus driver 4 years ago in germany was earning the same roughly as what we are earning now.

paulm17781 wrote: »

I don't see how that has any bearing on you striking as soon as the country gets into trouble.

You said I was a public sector worker I'm not and I fail to see your indignation for employers using the countries troubles as an excuse to force in changes.