Strikes in the public sector

Crapbag

ixoy wrote: »

See that's partially what's wrong - we're bailing out banks, yes, and it's a lot to do with the mistakes of the fat cats, yes, but we're not doing it to bail out just the fat cats. We're doing it to allow money to flow from the banks again so that businesses can once more aquire loans and capital to try and help invigorate the economy, or so that private pension funds can breathe again. There's a lot more to it than the appearance of helping out a few over-achievers in the banks and this needs to be made clear so we don't have unions, etc. implying it's only to help out some big-salaried risk-takers in the financial sector.

What is annoying though is the lack of response for the government, telling us they're going to enforce much more strict regulation to ensure this doesn't happen again because their mistakes (which, incidentally, helped many of us out for a while) cannot be repeated.

I think peoples obsession with that 'bailing out fat cats' idea is as much the medias fault as those who perceive it to be true. If we villanize the top bank officials and plaster up what damage they have done, I wouldnt expect anything less from people but to be angry and want heads to roll. We never questioned them with our money though.

The problem with the bail out scheme is simply the issue of return on investment. The tax payer is now investing in the banks and the government is now the broker. The problem is, they arent doing a good job at brokering the deal. The banks have dictated many of the terms to the government particularly in areas where money needs to be released, such as mortgages. Ironically our capitalist economy has taken on a very similar attribute of communism where the bank is now an asset of the state. That is if the government demand to members into the board of directors. The way in which banks do business needs to be examined and regulated properly and the government, as representatives of the people, need to have more input in how they manage our money.

Naz_st

grahamo wrote: »

BTW PRSI contributions pay for your state pension.!

PRSI pays for more than state pensions, it pays social welfare also. That's a pretty big bill (and growing) so contributing to PRSI is not that same as simply paying toward a pension.

Of course it matters if you are post or pre 1995! Post 1995 employees have the amount they receive from their state pension Deducted from whatever they are entitled to from their public sector pension (The Indo conveniently leave that bit out ). Pre 95 don't pay PRSI and are not entitled to Social Welfare payments. It is NOT like with like.

I'm not arguing whether there is a difference in the pre or post 95 public services pension (obviously there is), I'm simply saying that if you have a DB public service pension regardless of whether you are pre or post 95, you are vastly better off than those in the private that don't have this pension option. Furthermore, either pre or post 95, even with the additional levy it is very unlikely that the contributions you make will cover the resulting cost to the state of the pension when you receive it.

colly10

Foghorn Leghorn wrote: »

I'm told were just giving billons to the banks (to bail out these "fat-cats") while cutting special needs programs in our schools, and funding to our hospitals

Again this is not a choice, we cannot allow the banks to go under, why don't people look into these things before they give out, we have no other option

diverdriver wrote: »

When are people going to realise that giving money to the banks is not bailing out fat-cats. :mad:

Banks are vital to the running of the economy, without them you won't have to worry about your levy because you won't have a job. The banks must be kept operating because the money they lend is the driving force of any economy. Almost every business needs to borrow at some time or other. If they can't they close. Simple as that. If you want to buy a house you must borrow money. If you want to buy a car, you need to borrow money. It's basic economics.

+1 - It's the same bul**** rhetoric spouted over and over, giving out about bailing out banks, expecting the gov to not bring in pay cuts to the public sector which they can't afford to pay because it's not their fault.

Or believing that striking is somehow sticking it to the man when all your doing is screwing over the country which is screwing over yourself in the long run. It's irritating to say the least

johnnyrotten

gurramok wrote: »

Ye got benchmarking with consistent increases year on year where the money that was obtained for this was from the 'Celtic Tiger'.

The last benchmarking deal gave us 0 % . Why? because they said our pension was worth 12.5%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

dvpower

johnnyrotten wrote: »

The last benchmarking deal gave us 0 % . Why? because they said our pension was worth 12.5%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

Will there be another benchmarking deal? If so, what would it be likely to give to Public / Civil servants?

johnnyrotten

dvpower wrote: »

Will there be another benchmarking deal? If so, what would it be likely to give to Public / Civil servants?

A minus!

There probably won't be any more benchmarking . Partnership is gone thanks to IBEC and FF

johnnyrotten

BTW there is one group exempt from the pension levy - The judicery

Lemming

johnnyrotten wrote: »

A minus!

There probably won't be any more benchmarking . Partnership is gone thanks to IBEC and FF

Benchmarking is most likely gone the way of the dodo due to economic reality, not IBEC. As for FF? well ... I don't think that particular name needs spelt out any further.

johnnyskeleton

johnnyrotten wrote: »

Unfortunately the public sector will get hit again with income tax increases later in the next budget. The public sector was easy pickings for the government to hit.

On the contrary, hitting the public sector is harder for the government.

johnnyrotten wrote: »

The fairer way was to increase income tax...then every person working and paying tax would share the pain.

Fair has nothing to do with it. Increasing taxes discourages people from earning more money. We don't have enough money to pay for the public service that we have.

johnnyrotten wrote: »

It amazes me that many people would not join the public sector when the Celtic tiger was roaring..Why? Because the pay was sh!t . Now suddenly the public sector jobs are "Golden jobs with silver lined pensions"

Again I disupte this. During the boom (or bubble) we had massive increases in the numbers working in the public sector. The pay was benchmarked so it gave a lot of people more money than they would make doing the same job in the private sector. Take, for example, the basic clerical workers who get paid more than basic clerical workers in the private sector.

K-9

grahamo wrote: »

An article from the Indo? :rolleyes: It must be right so! The public sector examples are for people on 80k salaries. Your average Joe won't get those kind of benefits.
BTW PRSI contributions pay for your state pension.!

Unions need to stop spin doctoring.

Here is a good article on how much it costs in reality. Unions are involved in disinformation. The CPSU were saying low wage workers would lose €40-60 per week, not true:

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2009/02/08/story39365.asp:


You'd need to be on €66,000 to lose €60 a week. It's €20 a week for somebody on a low €510 a week wage.

1) Mark is a 27-year-old clerical officer working in the civil service for the last three years. He earns a gross annual salary of €26,672. The gross impact of the pension levy will mean a 5.3 per cent drop in his salary. However, once the tax relief is applied the net effect is that his salary will fall by 4 per cent.

This translates to a net loss of €1,077,which equates to roughly €90 less in his monthly pay packet - the equivalent of about nine cinema trips or roughly the cost of taxing a small car for six months.

Mark will now pay a total of €4,501 each year in tax, PRSI, levies and pension contributions. This is 17 percent of his total salary. 2) John is an assistant principal officer in the civil service, earning a gross annual salary of €66,179. The 47-year-old has worked in the same government department for the last 25 years. He is the sole earner in his home, with his wife working as a stay-at home mother.

The levy will reduce John’s gross salary by 8.1 per cent, but after tax relief the net impact of the levy will be a 4.6 per cent reduction in his take-home pay. He will be €3,059 worse off each year, with his net weekly wages falling by almost €60 - the amount John and his wife spend each week on a meal for two in their local restaurant.

The introduction of the new pension levy means that John will now pay a total of €18,177 each year in tax, PRSI, levies and pension contributions. This is 27 per cent of his total salary.

johnnyrotten wrote: »

The last benchmarking deal gave us 0 % . Why? because they said our pension was worth 12.5%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

Why do you think they gave 0%?

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

On the contrary, hitting the public sector is harder for the government.

Fair has nothing to do with it. Increasing taxes discourages people from earning more money. We don't have enough money to pay for the public service that we have.

Indeed, the Govt. is/was perfectly aware of the consequences of the levy.

johnnyskeleton wrote:

Again I disupte this. During the boom (or bubble) we had massive increases in the numbers working in the public sector. The pay was benchmarked so it gave a lot of people more money than they would make doing the same job in the private sector. Take, for example, the basic clerical workers who get paid more than basic clerical workers in the private sector.

Yep, thank God I see this one less and less. The huge increases in numbers do not back it up. Yes, certain parts found it hard to attract entrants, the majority didn't.

PS. Post 95 entrants pay normal rate PRSI, but are on a higher grade. Basically, the Govt. pays their extra PRSI.

johnnyrotten

@K9

Don't misquote me!

new=user

Hi,

Have been reading a lot of these posts with disbelief. I just joined the civil service about 5 years ago, i worked in private sector for years before that. In private sector i had my vhi paid for me, had access to a free gym, got bonus's and share options.

Now in the public sector i have none of these benefits and my salary is still about 8 grand less that it was in the private sector. I have friends who laughed at me for working for civil service as my salary dropped so much.

In my current department i drive about 160km each day to/from work. By the time i pay childminding and bills i have nothing left.

In saying all that, i wouldn't object to pension levy if they had just targetted the higher paid civil servants. There is a lot of misinformation out there. I dont know why the unions are saying that the average civil servant wage is 40000. Clerical officers make up the main staff and you start on about 22000 rising to about 35000 after about 20 years service.

Plus everyone keeps talking about these supposedly gold plated pensions. Yes for the members that will have 40 years service when they retire the pension is not bad (especially compared to how private pensions are performing). However people are forgetting about people like myself who wont have 40 years service. I would actually prefer not to pay pension and not get one as i have no choice but to pay it and i will get crap-all back!

Sorry for long post but when started typing couldn't stop!!

_Kaiser_

new=user wrote: »

Hi,

Have been reading a lot of these posts with disbelief. I just joined the civil service about 5 years ago, i worked in private sector for years before that. In private sector i had my vhi paid for me, had access to a free gym, got bonus's and share options.

Now in the public sector i have none of these benefits and my salary is still about 8 grand less that it was in the private sector. I have friends who laughed at me for working for civil service as my salary dropped so much.

Same story as myself

In my current department i drive about 160km each day to/from work. By the time i pay childminding and bills i have nothing left.

My job requires me to travel between sites, and for this I have to provide my own car, pay for the extra insurance cost, additional servicing costs etc. For this I get a paltry 25c per km mileage allowance. No company car/fuel cards for me!

In saying all that, i wouldn't object to pension levy if they had just targetted the higher paid civil servants. There is a lot of misinformation out there. I dont know why the unions are saying that the average civil servant wage is 40000. Clerical officers make up the main staff and you start on about 22000 rising to about 35000 after about 20 years service.

Correct.. also unlike the private sector, it doesn't matter how hard you work or how much money or time you may save the organisation by implementing innovative work practises - as I did in my role - you will still only get the incremental increase at the end of it.
For me to get the 10-15k+ more the job would (even currently according to the jobs sites) pay in the private sector, I'll need to be here another 7 years or so!

When I worked for two of the big IT multinationals, we were rewarded with 1000s extra as a payrise at the end of the year, or (friends of mine in sales) were given holidays, or several thousands in commission.

A lot of the people in the private sector seem to be conveniently forgetting this.

Plus everyone keeps talking about these supposedly gold plated pensions. Yes for the members that will have 40 years service when they retire the pension is not bad (especially compared to how private pensions are performing). However people are forgetting about people like myself who wont have 40 years service. I would actually prefer not to pay pension and not get one as i have no choice but to pay it and i will get crap-all back!

Exactly... unlike my previous employers where I could increase or decrease my pension payment contributions as I wished, I now have no choice but to pay the full amount every month. Oh and I'm not permanent either by the way so the "job for life" argument doesn't apply! - indeed all my direct manager seems to do lately is remind us how lucky we are to have jobs!

Sorry for long post but when started typing couldn't stop!!

I get like that too!

joolsveer

new=user wrote: »

In saying all that, i wouldn't object to pension levy if they had just targetted the higher paid civil servants.

Do you mean that you would not object to the levy if you did not have to pay it?

BroomBurner

joolsveer wrote: »

Do you mean that you would not object to the levy if you did not have to pay it?

I think maybe they meant that if they had targetted the higher paid a little harder than those on lower pay.

new=user

Exactly!

Why ask someone who is getting paid about 22000 a year to take a pay cut when the amount of money they are going to lose is like peanuts to people who are on higher salaries, but is a huge amount of money to lower-paid.

I think the goverment were very clever calling this a pension levy when it is a pay cut.

Also the fact we will probably not get pay increases means it is a higher pay cut. Plus gov willl more than likely increase taxes as well so getting caught in treble.

Why didn't they just make some sensible changes like stop giving childrens allowance to people who are on hundreds of thousands each year. And bring in a higher tax rate for people who are on insane salaries. and stop giving piles of people tax exemptions! Every normal person can list off changes that could have been made to save some money. Am not saying that it would fix the crisis but would make more sense than cutting pay of a section of people only.

I know you will never please everyone, but i have worked in both public and private sector and this business of saying that public servants are high paid and do nothing is ridiculous. A tiny few departments may be over-staffed or have some staff that dont work as hard as they should. But that also applies to some private companies. The department i currently work in is insanely busy and doesn't actually have enough staff

kippy

New=User and Kaiser2000,
Why the hell are you still working in both yer jobs if yer not happy with the pay and conditions? Seriously?
I dont understand people who complain about their jobs without doing something about it.

While the levy may seem "unfair" the tax increases and possible forced redundancies that are coming along in the next 2 years will be worse.

Kippy

K-9

new=user wrote: »

Exactly!

Why ask someone who is getting paid about 22000 a year to take a pay cut when the amount of money they are going to lose is like peanuts to people who are on higher salaries, but is a huge amount of money to lower-paid.

Probably because the majority of workers in the Public Service see themselves as lower paid, despite that not being the case in general. If they say anybody below say, €30,000 will not pay, people on €31,000 would moan!

new=user wrote:

Why didn't they just make some sensible changes like stop giving childrens allowance to people who are on hundreds of thousands each year. And bring in a higher tax rate for people who are on insane salaries. and stop giving piles of people tax exemptions! Every normal person can list off changes that could have been made to save some money. Am not saying that it would fix the crisis but would make more sense than cutting pay of a section of people only.

I'd say Child benefit, the early childcare payment and 3rd Level fees will be means tested. The problem is, as can be seen by the levy, people will moan about any limit imposed.

We could do all the things people propose here, raise taxes, reduce credits, introduce a higher tax rate above €100,000 etc. etc. and we'd still need to do something about public sector pay.

ixoy

Kaiser wrote:

Correct.. also unlike the private sector, it doesn't matter how hard you work or how much money or time you may save the organisation by implementing innovative work practises - as I did in my role - you will still only get the incremental increase at the end of it.

Yes - there's not much merit-based aspects to your job. That means slacking off isn't discouraged as it should be, nor is innovation. It's one of the frustrating aspects of the CS that would put me off of it. Why are you in there though if it's such a downer for you?

When I worked for two of the big IT multinationals, we were rewarded with 1000s extra as a payrise at the end of the year, or (friends of mine in sales) were given holidays, or several thousands in commission.

Well that's your example - I know people working in IT multinationals who have been on pay freezes for the last two years. None I know ever got anything like free holidays. We can both cherry pick here if we want.

new=user wrote: »

Why ask someone who is getting paid about 22000 a year to take a pay cut when the amount of money they are going to lose is like peanuts to people who are on higher salaries, but is a huge amount of money to lower-paid.

Because there's not enough people on the higher pay to make up the difference. Having said that, they could still jostle the figures a bit and probably more sharply increase the rate at the higher end and knock a percentage point at the lower end and maybe still get the same result.

I think the goverment were very clever calling this a pension levy when it is a pay cut.

Except it isn't for pensioners whose wages are tied to that grade - that's the defining difference I believe.

Also the fact we will probably not get pay increases means it is a higher pay cut. Plus gov willl more than likely increase taxes as well so getting caught in treble.

Counting not getting a pay increase this year as a "pay cut" isn't going to win any sympathy - I'm hoping the unions won't try to spin this one. Taxes will hit us all.

Why didn't they just make some sensible changes like stop giving childrens allowance to people who are on hundreds of thousands each year. And bring in a higher tax rate for people who are on insane salaries. and stop giving piles of people tax exemptions! Every normal person can list off changes that could have been made to save some money. Am not saying that it would fix the crisis but would make more sense than cutting pay of a section of people only.

Because this won't net enough money - again the figures we need to save are incredibly high. Those proposals won't do it. Cutting PS/CS pay is one way - taxes and other means to come.