To Strike or Not to Strike

ckristo2

In view of the impending strike of Public Sector workers set for next week over the new pension levy. I'd like to put out some ideas that people might like to ponder.
The politicians (and indeed the media in their "it has been reported" or "it has been suggested" fashion) that this is a conflict between the Public Sector and the Private Sector.
Shouldn't this be a conflict between those who can afford to pay and those who cannot. Any ideas?

Darragh29

This government want the public sector and the private sector to be infighting, because as long as that is happening, we won't all be united in fighting the real problem, which is the government that we have.

I'm private sector self employed and I'll be protesting 'cos I want RID of this government, they are useless, they are worse than useless, there isn't a word in the English dictionary to define how useless they are.

ixoy

I've not seen it suggested that the strike is a public versus private thing - the strike is the public service being annoyed with the government more than anything else. I happen not to agree with a lot of what they're saying (and don't have a huge amount of sympathy), but that doesn't mean they're openly marching against private sector workers.

Darragh29

ixoy wrote: »

I've not seen it suggested that the strike is a public versus private thing - the strike is the public service being annoyed with the government more than anything else. I happen not to agree with a lot of what they're saying (and don't have a huge amount of sympathy), but that doesn't mean they're openly marching against private sector workers.

I think the biggest problem that this government have, is that they don't understand the value of money. I don't agree with a lot of the public sector argument, I don't think a nurse on 40K a year should be hit for anything up to 80 Euro a week. Having said that, I go into public sector workplaces and I see twice the number of people doing the same kind of tasks that in a private sector environment, would be done much more efficiently and effectively.

Also, change happens, it happens in the private sector and if it doesn't happen, then you are out of a job. This thing of consulting with unions and partners and a whole load of people on change, this mindset has to be consigned to the social partnership skip of uselessness. Dismissals & redundancies should be a reality in the public sector, who made up the rule that if you work in the public sector, you cannot be let go??? Because it follows on from that statement that everyone working in the public sector must be suitable for the job and doing it successfully??? Is this true??? I doubt very much that it is, therefore there must be useless people in the public sector that should be shown the door, just like there are in the private sector.

Sand

Strikes always lead to a worse situation - as bad as the economic situation is, it wont be made any better by the losses and disruption caused by strike activity.

There is the argument that the unions will be representing peoples anger to the politicians, but thats a lie - the union leadership will be manipulating their members into defending their own [ union leadership] narrow interests. Unions are no more honest or public spirited than any Fianna Fail TD.

And why do we need groups like the unions to represent us? Isnt that just an excuse to absolve ourselves of responsibility to represent ourselves? Our chance to say what we think will come in the Dail elections [ not the euros or the Lisbon treaty which FF dont give a damn about, its their seats theyre worried about]. We shouldnt let the unions harness our own anger to achieve their own ends, when the unions themselves were willing and deliberate partners in the scandal of social partnership which has nearly bankrupted this country.

I'm private sector self employed and I'll be protesting 'cos I want RID of this government, they are useless, they are worse than useless, there isn't a word in the English dictionary to define how useless they are.

Bollocks - the news wont report how you showed up to represent a different agenda to the unions. It will only report you as one of the thousands who showed up to support the union agenda. Youll sacrifice your own voice, and just lend it to an institution as corrupt as any FF TD.

If youre going to protest for the unions, then make sure you agree 100% with their agenda. Dont go their pretending Cowen is going to telepathically poll the crowds of tens of thousands and differentiate you from union agendas.

nesf

ckristo2 wrote: »

The politicians (and indeed the media in their "it has been reported" or "it has been suggested" fashion) that this is a conflict between the Public Sector and the Private Sector.

I've not seen that at all. It's been Public Sector vs the Government in all the coverage I've seen or general ICTU vs Government.

ckristo2

The proposed strike on March 30th is a protest against the pension levy which will butcher public worker's pay. A lot of the coverage of this strike is along the lines of "What are you complaining about -to the Public sector- aren't your jobs secure?" and "there is very little sympathy from the private sector for this strike." Most of it from journalists working for RTE and Independent Media News with even the Irish Times yesterday headlining with a story about disunity in Unions containing both private and public sector workers.
The point of this thread is shouldn't the government be looking for the extra money from those who can afford to pay instead of from the PAYE worker Whether they are Private or Public?

nesf

ckristo2 wrote: »

The proposed strike on March 30th is a protest against the pension levy which will butcher public worker's pay.

It's a lot broader than that for teachers at least, judging from what their unions have been saying.

ckristo2

I agree and if the news stories are to be believed there are tax loopholes, tax havens and even a 21st century version of Ansbacher out there with billions salted away by the wealthy.
Why is the government making no attempt to go after that money?

nesf

ckristo2 wrote: »

Why is the government making no attempt to go after that money?

What money, tax exiles? There's feck all a Government can do. These people are wealthy enough to just pick up and move to a different country with a "nicer" tax regime.

All rhetoric is lovely, but very high top tax rates just chase money out of this economy where we get zero revenue from it. It's completely counter-productive.

is_that_so

I've always been of the opinion that strikes show a failure to engage and implicate both parties in their inability to address issues. This strike such as it is, is farcical in my view. It has no validity that I can see beyond being yet another steam-releasing exercise and a notion that it will change something. The only way to really change things is to vote out the incumbents, an option 42% chose not to go for, despite very obvious misgivings.

Regrettably within the union movement there appears to be the same type of head in the sand cowardice that our government has demonstrated for the last 18 months. They will not tell their members that the largesse of the last 10 years has gone and that the public sector costs us far more than we can afford and will need reform. Instead they wrap it in codology that has more in common with Guinness ads for the Six Nations/GAA than reality.

ckristo2

It is true that the wealthy (Who made their billions here in Ireland during the good times of low corpor tax etc) can indeed like spoiled children gather up their toys and go elsewhere. You're absolutely right they can and do. But if this is a time of unprecdiented crisis as we are being constantly told, and we are also being told it's : "All shoulders to the wheel?" Then why don't the high earners volunteer their very considerable "shoulders" to help us out of this crisis.
And if their definition of patrioism is to skip the country they should be named and shamed!

smallBiscuit

My belief is quite simple. Equalise them. We had the benchmarking process the idea of which was "The poor civil servants, they are paid so much less than the private sector, let's benchmark the pay scales of private sector and equalise them". So they did, but they were never even close to equal. We can be let go for various reasons, they can only be transferred to a different department, we pay our own pensions (partially) if we don't tough luck to us, and even then are subject to markets which fail.
So run another benchmarking process, equalise the pay and conditions with the private sector. See how much complaining there is then.

But, my thinkings on the way the government are operating go along the lines of divide and conquer. First they said it's the civil service, they are the reason we have no money, so we all cheer when they are forced to pay part of their own pensions (which are still guaranteed by the way, unlike ours). We still have no money, so now we are going to tax the poor, a paupers tax if you like.
At no point do the government say, hmm "If you want to change the world, take a look at yourself and make a change" and cut their own number, benefits and perks to bits.

Smoke screen, we (the wolves) start to look at them, they throw another crippled child at us and run on, we stop to eat.
When is the next election? Although fg piss me off as well, they offer no solutions being instead intent on blaming ff for the whole thing and heckling them.

It doesn't matter who's fault it is, this is the situation, let's deal with it

Blondie86Star

I have to say, as someone who has worked in the public (and now in Private) sector, I'm not backing the public sector in anyway. Having see first hand the laziness of civil servants, the employment of 3 people for one job, the subsidised lunches, pensions etc not to mention JOB SECURITY I'm sickened they are complaining. I left because my contract wasn't extended to a private sector job, that's badly paid, but I do get job satisfaction out of. Will anyone actually notice with the civil servants going on strike next week? Takes them weeks to do one thing!:mad:

Dannyboy83

Solicitor takes employer to court over loss of job
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5950374.ece

I thought this would be a relevant place to post this.

It seems quite mad to me, but I guess when you've had it so good for so long....................

Economic civil war seems too sensationalist, but it kinda feels like that lately.

whiterob81

I've been working in the public sector for the last 6 years and I DON'T want to strike next week. I think it's absolutely farcical that people in here are quibbling over a 6% pay cut. I've known a lot of people who've lost jobs, taking pay cuts and are on shorter working weeks who haven't done a fraction of the complaining that people in here have.
I also don't buy for a second the nonsense the unions are trotting out about how "It wasn't the public sector that ran this country in to the ground". To which I say, it wasn't the individual carpenters, accountants, graphic designers either
I'll give you 2 examples from my own life of people's attitudes at the moment:

A friend of mine working as a carpenter has had his pay cut by 25% since the start of the year. He's working double time to make sure the company he's working for pull through this crisis and that he can hold on to his job.

A HEO in my office who's on over 50,000 a year turned around to me the other day and said "If they're going to pay me 6% less, I'm going to do 6% less work"

Here's what I think, if anyone's out protesting next week, just fire them. Ungrateful s***s. There's no shortage of people in the country that would happily do the job at a reduced price

diverdriver

This strike is stupid and any private sector workers supporting it must want to end up on the dole. As for the public service the views do vary from the realistic as seen above from whiterob81 to others who don't seem to have any grasp of reality at all.

What has become clear is that the real problem right lies with the unholy trilogy of incompetance, self serving indulgence, greed and stupidity of Fianna Fail, their friends the banks and their former friends, the unions. The first two have stabbed us in the face and now the unions want to stab us in the back while pretending to be helping us. All of them were feeding off the trough which we taxpayers kept filled in the good times. Now it's empty and they want our blood as well.

Anyone who supports this strike needs to know that it will do nothing to help anyone. Quite the opposite, it'll make things worse.

You are being manipulated by the unions for their own ends. They see this as a chance to gain greater power in this country because they were losing their grip. They don't care about you only their own agenda. They are as culpable as Fianna Fail in this crisis. They were the ones who ensured public spending was increased to the point that was unsustainable by manipulating Fianna Fail in the good times.

Both the unions and Fianna Fail are equally responsible for this situation. It's breathtakingly hypocritical of them to be protesting now.

maggy_thatcher

My take on it is that they should change the law so that if you don't have a particular grievance with your employer, striking should be deemed breach of contract (penalty = immediate dismissal, potentially with taking to court to recoup costs for loss of business). However, I also think that there should be a mandatory session in the LRC before it gets to that stage as well. This way, only if there's a problem with your employer and the LRC talks stall can a strike occur. This means the rest of us innocents just trying to get by in a difficult economy can do so, without the cry-babies ruining it for the rest of us.

The purpose of this strike (as far as I can tell) is to complain regarding budget cuts within public services. As such, it stands to reason that only people directly employed by the government should be striking...any private sector workers out there supporting them are just out there to destroy what little's left of the economy.

whiterob81

Here's a few things that public servants have been saying over the last while that have been getting on my wick.

I've heard so many public servants say "It wasn't us that caused the unrealistic property market, it was the greed of developers, buying up multiple properties". I think it would be very interesting to find out how many public servants own a second property.

Also "we didn't get the bonuses during the boom year that those greedy private sector people got," You got benchmarking, and I've never seen anyone here turn down a pay rise.

"We stayed here and served the country while everyone else was creaming it in the private sector" Bollocks. You stayed in a civil service job because you knew you wouldn't get it as good anywhere else and that you could be fired at a moment's notice. Stop playing the altruistic card.

I really want to cross the picket this monday but don't know if it would be worth it because of abuse that I'll face from colleagues afterwards

ckristo2

It is as I feared fighting between the private and public workers and the original question I asked about why those who can afford to pay are...well being totally let off the hook both in the country and in this thread.
There are quite a few people who won't be squabbling about this strike or fears for their pay. Their money is safe and it amazes me that the rest of us can think of nothing to do but knock each other sensless in the dirt while the people who might be able to get us out of this mess are allowed to just watch.

Gumbo

heres a real life sample of why the PS workers are angry :

its not because of the drop in wages, or the pension that we do contribute towards.

a person earning 39k loses 77 euro from their take home pay with this new pension levy.

the guy beside that person earning 47k loses 52 euro from their take home pay.

thats why we are angry, the pension levy is not spread out fairly :mad:

also theres another thread on here stating that PS workers are not striking for pay increases, this was an agenda that the unions didnt make clear that it was the national pay agreement they were fighting for, while we simply wanted the pension levt abolished or spread out more evenly.

ixoy

[QUOTE=kceire;59524481its not because of the drop in wages, or the pension that we do contribute towards.[/quote]
The pension that some of you contribute towards (post '95 workers). The fact some do and some don't is what causes a lot of the private sector's confusion!

thats why we are angry, the pension levy is not spread out fairly :mad:

Tax relief at the marginal rate - there's hints of that in the upcoming budget. That would almost immediately level out a lot of the criticisms of the levy.

also theres another thread on here stating that PS workers are not striking for pay increases, this was an agenda that the unions didnt make clear that it was the national pay agreement they were fighting for, while we simply wanted the pension levt abolished or spread out more evenly.

I'd be interested to see how many of those who voted to strike voted over the pay agreement (idiotic) or abolishing the levy (not happening) or merely to have the levy re-adjusted in some form that still recoups the same cost (fairer).

NewDubliner

You're not very well informed.

ixoy wrote: »

The pension that some of you contribute towards (post '95 workers). The fact some do and some don't is what causes a lot of the private sector's confusion!

Pre 1995 workers get paid less than post 1995 workers (by an amount equal to that paid in PRSI by the post 1995'ers.) But post 1995'ers can take their PRSI-based pension entitlement with them into the private sector, whereas pre-1995 staff have no pension entitlement at all unless they retire in the PS.

ixoy wrote: »

elief at the marginal rate - there's hints of that in the upcoming budget. That would almost immediately level out a lot of the criticisms of the levy.

It is already relieved at the marginal rate.

More importantly, the levy is not a pension contribution like that in the private sector. If you leave the PS, you get no credit for it. In effect, it's a special tax on public servants.

ixoy

NewDubliner wrote: »

Pre 1995 workers get paid less than post 1995 workers (by an amount equal to that paid in PRSI by the post 1995'ers.) But post 1995'ers can take their PRSI-based pension entitlement with them into the private sector, whereas pre-1995 staff have no pension entitlement at all unless they retire in the PS.

I actually do know that.. and it doesn't change the fact that they still don't pay for their civil/public service pension (and yes, miss out on some PRSI stuff). I'm merely stating it because the reason a lot of people believe CS/PS workers don't pay pension is that many.. don't (regardless of the fact of PRSI or the higher pay scale).

It is already relieved at the marginal rate.

My mistake. I meant it should be relieved at the low rate of tax - i.e. 20%. That would level out some of the issues.

More importantly, the levy is not a pension contribution like that in the private sector. If you leave the PS, you get no credit for it. In effect, it's a special tax on public servants.

True .. which is why they should have just cut pay. Looks like it ultimately would have been a lot simpler and got rid of the notion of a "special tax" and just made it out for what it was - the need to reduce public pay.

irish_bob

whiterob81 wrote: »

Here's a few things that public servants have been saying over the last while that have been getting on my wick.

I've heard so many public servants say "It wasn't us that caused the unrealistic property market, it was the greed of developers, buying up multiple properties". I think it would be very interesting to find out how many public servants own a second property.

Also "we didn't get the bonuses during the boom year that those greedy private sector people got," You got benchmarking, and I've never seen anyone here turn down a pay rise.

"We stayed here and served the country while everyone else was creaming it in the private sector" Bollocks. You stayed in a civil service job because you knew you wouldn't get it as good anywhere else and that you could be fired at a moment's notice. Stop playing the altruistic card.

I really want to cross the picket this monday but don't know if it would be worth it because of abuse that I'll face from colleagues afterwards

wouldnt pay much heed to the slogans coming out of public servants , im convinced each and everyone one of them in the country attended some form of tuition camp at the start of the year where camp leader begg and o connor briefed them on what slogans to use when confronted with the issues of pay , to the last man and woman , like clones , they all utter the same lines

WE DIDNT CAUSE THIS MESS
THE PRIVATE SECTOR CREAMED IT DURING THE BOOM

not an original thought among them , then again individuality is not a common or desired trait within the public sector

Gumbo

irish_bob wrote: »

wouldnt pay much heed to the slogans coming out of public servants , im convinced each and everyone one of them in the country attended some form of tuition camp at the start of the year where camp leader begg and o connor briefed them on what slogans to use when confronted with the issues of pay , to the last man and woman , like clones , they all utter the same lines

WE DIDNT CAUSE THIS MESS
THE PRIVATE SECTOR CREAMED IT DURING THE BOOM

not an original thought among them , then again individuality is not a common or desired trait within SOME public servants

i like your post :rolleyes:

tar everybody with the same brush!
i still know some private sector friends who havent taken a pay cut and are extremely busy.

so instead of your factless generalisations, its safe to assume some private sectors works are hit hard, and some PS workers are lazy good for nothing retards, but not us all!

BroomBurner

Yawn, another thread about how great public servants have it, followed by answers about how they don't have it that great.

Everyone here can only post about how the world affects them personally. That's all.

Can I afford to lose €75 from my wage every fortnight? At the moment I can, because my OH still has a job. If he didn't, then I would be finding it very difficult. I'm sure there are many, many people out there that are in this situation also, or are worse off.

As for striking, I don't particularly want to strike, but that's because I quite like being paid. However, I don't believe that striking should be made illegal. It has to be there for workers benefit, as do unions. Particularly in the public sector, unions are necessary (as wages, etc. are subject to any dallying by whatever government is in power).

ixoy

BroomBurner wrote: »

As for striking, I don't particularly want to strike, but that's because I quite like being paid. However, I don't believe that striking should be made illegal. It has to be there for workers benefit, as do unions.

I'm not fully convinced of this for certain things such as emergency services (I believe Gardai can't strike) and public transport. I was quite surprised, for example, that during the recent French action that the Metro still ran in Paris due to the fact there would always be a required level of service - this from a country that loves a good old strike. I believe it's also illegal for NYC subway drivers to strike. Some things should be off limit to cut entirely.

Particularly in the public sector, unions are necessary (as wages, etc. are subject to any dallying by whatever government is in power).

I don't really believe this one as the government are always afraid of losing such a large voting block so tread more carefully around them whereas a private sector corporation is subject to its shareholders and ultimately profit margins - the worker can't punish them in an election booth.

Mr.Micro

Strike, more like a farce, its so stupid at this time, when the country is on its knees. Its just the unions hyping everyone up so that they try to keep credibility. The unions are as much to blame for the mess as the Government and banks when this social partnership nonesense was forged, with unsustainable wage agreements. It has helped to make Ireland a ridiculously expensive place to live and do business.

BroomBurner

I would agree Ioxy that certain things should not be allowed out to strike, such as Gardaí, some other services; but overall, striking cannot be made illegal. We're not living in a military dictatorship, we live in a democracy.

As for the public sector being open to any government changes, if they were so scared of public sector workers, how come they haven't entered in to talks about the pension levy? They don't fear the public sector as much as you would think. And, in particular, the Civil Service, are open to any changes in pay that the Finance Minister should so presume, with no protection at all, bar that of the unions. So they do play their own part. Also, as the civil service represents one of the smallest sectors, if not the smallest sector, government have nothing to fear from them.

However, I think a review of unions is necessary. I would like unions to not be an actual "department", or pseudo-departments that they are. They should not be someone's full-time job.

soika

Hello all. I don't think striking is going to achieve anything for anyone. Vast majority of people will be taking part because the levy is, and will be, hard hitting especially for those in the lower income bracket. Strikes me that most people I know vote with their pockets and likewise protest with their pockets. That thinking is faulty I reckon. Has us where we are today. The levy could have been doled out more fairly and over a longer period of time. Nothing will be achieved really except major disruption and cause aggro between public and private sectors.

If people are prepared to protest, they should be protesting about our government. I'd like to see them go......