Statistics and Public v Private wages

hobochris

Here is a quick example comparing public and private sector pay:

My self and a friend, lets call her Z, graduated from the same class with honors degrees(same merit) in software development(computer science) both with zero commercial experience.

I went to work for a private sector company, Z joined the public sector.

We have the same title and same role: junior software developer.

After tax I clear about 1800 a month. Z clears about 2400 a month.

I had to take a 10% cut, my previous cleared wage was around 2000 a month.

Z's take home includes the levy's put on the public service.

Z has benefit's such as flexi time and pension and works a 37 hour week, I work a 42.5 hour week 9-5.30.

I have the constant worry that my employer will go bust and not be able to pay me, Z does not have such worries.

Now the public sector argument "I didn't benefit from the boom" Is Bull**** IMO, My pay in comparison to Z's proves this.

now a lot of Company directors may have benefited from the boom, but the only Joe soaps that did, were the ones in the public sector with benchmarking jacking up their pay.

If you compare other roles in the public sector with their private sector equivalent I'm sure you will find similar cases.

So please shut up with your whining and take your share of the pain like the rest of us.

solice

hobochris wrote: »

Z has benefit's such as flexi time and pension and works a 37 hour week, I work a 42.5 hour week 9-5.30.

Do you not get a lunch break?

hobochris

solice wrote: »

Do you not get a lunch break?

I do, but so does Z, so that is irrelevant.

solice

hobochris wrote: »

I do, but so does Z, so that is irrelevant.

Not really, you were dilebriately misleading in your post, working 9-5.30 every day is 8.5 hours, over 5 days that is 42.5 hours. Subtract your 1 hour lunch break and its 37.5 hours.

When you said Z works 37 hours, is that inclusive or exclusive of the lunch break?

hobochris

solice wrote: »

Not really, you were dilebriately misleading in your post, working 9-5.30 every day is 8.5 hours, over 5 days that is 42.5 hours. Subtract your 1 hour lunch break and its 37.5 hours.

When you said Z works 37 hours, is that inclusive or exclusive of the lunch break?

that's inclusive.

solice

hobochris wrote: »

that's inclusive.

So Z works from 9-4.30 every day?

Is Z on flexi time so Z has to make the time up elsewhere to balance it out?

hobochris wrote: »

I went to work for a private sector company, Z joined the public sector.

We have the same title and same role: junior software developer.

After tax I clear about 1800 a month. Z clears about 2400 a month.

I had to take a 10% cut, my previous cleared wage was around 2000 a month.

Z's take home includes the levy's put on the public service.

Z has benefit's such as flexi time and pension and works a 37 hour week, I work a 42.5 hour week 9-5.30.

I have the constant worry that my employer will go bust and not be able to pay me, Z does not have such worries.

Now the public sector argument "I didn't benefit from the boom" Is Bull**** IMO, My pay in comparison to Z's proves this.

now a lot of Company directors may have benefited from the boom, but the only Joe soaps that did, were the ones in the public sector with benchmarking jacking up their pay.

If you compare other roles in the public sector with their private sector equivalent I'm sure you will find similar cases.

So please shut up with your whining and take your share of the pain like the rest of us.

when did you graduate and how long have you been working?

Z started on roughly 30k? You started on 24k?

Z took roughly 6% paycut (pension levy) and you took 10%?

Z is on 28.8k and you are on 21.6k?

Sorry about all the questions but you put alot of info up and havent verified any of it, its pretty much just anecdoetal evidence for now.

sfakiaman

solice wrote: »

Interesting point, only adding it because it relates to some ideas that are floating about on statistics. On Matt Cooper last week, think it was Matt Cooper anyway, there was a guy on saying that the average salary in AIB was 70k. But we all know that the people behind the counter would be on no more than 35k and there are alot more of those than there are managers. Goes to show how big the managers salaries are in order to drag the average up to 70k.

This is the point I was making in my OP. Statistics can be very skewed by including the top earners in the calculations. If you took a crude average of wages in Dail Eirean it would look like the cleaner was on huge money.

meglome

Claregirl wrote: »

I'm a civil servant on €46K a year. That's after 11 years and two promotions. I worked extremely hard to get where I am now (and still am). The Dept of finance and the CSO all have stats on what grades / pay rates the Public & Civil service is paid. It would be easy for them to show the breakdown of this magical €50k per year that everyone is on! The only problem with showing that information though is that it will highlight how top heavy the Service is with the high earners. They can't exactly put themselves out of a job can they?:rolleyes:

Again not to inflame the argument but very few people I know in the private sector with 11 years experience are getting anything like 46k. I'm not in any way suggesting you haven't worked for it but my private sector friends would hardly even know what to do with that kind of money.

jimmmy

hobochris wrote: »

Here is a quick example comparing public and private sector pay:

My self and a friend, lets call her Z, graduated from the same class with honors degrees(same merit) in software development(computer science) both with zero commercial experience.

I went to work for a private sector company, Z joined the public sector.

We have the same title and same role: junior software developer.

After tax I clear about 1800 a month. Z clears about 2400 a month.

I had to take a 10% cut, my previous cleared wage was around 2000 a month.

Z's take home includes the levy's put on the public service.

Z has benefit's such as flexi time and pension and works a 37 hour week, I work a 42.5 hour week 9-5.30.

I have the constant worry that my employer will go bust and not be able to pay me, Z does not have such worries.

Now the public sector argument "I didn't benefit from the boom" Is Bull**** IMO, My pay in comparison to Z's proves this.

now a lot of Company directors may have benefited from the boom, but the only Joe soaps that did, were the ones in the public sector with benchmarking jacking up their pay.

If you compare other roles in the public sector with their private sector equivalent I'm sure you will find similar cases.

So please shut up with your whining and take your share of the pain like the rest of us.

Well said. It does not surprise me. I know of more than a few cases like that as well. Not only is the public sector person way overpaid, they have a shorter working week, more holidays, etc etc etc

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

Well said. It does not surprise me. I know of more than a few cases like that as well...

sfakiaman opened the discussion with the idea that we need a meaningful treatment of statistics. Now we are dealing with anecdote.

In my circle of friends and acquaintances, there are some high-paid public-sector workers; there are also some high-income private sector workers (the wealthiest people I know are in the private sector). I also know people in the public and private sectors who are not earning a lot, and I know unemployed people and I know pensioners from both private and public sectors with different types of pension package. Thus, I can furnish anecdotes in support of anything you want. All of that is irrelevant to a statistical study of private and public sector income differences.

ei.sdraob

jimmmy wrote: »

Well said. It does not surprise me. I know of more than a few cases like that as well. Not only is the public sector person way overpaid, they have a shorter working week, more holidays, etc etc etc

where does one signup

i know i know if we all work for the state then we would achieve communism faster worked great in USSR

Regards

stevoman

meglome wrote: »

Again not to inflame the argument but very few people I know in the private sector with 11 years experience are getting anything like 46k. I'm not in any way suggesting you haven't worked for it but my private sector friends would hardly even know what to do with that kind of money.

Private sector is a broad base. private sector could be anything from the ceo of a bank to a dustbin man. same a public sector is a broad base, that can gofor a high level doctor to an entry level civil servant. its all stupid if you ask me.

Anyways nobody will lose their jobs in the "public service". With over 300.000 of those workers natural wastage of retirments and end of contracts will see all those jobs go and not be replaced.

good for the goverments finances, but not for the witchunters.

Rob_l

solice wrote: »

So Z works from 9-4.30 every day?

Is Z on flexi time so Z has to make the time up elsewhere to balance it out?



when did you graduate and how long have you been working?

Z started on roughly 30k? You started on 24k?

Z took roughly 6% paycut (pension levy) and you took 10%?

Z is on 28.8k and you are on 21.6k?

Sorry about all the questions but you put alot of info up and havent verified any of it, its pretty much just anecdoetal evidence for now.

Hobo cris perhaps you would please answer these questions.

Im sorry I do not believe for one second that your friend works 37 hours a week including their lunch in that time.

I also work in the software development field and I can assure you I would certainly have earned more working in the private sector than the public sector.

At the present most of the work I would be offerred is contract work and because of the current situation I have no interest in that, but I could still earn far more in the private sector than I will working for the cash cow government with my 37 hour week of lunch :rolleyes:

irish_bob

binga wrote: »

i am a clerical officer. i earn around 26000 a year. it works out about minimum wage. and i work very hard for it. it really annoys me when people go on about the great public sector pay. it was open for anyone to join but people would have turned their noses up at the wages during the boom years.

you earn far more than minimum wage at 26 k per year and you earn probaly 8 to 10 k more than you would earn in an equivelent skill set in the private sector and thats before we even mention pensions

irish_bob

hobochris wrote: »

Here is a quick example comparing public and private sector pay:

My self and a friend, lets call her Z, graduated from the same class with honors degrees(same merit) in software development(computer science) both with zero commercial experience.

I went to work for a private sector company, Z joined the public sector.

We have the same title and same role: junior software developer.

After tax I clear about 1800 a month. Z clears about 2400 a month.

I had to take a 10% cut, my previous cleared wage was around 2000 a month.

Z's take home includes the levy's put on the public service.

Z has benefit's such as flexi time and pension and works a 37 hour week, I work a 42.5 hour week 9-5.30.

I have the constant worry that my employer will go bust and not be able to pay me, Z does not have such worries.

Now the public sector argument "I didn't benefit from the boom" Is Bull**** IMO, My pay in comparison to Z's proves this.

now a lot of Company directors may have benefited from the boom, but the only Joe soaps that did, were the ones in the public sector with benchmarking jacking up their pay.

If you compare other roles in the public sector with their private sector equivalent I'm sure you will find similar cases.

So please shut up with your whining and take your share of the pain like the rest of us.

ignore the i didnt cause this mess crap they all spout

they all attended some form of tuition camp at the begining of this year where they were briefed by mess,rs begg and o connor on what slogans to use when debating the issue of public sector reform , pay , pensions etc

theese slogans have no meaning yet are suprisingly effective , i do admire the consistency with which to the last man and woman the public sector are on message with theese banner headlines or perhaps admire is not the word , scary , thier like clones in thier uniformity of message

Claregirl

meglome wrote: »

Again not to inflame the argument but very few people I know in the private sector with 11 years experience are getting anything like 46k. I'm not in any way suggesting you haven't worked for it but my private sector friends would hardly even know what to do with that kind of money.

Not just 11 years experience two promotions also which bring extra responsibility, extra hours and a huge amount of extra hassle and stress having to deal with underperformance, staff sick leave and still get the job done!

amacca

irish_bob wrote: »

you earn far more than minimum wage at 26 k per year and you earn probaly 8 to 10 k more than you would earn in an equivelent skill set in the private sector and thats before we even mention pensions

I have worked in both the private sector and the public sector, Im currently self employed and doing fine thank god. In the past I worked for a contract company called cpm (I think, its been a while) and my duties were basically similar to a clerical officer, office work, keeping accurate records or reports, crunching some numbers, being able to use a keyboard etc.

I started this job the summer I left college (2001) , I was working for the same rate as others in the office even though I had a degree at the time and they did not. I started off on 24k, after 11 months I was promoted to a not much more responsible position and received a pay rise on top of previous 6 monthly rise which brought me up to 30k. Now Im not suggesting that I would get anything close to this now for a similar role but it does show that private sector companies were offering this sort of renumeration for clerical officer type duties so there has to be some balance.

Out of curiosity...

1) Do people believe that all public servants are 48% overpaid? I ask this because I continually see posts with figures of 50% 40% 55% overpaid nurses/gards etc bandied about (not necessarily by yourself but by others) and compared with countries with Finland etc, how can there be a valid comparison....isnt it fair to say that their cost of living is much lower, their healthcare system is much better, they have stable rents etc so therefore they dont need to be paid as much....we are not experiencing 48% deflation so why should public wages be targeted for this sort of adjustment even the 5% figure is made up of monthly mortgage payment reductions in the main due to interest rates being on the floor but this will not last for ever. Do people think a staff nurse (while he or she may be overpaid) is 48% or even 30% overpaid at €31,855 rising to €45,102 after 10 years given the cost of living in this country at the moment? Do you think after qualifying they should be on €21,533 gross (32.4% reduction to get rid of the 48% premium) or €24,528 gross (23.1% reduction to get rid of a 30% premium ) given the opportunity cost of getting their qualification and the fact they chose to and competed to do it and their contract (at least for some was permanent) and they made financial commitments based on this level of earning and they joined precisely because it was secure and may not have made these commitments if they were in the private sector.

2) Do people believe that public sector pensions are way over the top while private sector pensions are adequate, would it not be more accurate to say that private sector pensions are wholly inadequate, the basic concept of a defined contribution pension is that you have to pay a defined amount but you are not guaranteed any proportion of what you get paid at the end, is this not as unacceptable as gold plated public service pensions---think about it, you pay with no guarantee what you get out in the end, shouldnt at least some of peoples ire be directed at private sector companies and pension providers who seriously downgraded pension provisions for workers in the case of the former and placed wholly inappropriate amounts of pension funds in equities in the case of the latter?


Im not saying I disagree fundamentally about public service wages going down but I do think there has to be some balance.

for instance:

public sector earn a premium of 48% over private sector

no coincidence I saw this one in the independant (or ibec mouthpiece as I like to think of it)

this is basically sensationalist and as previous posters have mentioned is based on an average figure which does not tell us much and as another poster has mentioned looks plainly ridiculous if applied to the lower to average wage in the public sector. take our friend above for example earning 26k with a 32.4% reduction he would be on €17,576 gross, taking rent allowance etc into account this guy would be nearly be better off on the dole...as it stands that's the best permanent job around, the worst cuts being proposed for this are 5%


perhaps we could agree that public sector wages are higher than private sector but the worst offenders are those at the top of the table and they should be experiencing the the biggest cuts?.......I notice the private sector does not seem to be getting this right either though, witness seanie fitz et al squirreling away untold millions into protected retirements savings schemes while many ceos, board chairmen etc continue to give themselves incredible renumeration packages at the expense of sharholders and workers in their companies etc....so perhaps some anger should be directed there?


gold plated public sector pensions

no doubt about it they are pretty good but they have gotten worse in the not so distant past and you still have to work your 40 years to get a full one + when you die the equity you have tied up in them dies with you to a certain extent. not true of avcs (available to both public and private sector)

perhaps we can agree that the index linking of public pensions is costly and the contributions that public servants make to them should be more but perhaps we could also agree that private sector companies are taking a large percentage of their employess for a ride and that instead of continually say that public service rolls royce pensions should be dismantled simply because private sector ones are so poor/expensive some of the debate should focus on improving pension provision for the average worker in the private sector so there would not be so much to complain about.


job for life

much better security than some but not all private sector jobs. should public service pay be reduced because of this, Im not quite sure, I think there are valid arguments on both sides here.

some public servants will argue there was a downward revision of salaries in the benchmarking agreement to take this into account so it has already been factored in....I do not know how valid this is but a figuire of 12% was mentioned and if it was factored properly (however one could manage to value job security I dont know, what value does job security have if you are paid little above the minimum wage for instance comapred to job security for a high court judge etc) and you want to remove a public servants security then you could be looking at an immediate 12% pay rise if this is the case.

some public servants will say they chose to compete for the job on the basis that it was secure and had a good pension while others opted for the private sector. If these private sector workers now consider the public service to be so fantastic why didnt they go for it back during the boom(sorry bubble years) and why shouldnt these public sector workers enjoy the better conditions they opted for. I would say that people in the public sector (at least some of the ones I know and myself when I was in it) invested (and I mean invested in the true sense of the word here) in education and training to be able to compete successfully for these jobs in the public sector precisely because the conditions on offer were good and because of this they have a right to expect a certain amount (not all obviously but a minimum level and perhaps a certain premium above private sector) of the conditions they signed up for. They did compete for these superior conditions and must have some right to expect that their contract will be honoured.

eg: for my private sector jobs I interviewed against 5 other candidates the first time, 1 other candidate the second time and 15 other candidates the third time.

for the public sector job I used to work in, I had to first get a degree to be eligible to do the diploma which would allow me to do this job, and I had to then compete with what I was told was a pool of approximately 9,000 applicants to get on this diploma. when successfuk I then had to give up a year and a half of earnings and pay the guts of €10k on fees and accomodation etc. When this was done I had to then interview of the job itself and one of the reasons I got the job is because I also had a masters degree (which equals another year and a half of lost earnings plus the cost of living etc) I put myself through this because I enjoyed it to some extent, knew it was beneficial for me but also so I could get the job which to me was superior to what I had, Im sure there are many others like me.....given the oportunity cost of getting the job in some areas of the public sector and the fact that those were the contractual conditions offered to people on entering you could hardly have expected them to say no thats too generous could you and you can hardly expect their contract to be radically altered now except perhaps for new entrants....thats what was offered, thats what they agreed to do. Wasnt the electricians strike in the private sector hinged on similar arguments?

private sector interests will argue that we simply cant afford the public sector and perhaps we cant at the current level but the completely uncompromising way they go about their business is just as bad (in fact in my opinion its worse) than the way the unions go about their business. To fold wholly to the demands of ibec (big business not really small and medium sized although their agenda may suit smes in the short term) means a real erosion of workers rights in the public service but only as a lever to even more severly reduce the rights of workers in the private sector so more profits can pe squirreled away in ceos and large institutional investors pockets.

Couldnt we agree that things need to change but not just in the public service, couldnt we agree that while wages, conditions in the public service should be reduced, the demands of the likes of IBEC et al should be scrutinised very very carefully as well given the damage private sector companies (who also are beneficiaries of taxpayers money) will do to our country if they are pandered too also? btw I would currently benefit if IBEC were listened to and their propsals were listened too but I wonder for how long and I also wonder how many people I would be exploiting in the meantime there must be a happy medium where a majority of public and private sector can coexist without continually bitching at each other and instead start bitching at the real culprits who were largely responsible for this mess.



Anyway to me it seems that the so called "statistics" we have seen to date on this are wholly misleading and it would be really helpful if someone actually did a fair comparison based on educational attainment, experience, true cost of living, international comparisons taking resources into account and opportunity costs etc rather than both sides tabloid efforts to date.

sceptre

amacca wrote: »

... is 48% or even 30% overpaid at €31,855 rising to €45,102 after 10 years given the cost of living in this country at the moment? Do you think after qualifying they should be on €16,554 gross (48% reduction) or €22 gross (30% reduction)


...take our friend above for example earning 26k with a 48% cut he would be on 13,520, taking rent allowance etc into account this guy would be better on the dole...

I've snipped a lot out.

Ignoring the rights or wrongs of it (as well as the accuracy or inaccuracy of it), your maths are wrong. Or specifically, your divisor is wrong.

If X is paid 48% more than Y, to reduce the wages of X to equal Y's, you don't reduce X's wages by 48%, you reduce them by 32.4% (48/148, not 48/100 to give the reduction factor - try it by reducing 148 to 100 if it needs more sense).

Your point may be just as valid with the correct figures, which you'll have to recalculate yourself in your own time. Or they may not be. That's something for you to decide, but it's easier and fairer for everyone else to decide if they've got the correct hypothetically reduced figures.

Easy mistake to make, assuming you don't do an awful lot of work with numbers, easy enough to fix.

amacca

sceptre wrote: »

I've snipped a lot out.

Ignoring the rights or wrongs of it (as well as the accuracy or inaccuracy of it), your maths are wrong. Or specifically, your divisor is wrong.

If X is paid 48% more than Y, to reduce the wages of X to equal Y's, you don't reduce X's wages by 48%, you reduce them by 32.4% (48/148, not 48/100 to give the reduction factor - try it by reducing 148 to 100 if it needs more sense).

Your point may be just as valid with the correct figures, which you'll have to recalculate yourself in your own time. Or they may not be. That's something for you to decide, but it's easier and fairer for everyone else to decide if they've got the correct hypothetically reduced figures.

Easy mistake to make, assuming you don't do an awful lot of work with numbers, easy enough to fix.

Apologies, you are correct!

btw its an easy mistake to make even if you do work with numbers, my degree is in Maths and Physics and I was doing some accounts when I posted will edit post to reflect this + hope I dont have egg on my face again as its late and I could very easily make mistakes due to sleep deprivation.

gurramok

And your cost of living part is wrong too. Finland for example is an expensive country to live in along with the Nordic's and even the likes of France/Belgium/Holland.

If a bunch of people are overpaid, they get more money in their pockets hence pushes up prices for everyone else, its a vicious cycle.

Anyway, the big picture at the moment is that the employer of the public service is going broke and cannot afford to pay them for the next few years, this part just cannot seem to register with PS militant types.

irish_bob

amacca wrote: »

I have worked in both the private sector and the public sector, Im currently self employed and doing fine thank god. In the past I worked for a contract company called cpm (I think, its been a while) and my duties were basically similar to a clerical officer, office work, keeping accurate records or reports, crunching some numbers, being able to use a keyboard etc.

I started this job the summer I left college (2001) , I was working for the same rate as others in the office even though I had a degree at the time and they did not. I started off on 24k, after 11 months I was promoted to a not much more responsible position and received a pay rise on top of previous 6 monthly rise which brought me up to 30k. Now Im not suggesting that I would get anything close to this now for a similar role but it does show that private sector companies were offering this sort of renumeration for clerical officer type duties so there has to be some balance.

Out of curiosity...

1) Do people believe that all public servants are 48% overpaid? I ask this because I continually see posts with figures of 50% 40% 55% overpaid nurses/gards etc bandied about (not necessarily by yourself but by others) and compared with countries with Finland etc, how can there be a valid comparison....isnt it fair to say that their cost of living is much lower, their healthcare system is much better, they have stable rents etc so therefore they dont need to be paid as much....we are not experiencing 48% deflation so why should public wages be targeted for this sort of adjustment even the 5% figure is made up of monthly mortgage payment reductions in the main due to interest rates being on the floor but this will not last for ever. Do people think a staff nurse (while he or she may be overpaid) is 48% or even 30% overpaid at €31,855 rising to €45,102 after 10 years given the cost of living in this country at the moment? Do you think after qualifying they should be on €21,533 gross (32.4% reduction to get rid of the 48% premium) or €24,528 gross (23.1% reduction to get rid of a 30% premium ) given the opportunity cost of getting their qualification and the fact they chose to and competed to do it and their contract (at least for some was permanent) and they made financial commitments based on this level of earning and they joined precisely because it was secure and may not have made these commitments if they were in the private sector.

2) Do people believe that public sector pensions are way over the top while private sector pensions are adequate, would it not be more accurate to say that private sector pensions are wholly inadequate, the basic concept of a defined contribution pension is that you have to pay a defined amount but you are not guaranteed any proportion of what you get paid at the end, is this not as unacceptable as gold plated public service pensions---think about it, you pay with no guarantee what you get out in the end, shouldnt at least some of peoples ire be directed at private sector companies and pension providers who seriously downgraded pension provisions for workers in the case of the former and placed wholly inappropriate amounts of pension funds in equities in the case of the latter?


Im not saying I disagree fundamentally about public service wages going down but I do think there has to be some balance.

for instance:

public sector earn a premium of 48% over private sector

no coincidence I saw this one in the independant (or ibec mouthpiece as I like to think of it)

this is basically sensationalist and as previous posters have mentioned is based on an average figure which does not tell us much and as another poster has mentioned looks plainly ridiculous if applied to the lower to average wage in the public sector. take our friend above for example earning 26k with a 32.4% reduction he would be on €17,576 gross, taking rent allowance etc into account this guy would be nearly be better off on the dole...as it stands that's the best permanent job around, the worst cuts being proposed for this are 5%


perhaps we could agree that public sector wages are higher than private sector but the worst offenders are those at the top of the table and they should be experiencing the the biggest cuts?.......I notice the private sector does not seem to be getting this right either though, witness seanie fitz et al squirreling away untold millions into protected retirements savings schemes while many ceos, board chairmen etc continue to give themselves incredible renumeration packages at the expense of sharholders and workers in their companies etc....so perhaps some anger should be directed there?


gold plated public sector pensions

no doubt about it they are pretty good but they have gotten worse in the not so distant past and you still have to work your 40 years to get a full one + when you die the equity you have tied up in them dies with you to a certain extent. not true of avcs (available to both public and private sector)

perhaps we can agree that the index linking of public pensions is costly and the contributions that public servants make to them should be more but perhaps we could also agree that private sector companies are taking a large percentage of their employess for a ride and that instead of continually say that public service rolls royce pensions should be dismantled simply because private sector ones are so poor/expensive some of the debate should focus on improving pension provision for the average worker in the private sector so there would not be so much to complain about.


job for life

much better security than some but not all private sector jobs. should public service pay be reduced because of this, Im not quite sure, I think there are valid arguments on both sides here.

some public servants will argue there was a downward revision of salaries in the benchmarking agreement to take this into account so it has already been factored in....I do not know how valid this is but a figuire of 12% was mentioned and if it was factored properly (however one could manage to value job security I dont know, what value does job security have if you are paid little above the minimum wage for instance comapred to job security for a high court judge etc) and you want to remove a public servants security then you could be looking at an immediate 12% pay rise if this is the case.

some public servants will say they chose to compete for the job on the basis that it was secure and had a good pension while others opted for the private sector. If these private sector workers now consider the public service to be so fantastic why didnt they go for it back during the boom(sorry bubble years) and why shouldnt these public sector workers enjoy the better conditions they opted for. I would say that people in the public sector (at least some of the ones I know and myself when I was in it) invested (and I mean invested in the true sense of the word here) in education and training to be able to compete successfully for these jobs in the public sector precisely because the conditions on offer were good and because of this they have a right to expect a certain amount (not all obviously but a minimum level and perhaps a certain premium above private sector) of the conditions they signed up for. They did compete for these superior conditions and must have some right to expect that their contract will be honoured.

eg: for my private sector jobs I interviewed against 5 other candidates the first time, 1 other candidate the second time and 15 other candidates the third time.

for the public sector job I used to work in, I had to first get a degree to be eligible to do the diploma which would allow me to do this job, and I had to then compete with what I was told was a pool of approximately 9,000 applicants to get on this diploma. when successfuk I then had to give up a year and a half of earnings and pay the guts of €10k on fees and accomodation etc. When this was done I had to then interview of the job itself and one of the reasons I got the job is because I also had a masters degree (which equals another year and a half of lost earnings plus the cost of living etc) I put myself through this because I enjoyed it to some extent, knew it was beneficial for me but also so I could get the job which to me was superior to what I had, Im sure there are many others like me.....given the oportunity cost of getting the job in some areas of the public sector and the fact that those were the contractual conditions offered to people on entering you could hardly have expected them to say no thats too generous could you and you can hardly expect their contract to be radically altered now except perhaps for new entrants....thats what was offered, thats what they agreed to do. Wasnt the electricians strike in the private sector hinged on similar arguments?

private sector interests will argue that we simply cant afford the public sector and perhaps we cant at the current level but the completely uncompromising way they go about their business is just as bad (in fact in my opinion its worse) than the way the unions go about their business. To fold wholly to the demands of ibec (big business not really small and medium sized although their agenda may suit smes in the short term) means a real erosion of workers rights in the public service but only as a lever to even more severly reduce the rights of workers in the private sector so more profits can pe squirreled away in ceos and large institutional investors pockets.

Couldnt we agree that things need to change but not just in the public service, couldnt we agree that while wages, conditions in the public service should be reduced, the demands of the likes of IBEC et al should be scrutinised very very carefully as well given the damage private sector companies (who also are beneficiaries of taxpayers money) will do to our country if they are pandered too also? btw I would currently benefit if IBEC were listened to and their propsals were listened too but I wonder for how long and I also wonder how many people I would be exploiting in the meantime there must be a happy medium where a majority of public and private sector can coexist without continually bitching at each other and instead start bitching at the real culprits who were largely responsible for this mess.



Anyway to me it seems that the so called "statistics" we have seen to date on this are wholly misleading and it would be really helpful if someone actually did a fair comparison based on educational attainment, experience, true cost of living, international comparisons taking resources into account and opportunity costs etc rather than both sides tabloid efforts to date.

ok , so you think public sector salarys should be much higher than in european countries because the cost of living is higher here , what about those in the private sector in ireland who earn close to 50% less than those in the public sector and still have to deal with the cost of living here

Riskymove

irish_bob wrote: »

ok , so you think public sector salarys should be much higher than in european countries because the cost of living is higher here , what about those in the private sector in ireland who earn close to 50% less than those in the public sector and still have to deal with the cost of living here

and people wonder why some of us have issues with these "averages" bandied about:rolleyes:

jimmmy

Riskymove wrote: »

and people wonder why some of us have issues with these "averages" bandied about:rolleyes:

The answer is simple, slash the public sector gravy train.

ei.sdraob

jimmmy wrote: »

The answer is simple, slash the public sector gravy train.

with 1 million voters either employed by state or have a family member who is

i wouldn't get my hopes up

turkeys dont vote for xmas

only in ireland does the government establish another quango to cut the size of governement/welfare and then the call it An Bord Snip Nua

jebus you couldnt make it up

irish_bob

ei.sdraob wrote: »

with 1 million voters either employed by state or have a family member who is

i wouldn't get my hopes up

turkeys dont vote for xmas

only in ireland does the government establish another quango to cut the size of governement/welfare and then the call it An Bord Snip Nua

jebus you couldnt make it up

indeed , whether irish people support cutting wages in the public sector depends on one thing , have i a relative in it , if thiers one thing we like in this country its keeping money in the family

gurramok

ei.sdraob wrote: »

with 1 million voters either employed by state or have a family member who is

i wouldn't get my hopes up

turkeys dont vote for xmas

What about the other 3.4million who are feeling the pain?

PS accounts for around 18% of workers, why should the 82% not have a say?

Rob_l

gurramok wrote: »

What about the other 3.4million who are feeling the pain?

PS accounts for around 18% of workers, why should the 82% not have a say?

They did have their say, and they like the majority of their Public Sector friends elected the current and previous governments responsible for this.

amacca

gurramok wrote: »

And your cost of living part is wrong too. Finland for example is an expensive country to live in along with the Nordic's and even the likes of France/Belgium/Holland.

If a bunch of people are overpaid, they get more money in their pockets hence pushes up prices for everyone else, its a vicious cycle.

Anyway, the big picture at the moment is that the employer of the public service is going broke and cannot afford to pay them for the next few years, this part just cannot seem to register with PS militant types.

I can see what you're saying and I do agree your not going to make any significant savings without tackling spending in education/health/quangos(especially imo) but its important to remember that not all of that excess was generated by the public sector and one of the reasons people had more money in their pocket during the bubble years was due to the fact that private sector banks loaned it to them so they could pay vastly inflated prices for property built by private sector building companies and buy shiny new cars, furniture, and electrical appliances from private sector businesses.

I think however that its not just the claims of the more militant sorts in the public sector that are absurd....... its also the ridiculous inflammatory statements private sector groups make that ultimately are not helping either. Some of the "statistics" they quote are just not a rational basis for any sort of reform, can be too easily belittled and seem to be chosen to in an effort to generate a witch hunt.

I also think that groups like IBEC only really care about public sector wages in so far as it gives them leverage to lower private sector workers even further as try to engineer a situation where exploitative labour rates mean big business can make more and more profits which may or may not be reinvested in this country.

Personally I cant wait for the commission on taxations report, we will see if that levels the playing field. Im not sure I buy into this whole progressive tax system yet. Recent report showed that those earning above the 500k mark paid just 20% in income tax while average joe lower middle class paid a significantly higher proportion in tax. The situation in previous years (during the bubble) was even more sickening with many high income earners being able to shelter most of their earnings and get down to as little as 5% of a tax burden. Even if this doesnt bring in as much savings to the exchequer as across the board cuts in social welfare etc it should be tackled and its as much of a disgrace as inefficient public services imo.

Basically I think the debate is skewed at the moment and I would like to see some balance.

P. Breathnach

amacca wrote: »

... I think however that its not just the claims of the more militant sorts in the public sector that are absurd....... its also the ridiculous inflammatory statements private sector groups make that ultimately are not helping either. Some of the "statistics" they quote are just not a rational basis for any sort of reform, can be too easily belittled and seem to be chosen to in an effort to generate a witch hunt...

As a public service pensioner, I was resigned to the prospect of my pension being reduced a bit, and was surprised that the government wriggled out of it by introducing a pensions levy rather than cutting pay rates.

But then I read some of the posts here, and I find it very difficult to acknowledge that there is a case to be made for reducing public sector pay. It is particularly galling that some of the public sector bashers refuse to acknowledge that the pensions levy is a form of pay cut.

Lockstep

gurramok wrote: »

And your cost of living part is wrong too. Finland for example is an expensive country to live in along with the Nordic's and even the likes of France/Belgium/Holland.

I lived in both Belgium and France (moving back to Belgium in a few weeks)

Both had significantly cheaper goods while I lived there (you pay more taxes as well for things like universal healthcare etc)