Public sector pay: the wrong debate

mrshappy

I have been having this argument with someone for a while and he just said that 2/3 of public sector workers were getting over €40k. I had been defending the lower paid ps workers (and no I don't work in this sector - I am a SAHM) I said he must be including contractors in this but he said he wasn't - can anyone confirm who is right in this regard or if even someone had a link to where I could get this information.

Thanks

namloc1980

mrshappy wrote: »

I have been having this argument with someone for a while and he just said that 2/3 of public sector workers were getting over €40k. I had been defending the lower paid ps workers (and no I don't work in this sector - I am a SAHM) I said he must be including contractors in this but he said he wasn't - can anyone confirm who is right in this regard or if even someone had a link to where I could get this information.

Thanks

This is one of the many myths perpetrated about the public sector by ISME, IBEC and the likes. I don't work in public sector but I know a lot of people in that sector and most of them earn less than €40k p.a. I know one person in a particular department who has been there for 15 years and earns €28k - full time. Hardly a gravy train.

Some aspects of public pay obviously need to be looked at but I think the likes of our nurses, gardaí etc deserve every penny they get.

P. Breathnach

mrshappy wrote: »

I have been having this argument with someone for a while and he just said that 2/3 of public sector workers were getting over €40k. I had been defending the lower paid ps workers (and no I don't work in this sector - I am a SAHM) I said he must be including contractors in this but he said he wasn't - can anyone confirm who is right in this regard or if even someone had a link to where I could get this information.

Not a complete treatment of income distribution, but something that might give you a general impression of things: http://www.cso.ie/quicktables/GetQuickTables.aspx?FileName=PSA01.asp&TableName=Public+Sector+Average+Weekly+Earnings&StatisticalProduct=DB_PS

Wiley1

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Not a complete treatment of income distribution, but something that might give you a general impression of things: http://www.cso.ie/quicktables/GetQuickTables.aspx?FileName=PSA01.asp&TableName=Public+Sector+Average+Weekly+Earnings&StatisticalProduct=DB_PS

I can tell you now, that's wrong, it's a way off on some of those figures.

P. Breathnach

Wiley1 wrote: »

I can tell you now, that's wrong, it's a way off on some of those figures.

I'd sooner believe the CSO than an unsubstantiated assertion.

Wiley1

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I'd sooner believe the CSO than an unsubstantiated assertion.

And I'm sure you would, check this too:

Public sector pay cuts unfair and counter-productive on the tax front

By Fergus Finlay

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

I THINK if I were a public servant today, I’d be mad as hell.

With a few well documented political exceptions, I’ve never known anyone who went into the public service to make money.
In fact if you wanted to make money, the last place you’d go for a career is into the public service.
Some people choose a public service career for security and many choose it because it offers the chance to do something or to be something they’ve always wanted to be. A nurse, a doctor, a teacher, a fireman. To work at healing the sick, catching the baddies, teaching the kids — I’ve known people who grew up from childhood wanting to do just that, and who have found tremendous fulfilment from following a chosen career as a public servant.
And I’ve known public servants who maybe ended up in places they never expected to find themselves, and nevertheless did the state more than a little service. It is public servants who run our libraries (and if you haven’t visited a library lately, go and take a look — it will knock your socks off).
It is public servants who help Irish manufacturers to market their goods and to export them. It is public servants who, behind the scenes, probably did as much and more to bring peace to this island than any of the higher profile politicians who routinely claim their place in history.
I could go on. But you’re going to have to take my word for this, if you haven’t had direct experience of the public service. As I said, I’ve never met a public servant who was in it for the money. And I’ve never met a public servant who wanted to let his or her country down.
Sure, they’re not all equally able. They’re not even all equally pleasant.
We’ve all, I’m guessing, had both good and bad experiences at the hands of public servants. But I’m guessing we’ve all had mixed experiences at the hands of business people, bankers, priests, shopkeepers, mechanics, car salesmen, dentists, doctors, and the thousands and thousands of other people who make their living in the private sector in Ireland.
So why, I wonder, are public servants being told, day after day, that they have to bear the brunt of the public expenditure cuts? In addition to that, why are public servants being constantly attacked and derided as if they had suddenly become the fat cats in our society?
Why is there such division, and it seems such jealousy, between the public and the private sector? When public servants, quite rightly, point out that their pay has been hit by the pension levy, the commentators immediately snap that it’s only a modest contribution to the real cost of their pensions.
But for years and years public service pay in Ireland was calculated on the basis that the value of the pension had to be taken into account when making comparisons. In other words, public service salaries tended to be lower than those in the private sector because there was more security in the public service and the pensions were related to income rather than to the contribution made.
I’ve always argued (and I see the OECD is doing it too) that some government has to bite the bullet on the pension issue by closing down the "defined benefit" scheme (which relates pension to salary) for new entrants to the public service, and by placing all new entrants on a defined contribution scheme (which relates pension to the amount you pay into the scheme).
Such a change would bring the cost of funding public service pensions down dramatically over time. It would also mean that everyone in the economy who was working towards a pension, whether in the private or the public sector, would be on the same footing.
But you know what? The pensions entitlements of public servants haven’t actually changed at all. What has changed is that many pension schemes in the private sector have lost huge value partly because of mismanagement and also because the equities and stocks and shares they have been invested in have been damaged by greed and incompetence. More than a few pension funds, for instance, invested heavily in Irish bank shares. Need I say more?
And we’re being told every day that public service pay is at the heart of the whole public expenditure problem because it accounts for a massive proportion of public spending.
When they’re talking about public spending, commentators seem to use whatever figure comes into their heads. I’ve heard it solemnly reported on the radio that public service pay accounts for proportions of spending ranging from 50% to 75%. There’s a mantra about it — "it’s simply impossible to cut public spending (and thereby save the economy is the
inference) without cutting pay because pay simply accounts for too much".
The actual figure is about one-third. Public service pay is about one-third of public spending. So every €3 you take off a public servant should give you about €1 in public spending cuts.
There’s a couple of problems with this. First, every time you take €3 off a public servant, you lose anything up to €1 in tax revenue because (unlike a lot of people in the private sector) public servants are all PAYE workers — cut their pay and you immediately lose the income tax they give you. So actually, if you want to get a cut of €1 in overall public spending from public service pay, you have to take around €4.
The Government has said it wants to take €1.3 billion from public servants as their contribution to resolving our financial crisis. If it means that as a net figure (taking account of the loss in tax revenue), it’s going to have to cut pay by around €1.7bn in fact. That’s 10% of the public pay bill from January 1 next.
BUT IF it wants to apply that kind of a cut so that lower paid public servants have to take a hit of, say, 5%, it’s going to have to cut middle income public servants by around 15%.
It was not the public service, nor anyone in the public service, who precipitated this crisis in the first place. And when we’re not busy sneering at public servants, we totally depend on them. Take away our public service in Ireland and you drive a huge hole into our quality of life.
Against that background, the kind of cuts that are now having to be considered, to yield a net €1.3bn in public spending reductions, are savage. They will have a huge impact on thousands of families (some commentators don’t like us noticing that public servants have families,
too) and they will seriously damage morale in vital services.
Despite what the commentators might like us to think, cuts of that magnitude are fundamentally unfair. I mightn’t agree — in fact I don’t agree — with the proposition that our economy and our school system can be shut down for a day, or maybe more, by public sector protest. But because the whole approach is so unfair, I can fully understand the anger behind that protest.




This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, November 17, 2009

walshb

Are the marches really about pay, or are they about perks? Me thinks it's the latter.

So, maybe some do not earn great money, but you can be damn sure that they
are getting great perks, perks that we are subsidising and perks that are way too much

akaredtop

The marches are carried out to protect a very high standard of living with job security and pensions. And to think of the unfortunate people on this planet and we are talking about greedy scum like the Public Service.

BaZmO*

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/education/2009/1124/1224259332656.html?via=mr

€43,042 before tax for a 25 year old in her fourth year of teaching. Plus the holidays, plus the benefits.
Ah it's a hard life for a teacher alright!

SARZY

Who represents the hundreds of thousands in this country on minimum wage.
What union could represent people who earn E16k pa doing responsible and sometimes skilled jobs.
Not the same unions who consider E25-E30k in the PS as 'low pay'.
The balance is out of kilter and needs to attended to.

So who needs to move.

Is it the people on Minimum wage or maybe the people on Social Welfare.

Or is it the higher echelons of the PS where the gaps between top and bottom are enormous.

Perhaps what we need is this issue to be addressed.

Maybe then we could stop this bickering between Public and Private sector and all us ordinary 'joe soaps' could feel that Justice has been done to US.

Wiley1

walshb wrote: »

Are the marches really about pay, or are they about perks? Me thinks it's the latter.

So, maybe some do not earn great money, but you can be damn sure that they
are getting great perks, perks that we are subsidising and perks that are way too much

Of course you think that, you are exactly the kind of person the government want to brain train,

Look: causes of the problem = Government and Banks

Both are in the clear when they have Public, private, unions and squabbling, it's the diversionary hook that you have swallowed whole, where as one united voice would have worked from the start.

I can't believe the Private V Public sector thing is still going on.

Lokk at the Indo this week, Mary Harney was adding fuel to the whole thing. Are you really that naive??

Wiley1

SARZY wrote: »

Who represents the hundreds of thousands in this country on minimum wage.
What union could represent people who earn E16k pa doing responsible and sometimes skilled jobs.
Not the same unions who consider E25-E30k in the PS as 'low pay'.
The balance is out of kilter and needs to attended to.

So who needs to move.

Is it the people on Minimum wage or maybe the people on Social Welfare.

Or is it the higher echelons of the PS where the gaps between top and bottom are enormous.

Perhaps what we need is this issue to be addressed.

Maybe then we could stop this bickering between Public and Private sector and all us ordinary 'joe soaps' could feel that Justice has been done to US.

Maybe people/workers that are on the low pay can re-train, God forbid they would actually try and better themselves and increase their earning power, Everyone is blaming someone else, there is more to life than money!!!

It's the Government we should be looking to if anyone should be held accountable ...

Look at the front page of the Indo today, It's a classic, Floods, Strikes and Shoppers heading for the North. 2 out of the 3 headlines are caused by the government and all 3 headlines affect both private and public sector. Open your eyes and allow the truth in. They are making life difficult for us all.

PeakOutput

op your right it is the wrong debate

there is no point arguing public v private its irrelevant you choose which you want to be a part of and go with it

the only debate that should be going on is how much should the public service wages be cut by.

we are spending too much ps wages and social welfare make up the majority of our bill therefore they must be cut

i dont care about tax increases bring them on i dont care about benchmarking or any other stuff the unions like to bring up to cloud the issue

public service wage bill needs to come down FACT end of story anyone who says otherwise should lose their job

also this bull**** from the unions about the rich getting off scott free while the poor are getting taxed more and more. the top 5% of our earners pay 45% of our tax revenue. the top 10% of earners pay 77% of our tax revenue these are facts how is that for the wealthy getting away with paying hardly any tax?

as the by now cliche goes,you cant tax your way out of a recession and i really really hope the goverment follows threw this time and rapes the bloated public service. if there is a way to get the reductions necessary without touching front line staff pay im all for it but all those administrators should seriously feel the pinch

Tim Robbins

potlatch wrote: »

I think the nation's been brainwashed. Private sector workers need to take employers on for a fair deal like those in the public sector.

I'm sorry but that's incredibly naeive. If I and my co-workers did what you are suggesting our jobs would go to India.

If only there were organisations that could campaign for better working conditions for employees...

Again, if I and my co-workers demanded everything the civil service got our jobs would go to India.

The country is turning into a joke. Unfortunately.

Wiley1

PeakOutput wrote: »

op your right it is the wrong debate

there is no point arguing public v private its irrelevant you choose which you want to be a part of and go with it

the only debate that should be going on is how much should the public service wages be cut by.

we are spending too much ps wages and social welfare make up the majority of our bill therefore they must be cut

i dont care about tax increases bring them on i dont care about benchmarking or any other stuff the unions like to bring up to cloud the issue

public service wage bill needs to come down FACT end of story anyone who says otherwise should lose their job

also this bull**** from the unions about the rich getting off scott free while the poor are getting taxed more and more. the top 5% of our earners pay 45% of our tax revenue. the top 10% of earners pay 77% of our tax revenue these are facts how is that for the wealthy getting away with paying hardly any tax?

as the by now cliche goes,you cant tax your way out of a recession and i really really hope the goverment follows threw this time and rapes the bloated public service. if there is a way to get the reductions necessary without touching front line staff pay im all for it but all those administrators should seriously feel the pinch

Blah Blah Blah, nothing new with this attitude.

Wiley1

PeakOutput wrote: »

the only debate that should be going on is how much should the public service wages be cut by.

we are spending too much ps wages and social welfare make up the majority of our bill therefore they must be cut

Silly post,

So if cancer research and sick children were taking up most of the financial resources for providing a critical service they should be cut. Totally unrealistic, Just sit back in your judges chair there and count out loudly the amount of public services provided to all members of the Irish populous.

Without the public services/sector we would be somewhat likened to Somalia relying on pirates to finance the place....

SARZY

Obvious who you are and where your agenda starts and finishes.

Its you and your likes who need to feel some pain.

Its on the way and I am thrilled and I will really enjoy your squealing on this forum in the future.

I will not lower myself to your level by ever replying to any of your elitist posts again.

Squeal Bubba Squeal.

Wiley1

SARZY wrote: »

Obvious who you are and where your agenda starts and finishes.

Its you and your likes who need to feel some pain.

Its on the way and I am thrilled and I will really enjoy your squealing on this forum in the future.

I will not lower myself to your level by ever replying to any of your elitist posts again.

Squeal Bubba Squeal.

Good, Don't respond, it's the attitude i expected.

Wiley1

SARZY wrote: »

Obvious who you are and where your agenda starts and finishes.

Its you and your likes who need to feel some pain.

Its on the way and I am thrilled and I will really enjoy your squealing on this forum in the future.

I will not lower myself to your level by ever replying to any of your elitist posts again.

Squeal Bubba Squeal.

I won't feel any pain, I have plenty.

It's the parents with kids that i work with that will feel it, you're aiming this at them too, God bless you, you're a great one !

BaZmO*

Wiley1 wrote: »

Without the public services/sector we would be somewhat likened to Somalia relying on pirates to finance the place....

That's a silly comparison. Who do you think pays for the public services in Ireland?

PeakOutput

Wiley1 wrote: »

Silly post,

So if cancer research and sick children were taking up most of the financial resources for providing a critical service they should be cut.

so lets use your analogy. cancer research and sick children are taking up the majority of money in this fictitious medical service. the amount of money the medical service has is reduced for whatever reason. all of sudden they do not have the money to pay for everything. its that simple the money is not there. so the option is A) go bankrupt or cutback on costs and save teh service as a hole. i know which one id pick

how does this relate to the ps i hear everyone roar(i said the same thing reading wileys post tbh) if the goverment does not cut the ps wage bill and/or the social welfare bill. the state continues to borrow to pay for these things and the country goes bankrupt, belly up, tits up, however you want to put it the country as we know it now ceases to exist.

Totally unrealistic, Just sit back in your judges chair there and count out loudly the amount of public services provided to all members of the Irish populous.

whats totally unrealistic is a massive group of people expecting the goverment to make the money appear out of the blue and pay them with it.

THE MONEY IS NOT THERE. it really is that simple wiley

Without the public services/sector we would be somewhat likened to Somalia relying on pirates to finance the place....

thats exactly what we will be like if we succomb to the ps's demands and dont make reductions. country goes under there is no money to pay for anything. people wont work for free so they leave and bam we have no public service worth speaking of

when a company sees that it is making a loss it does not automatically say lets put up our prices it says lets cut costs and put up prices. we have put up taxes inthe last two budgets its time to make the cuts on costs.

i really really have a hard time understanding how the apparently intelligent people of the public service cannot see this

Wiley1

BaZmO* wrote: »

That's a silly comparison. Who do you think pays for the public services in Ireland?

The PAYE workers and all taxpayers in the state, not just the private sector as you would like to believe, Every time I go to the shop, buy petrol, motor tax, You think that public sector workers don't contribute.

hobochris

Wiley1 wrote: »

The PAYE workers and all taxpayers in the state, not just the private sector as you would like to believe, Every time I go to the shop, buy petrol, motor tax, You think that public sector workers don't contribute.

I see any taxes the public sector pay as recycling existing tax money rather than bringing money into the tax net(which is what the private sector do).

Wiley1

PeakOutput wrote: »

so lets use your analogy. cancer research and sick children are taking up the majority of money in this fictitious medical service. the amount of money the medical service has is reduced for whatever reason. all of sudden they do not have the money to pay for everything. its that simple the money is not there. so the option is A) go bankrupt or cutback on costs and save teh service as a hole. i know which one id pick

how does this relate to the ps i hear everyone roar(i said the same thing reading wileys post tbh) if the goverment does not cut the ps wage bill and/or the social welfare bill. the state continues to borrow to pay for these things and the country goes bankrupt, belly up, tits up, however you want to put it the country as we know it now ceases to exist.



whats totally unrealistic is a massive group of people expecting the goverment to make the money appear out of the blue and pay them with it.

THE MONEY IS NOT THERE. it really is that simple wiley



thats exactly what we will be like if we succomb to the ps's demands and dont make reductions. country goes under there is no money to pay for anything. people wont work for free so they leave and bam we have no public service worth speaking of

when a company sees that it is making a loss it does not automatically say lets put up our prices it says lets cut costs and put up prices. we have put up taxes inthe last two budgets its time to make the cuts on costs.

i really really have a hard time understanding how the apparently intelligent people of the public service cannot see this

Never once have I said that cuts wouldn't work, I am of course opposed to having my wages cut twice in 12 months, Cuts in the wage bill would work, common sense and if (when) it happens it should solve some of the problems within the public finances, it won't solve them all.

Like I said, look at the front page of the Indo yesterday, Floods, Strikes and Shoppers heading North,

• Floods are unaviodable but could be helped by not giving planning on known flood plains and fields
• Strikes could be averted with better talks and more intelligent approach from both government and unions
• Shopping up the north could have been totally turned around if we dropped VAT the way the UK did last year.

We are our own worst enemy, from 2000 on we could have built a smashin little country with great health care, great infrasturcture, private and public sector but alas the greedy hands didn't control it and we're paying for it now and what's worse is the people bickering with eachother.

It's a sad little country now, back to the Ireland that people know from history, always needing the handouts and looking for help.....

Wiley1

hobochris wrote: »

I see any taxes the public sector pay as recycling existing tax money rather than bringing money into the tax net(which is what the private sector do).

Of course you see it that way, I should have guessed this,
Do you not know that many of private sector new businesses and startup companies get some of their initial financing from County Enterprise Boards and Fas and othe government funded initiatives, So in other words this is the public sector giving a leg up to the private sector but people can't see past the haze of ignorance. We as an economy are a working business organism and need eachother, Private sector don't pay for everything in the state, either do the Public sector, it's a working living partnership that needs both party involvment.

Of course we need reform, why start with the wage bill, just because it's the biggest??? think outside the box. why not look to other expenditure. Anyway it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference does it really...

hobochris

Wiley1 wrote: »

Of course you see it that way, I should have guessed this,
Do you not know that many of private sector new businesses and startup companies get some of their initial financing from County Enterprise Boards and Fas and othe government funded initiatives, So in other words this is the public sector giving a leg up to the private sector but people can't see past the haze of ignorance. We as an economy are a working business organism and need eachother, Private sector don't pay for everything in the state, either do the Public sector, it's a working living partnership that needs both party involvment.

Of course we need reform, why start with the wage bill, just because it's the biggest??? think outside the box. why not look to other expenditure. Anyway it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference does it really...

Actually its not the public sector, Its taxes payed into the tax net(by private sector) being granted to businesses with viable business idea's, so that they may in turn pay more tax once established.


It may be civil servants on these enterprise boards but its tax money originally payed into the system by private sector companies they are using.

Civil servant pay is just another deductible from the public coffers, the Public's money is not there property, the control of some of it is delegated to some civil servants, The public sector do not fund these boards, they merely manage them.

If the private sector collapsed the public sector would run out of funds very quickly.

Why start with the publics sector wage bill?
because it makes up around 40% of public expenditure.

another 40% is social welfare(also has to be tackled) and the remaining 20% is public expenses.

Cuts have to be made, if the civil servants don't like whats left on offer after the cuts they are free to leave the public service and try their luck in the private sector, but i have news for them, its a big bad world outside their cushy public service bubble.

FIREFIGHTERs,EMT's,GARDA,ARMY,DOCTORS, NURSES,PRISON GARDS.

If your not on this list your easily expendable... there a plenty of qualified teachers, office admin and people who are qualified in other fields who can and would do such jobs at a cheaper price.If your on the above list I still wouldn't count your chickens.

Wiley1

hobochris wrote: »

Actually its not the public sector, Its taxes payed into the tax net(by private sector) being granted to businesses with viable business idea's, so that they may in turn pay more tax once established.


It may be civil servants on these enterprise boards but its tax money originally payed into the system by private sector companies they are using.

Civil servant pay is just another deductible from the public coffers, the Public's money is not there property, the control of some of it is delegated to some civil servants, The public sector do not fund these boards, they merely manage them.

If the private sector collapsed the public sector would run out of funds very quickly.

Why start with the publics sector wage bill?
because it makes up around 40% of public expenditure.

another 40% is social welfare(also has to be tackled) and the remaining 20% is public expenses.

Cuts have to be made, if the civil servants don't like whats left on offer after the cuts they are free to leave the public service and try their luck in the private sector, but i have news for them, its a big bad world outside their cushy public service bubble.

FIREFIGHTERs,EMT's,GARDA,ARMY,DOCTORS, NURSES,PRISON GARDS.

If your not on this list your easily expendable... there a plenty of qualified teachers, office admin and people who are qualified in other fields who can and would do such jobs at a cheaper price.If your on the above list I still wouldn't count your chickens.

So basically you're saying i work for nothing and hold on to money for the government, Ridiculous statement,

Talking of expendible services, every private sector service is exactly that where as you obviously don't know how each department are linked in the public sector, Roads, Housing, Infrastructure, Social Welfare, Health.

I honestly don't believe that you think you're paying for all this, C'mon...

Shea O'Meara

Imagine your job, be it Bricklayer, Barber what ever. You earn let's say 450 a week. A guy comes along and says I'll do it for 350 a week. In no time employers would have you working for a pitance.
This is the threat public Service workers are supposed to heed? thankfully we've unions.
Eventually a middle ground will be met. If the Government weren't so ham fisted about things the details could be being drawn up as we post.

By the way, the tax payer also pays private sector wages as the majority of Council road work, housing maintenance etc. is carried out by private companies, so tell them you pay their wages, they'll tell you to go f*** yourself.

Wiley1

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

Imagine your job, be it Bricklayer, Barber what ever. You earn let's say 450 a week. A guy comes along and says I'll do it for 350 a week. In no time employers would have you working for a pitance.
This is the threat public Service workers are supposed to heed? thankfully we've unions.
Eventually a middle ground will be met. If the Government weren't so ham fisted about things the details could be being drawn up as we post.

By the way, the tax payer also pays private sector wages as the majority of Council road work, housing maintenance etc. is carried out by private companies, so tell them you pay their wages, they'll tell you to go f*** yourself.

Nice one Shea, very well put.

drkpower

Shea O'Meara wrote: »

Imagine your job, be it Bricklayer, Barber what ever. You earn let's say 450 a week. A guy comes along and says I'll do it for 350 a week. In no time employers would have you working for a pitance.
This is the threat public Service workers are supposed to heed? thankfully we've unions.
.

Eh...?
That is called the market and its what business people up and down the country have to deal with every day.
Do you suggest that people who have a business as a bricklayer should be protected from the guy down the road doing the work for less?