Are you represented within the Partnership Process???

Darragh29

Well? Can't find the Poll tool....

mikemac

Private sector worker here

I've a good job but worked hard to get here.
Used to pay 1k per month in tax.
That doesn't happen anymore, around 15% paycut, saw my friends being let go and have a boss expecting more productivity from less staff. Yep, looking for miracles and I'm not a miracle worker though I do my best.
Trade unions don't represent me. Oh and IBEC is a union too

When I was in college I had several hotel jobs, mainly barman and porter. No union rep every approached us though we were badly treated and blantant bullying going. As in finish at 4am and I want you here at 10am if you want to keep your job. Leglislation regarding rest periods, lol

Unions don't want to even know about part-time staff, they want full-time staff in secure jobs, easy subscriptions! And every now and again they will throw in an outrageous pay claim and won't get it. But that's ok, aim high and settle for something reasonable and claim it as a victory for the "working man"
Witness the current 3.5% pay claim

Hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland have terrible employers but unions don't want to know.
Nah, the social partners want people in secure jobs, both public and private

Who represents me? I suppose Fine Gael but I'm not entirely convinced but I'm completely open. Want my vote and support? Make a case and I'll take it
Nope, the social parters don't want me, I feel rejected....

Darragh29

mikemac wrote: »

Private sector worker here

I've a good job but worked hard to get here.
Used to pay 1k per month in tax.
That doesn't happen anymore, around 15% paycut, saw my friends being let go and have a boss expecting more productivity from less staff. Yep, looking for miracles and I'm not a miracle worker though I do my best.
Trade unions don't represent me. Oh and IBEC is a union too

When I was in college I had several hotel jobs, mainly barman and porter. No union rep every approached us though we were badly treated and blantant bullying going. As in finish at 4am and I want you here at 10am if you want to keep your job. Leglislation regarding rest periods, lol

Unions don't want to even know about part-time staff, they want full-time staff in secure jobs, easy subscriptions! And every now and again they will throw in an outrageous pay claim and won't get it. But that's ok, aim high and settle for something reasonable and claim it as a victory for the "working man"
Witness the current 3.5% pay claim

Hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland have terrible employers but unions don't want to know.
Nah, the social partners want people in secure jobs, both public and private

Who represents me? I suppose Fine Gael but I'm not entirely convinced but I'm completely open. Want my vote and support? Make a case and I'll take it
Nope, the social parters don't want me, I feel rejected....

This is the problem I think... I mentioned before on here that I used to work for a multinational, this organisation was hostile to unions, we had to fight for stuff that most unionised workplaces take for granted, especially round the area of promotions, right to information on vacancies, promotional opportunities, etc.

I think we need to have a national converstion on what kind of workplace we want, some of these workplaces in Ireland are closed shops and if people had an idea what actually goes on in some of these places, I think they would be shocked.

I think before we have another day of partnership talks, we should open the whole process up, get the unemployed in there, get the non-unionsed private sector worker in there. Then we'll have real partnership and then we might not be fighting amongst each other...

It makes me sick to see so many people unrepresented within what is now being cited as being basically a forum for national recovery.

I'd go a step further and say that the non-inclusive nature of the partnership process is what has caused this public -vs private sector deep devide.

Lockstep

mikemac wrote: »

When I was in college I had several hotel jobs, mainly barman and porter. No union rep every approached us though we were badly treated and blantant bullying going. As in finish at 4am and I want you here at 10am if you want to keep your job. Leglislation regarding rest periods, lol

You can't really expect unions to go to you; you need to approach them.
How are they supposed to know?

mikemac wrote: »

Unions don't want to even know about part-time staff, they want full-time staff in secure jobs, easy subscriptions! And every now and again they will throw in an outrageous pay claim and won't get it. But that's ok, aim high and settle for something reasonable and claim it as a victory for the "working man"
Witness the current 3.5% pay claim

Utterly untrue. I was working part time in retail and asked a guy I knew in Siptu who said that Mandate would be a better option as they were more used to people like us, I phoned Mandate who were all too happy to have me.
Seeing as they represent bar and retail staff (and mostly minimum wage/unsecure jobs) I would strongly disagree with the above.

mikemac wrote: »

Hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland have terrible employers but unions don't want to know.
Nah, the social partners want people in secure jobs, both public and private

Depends on the union really.
You can't really expect FDA to represent you if you're working in a bar.
Mandate are based around people like yourself though.

mikemac wrote: »

Who represents me? I suppose Fine Gael but I'm not entirely convinced but I'm completely open. Want my vote and support? Make a case and I'll take it
Nope, the social parters don't want me, I feel rejected....

Did you ever try to join a union?
Or just sit around expecting them to find you.

Darragh29

kickoutthejams wrote: »

You can't really expect unions to go to you; you need to approach them.
How are they supposed to know?

Did you ever try to join a union?
Or just sit around expecting them to find you.

I joined a union before, but my employer was anti-union and based on this, there was very little or nothing my union could do to help me in the workplace. It was also suggested to me by a branch secretary in SIPTU, that there was what was described to me as a "cosy arrangement" at partnership level, a kind of an understanding between the government and the unions, that employees of certain multinational organisations that operated in Ireland were not to be approached regarding membership as it would seriously upset their employers. The attitude seemed to be, "help yourself to the public sector and semi-states, but hands off the multinationals"... The mindset was, "hey, you know they "don't do" unions, so let's not cause any problems there, they might up and leave and then we'd all be f*cked"...

And now we are surprised when we have hundreds of thousands of employees with no input into government policy and we now have a minority of workers who are highly unionised and are swinging the lead when it comes to government policy.

My answer is that either we need to either take away the right to collectively bargain within the workplace, take away the right for a worker to have union input and involvement in their workplace, or else bring about a situation whereby everyone has those rights....

What is going on now is just insanity... Civil servants, semi state workers, IBEC and a small number of private sector workers basically dictating government policy for the last 15 years, and the majority of workers in the country completely removed from the partnership process.