IMPACT backs strike action over pay cuts

rovertime90

Slow Motion wrote: »

So if all the public sector workers go on strike will anyone notice the drop in productivity?

Well when nurses go on strike and hospital wards close i reckon we might notice it.

godtabh

Degsy wrote: »

The private sector get paid more money..they always have.

But with little or no job security and we pay for our own pension

There is more risk in the private sector hence bigger the reward. I could have retired to a county council job a couple of years ago. Wouldnt have to push myself in the slightest. I'd be bored silly having experience a secondment to semi state

Stark

Degsy wrote: »

The private sector get paid more money..they always have.

That's not what the figures show.

Degsy wrote: »

There simply isnt like to compare with like in the two sectors..the public sector employees take less money and less oppurtunity for promotion in return for a degree of job security.

There are two ways to increase your earnings in the private sector: 1) Do a cracker of a job. 2) Move jobs. Public sector workers don't have to do no. 1 as they get their increments as long as they don't set the place on fire or come in every day drunk out of their minds. Option 2 is open to private and public sectors alike.

akaredtop

All the mismangement in this country has been performed the Public Sector.
e.g. Fas, ESB, Financial Regulator, HSE, Government etc. Ye created the mess so ye should pay for it.

Degsy

kearnsr wrote: »

But with little or no job security and we pay for our own pension

So do we..my contributions at this stage are 13%..we retire on the state pension(like anybody else) and a contributary pension based on your wages when you leave..this is compulsory in the public sector.
For example somebody who retires at age 65 after 30 years service will recieve a total of 400 euro per week approx.
TBH,i dont think anybody in the public sector at the moment will get thier pension at all..the govt has plundered the pension funds long ago.

gazzer

With arguments like this you are always going to get people on one side or the other and then you get a few who hopefully can see both sides arguments.

For the record I am a Civil Servent. Have been for 18 years now. I have had 3promotions in that time and after tax, pension levy etc I come out with €550 a week. Now I dont think that is a huge amount for the amount of time I have spent in the job and for the promotions I have gotten but more importantly for the work I do. However having said that I can afford to take a drop in wages as I have no dependants and I dont have a mortage ( I sold my house last year and am currently renting).

If the government want to cut my wages further well there is nothing I can really do about it I suppose. However (and I must stress this) NONE of my friends in the private sector have taken a wage cut and NONE of them have lost their job. And before anybody thinks I am lying I am not. I have no reason to lie. I am all for taking another hit but I hate this whole 'everybody in the private sector has taken a hit' cos that is not true. There is a lot of people who have lost their job and a lot of others who have taken a pay cut but not everybody in the private sector has. EVERYBODY in the Public Sector has taken a pay cut. Fair enough you can call it a pension levy but the money is not been used to fund pensions.

If the government take more money off me(which i am sure they will) I will just spend more money up north on food etc and buy more things on the internet rather than buying in shops in the republic.

TheZohanS

Moved to Politics.

voxpop

Public sectors pay rose during the "good times" as a result of private sector productivity, not their own productivity (benchmarking). Now when wages are dropping and jobs are being culled in the private sector all the unions do is harp on about equality and fairness and how come we (public sector) have to take cuts. They need to cop on a bit - Ive seen the wastage in the public sector first hand - its amazing. Cronyism is rife. There is alot of middle management waste, who spend their time having meetings about meetings and not deciding anything. They hang around getting automatic increments, waiting for retirement age (cus they dont get the full pension if they retire early).

Teachers,nurses,firemen,garda all should be paid well. There should be a cull of middle management, a removal of auto increments and productivity metrics brought in.

Alot of this messing is also down to the unions making work for themselves and becoming outraged on behalf of workers who never asked them to. How much do these union guys pay themselves ? Who elected them to speak for workers and lobby the government?

rovertime90

gazzer wrote: »

With arguments like this you are always going to get people on one side or the other and then you get a few who hopefully can see both sides arguments.

For the record I am a Civil Servent. Have been for 18 years now. I have had 3promotions in that time and after tax, pension levy etc I come out with €550 a week. Now I dont think that is a huge amount for the amount of time I have spent in the job and for the promotions I have gotten but more importantly for the work I do. However having said that I can afford to take a drop in wages as I have no dependants and I dont have a mortage ( I sold my house last year and am currently renting).

If the government want to cut my wages further well there is nothing I can really do about it I suppose. However (and I must stress this) NONE of my friends in the private sector have taken a wage cut and NONE of them have lost their job. And before anybody thinks I am lying I am not. I have no reason to lie. I am all for taking another hit but I hate this whole 'everybody in the private sector has taken a hit' cos that is not true. There is a lot of people who have lost their job and a lot of others who have taken a pay cut but not everybody in the private sector has. EVERYBODY in the Public Sector has taken a pay cut. Fair enough you can call it a pension levy but the money is not been used to fund pensions.

If the government take more money off me(which i am sure they will) I will just spend more money up north on food etc and buy more things on the internet rather than buying in shops in the republic.

Totally agree with this comment

murphaph

Degsy wrote: »

So one lot are paying taxes and helping to pay for he people who arent..dont you see the tax-take from prsi will fall even further if wages are cut..what about the knock-on effect to the economy if people have to tighten thier belts further?
This country is to fragile to take anymore tax hikes,pay cuts will be similarly disasterous.

Facepalm. It's the same money degsy. Income tax on public sector pay is just an exercise in pushing money around. The 'tax' just goes back to source.

As for the economy suffering even more because we stop paying wages with money we haven't got-that's true in the short term, but medium term lower costs mean increased investment. We can't just devalue the punt like the old days-we have to reduce people's spending power directly as we are now bound by the Euro.

If you don't tax any more and you don't cut expenditure and you are borrowing 20 billion a year-what do you do to close that gap???? :eek:

akaredtop

Everthing the public sector touches ends in disaster. They are inefficient, lazy, inflexible, rude, underworked and overpaid. They cannot run an organisation without waste. Look at FAS, ESB, Dail Eireann and the County Councils. And these are just the ones we know about. God only knows what else is there waiting to be exposed.

bridgitt

akaredtop wrote: »

Everthing the public sector touches ends in disaster. They are inefficient, lazy, inflexible, rude, underworked and overpaid. They cannot run an organisation without waste. Look at FAS, ESB, Dail Eireann and the County Councils. And these are just the ones we know about. God only knows what else is there waiting to be exposed.

It comes from being highly unionised, with no competition.

dvpower

seamus wrote: »

I actually have a problem with how the public sector has structured itself, largely through the work of the unions.

There are two distinct parts to the public sector:

"Essential Services" - People who provide for the day-to-day needs of individuals within the population. This covers Education, healthcare and emergency services.

"Non-essential services" - People who work for the government - pen pushers, seat warmers, revenue clerks, etc.

Somewhere in the mix someone decided that those who work in non-essential services were just as essential as essential services and that everyone should be on similar payscales. So for some reason, instead of being able to pick and choose what areas of public service we can fire people from and hack wages off, we are forced to apply levies and cuts to everyone, when clearly some people are more important than others. Yes, that's right, if you're sitting in a seat reading boards, your job is less important than the Garda walking down the street and you should be first in line for the chopping block.

I wonder exactly who the non essential workers are.
You mention pen pushers and seat warmers. Can you be more specific?
You also mention revenue clerks. I think you'd find that without revenue clerks we could have no essential workers, because there would be no money to pay them.

There's a lot of rubbish spouted on these boards about cutting waste and retaining essential services but not too many people identifying the waste. Its just wishful thinking. We are going to have to make cuts more or less accross the board.

AARRRGH

Degsy wrote: »

The private sector get paid more money..they always have.

There simply isnt like to compare with like in the two sectors..the public sector employees take less money and less oppurtunity for promotion in return for a degree of job security.

Ah not this rubbish again.

It has been repeatedly proven beyond any doubt that public service workers on average are paid a lot more money than private sector workers.

rovertime90

akaredtop wrote: »

All the mismangement in this country has been performed the Public Sector.
e.g. Fas, ESB, Financial Regulator, HSE, Government etc. Ye created the mess so ye should pay for it.

So the banks have no part to play in this, thats strange

AARRRGH

rovertime90 wrote: »

So the banks have no part to play in this, thats strange

The banks just lent the money. It was a a government department (the financial regulator) which allowed unlimited lending.

P. Breathnach

AARRRGH wrote: »

The banks just lent the money. It was a a government department (the financial regulator) which allowed unlimited lending.

And every crime is the fault of the Gárdaí.

rovertime90

akaredtop wrote: »

Everthing the public sector touches ends in disaster. They are inefficient, lazy, inflexible, rude, underworked and overpaid. They cannot run an organisation without waste. Look at FAS, ESB, Dail Eireann and the County Councils. And these are just the ones we know about. God only knows what else is there waiting to be exposed.

Thats a real educated point there, you tarnish the whole public sector with one brush, but i forgot that the private sector is run so much more efficiently like the banks for example (oh yeah thats right, they just ran the country into the ground) I am so sick and tired of the private sector workers moaning about the public sector, we took paycuts, look at the unemployment levels boohoo two words Career Choice.

dvpower

gazzer wrote: »

If the government want to cut my wages further well there is nothing I can really do about it I suppose. However (and I must stress this) NONE of my friends in the private sector have taken a wage cut and NONE of them have lost their job. And before anybody thinks I am lying I am not. I have no reason to lie.

The reason your friends in the private sector haven't had pay cuts or been made redundant is because their firms are presumaby doing OK.
But you can be sure that as soon as this changes, their management will take corrective action. They will have no choice about that. They might be lucky and get through the recession unscathed.

The public sector is like a business that is in trouble. Its income (tax receipts) is not enough to sustain it, so it needs to cut its costs. This means reducing services and/or reducing salary costs. This may not be fair on individual public servants who are going to feel the brunt, but it is reality. The public service is in receipt of a massive and ongoing bailout (the current spending deficit) that cannot go on forever.

Its just bad luck. Like ordinary construction workers or those in the car industry, public servants happen to find themselves in a sector that is in trouble. Luckily for public servants, their jobs are pretty much gauranteed by the state, so the pain will be cushioned.

Nightwish

I'm in the public sector. Not a union member but most of my colleagues are Impact members. I wholeheartedly disagree with any form of industrial action. I'll take the hit in a pay cut, if its fair and its across the board. I am at a loss as to what I'll do if my colleagues go on strike. I cant afford to go AWOL, nor do I want to.

Moriarty

AARRRGH wrote: »

Ah not this rubbish again.

It has been repeatedly proven beyond any doubt that public service workers on average are paid a lot more money than private sector workers.

It really hasn't. I took a cursory look a while ago at one or two specific skilled jobs in the public service, as they're ones that I had a good idea of market value for, and the pay (including benefits) for the public sector equivalent of the area that I work in was very much on the bottom end of what you'd expect in the private sector. It was the same in other areas I was familiar with through friends/family.

There's tosh repeated by people over and over, but in every one of these comparisons that I've seen the two areas which are compared are so nebulous as to be meaningless. Gardai and defence forces personnel compared to private security guards? Give me a break.

Back on topic, I can't see strikes helping anyone. Cuts obviously need to be made, the unions know that as well as anybody else. All that's happened here are the unions reinforcing their mandate in the eyes of government and business before the shooting starts. There are few things more useless than an unloaded gun as the saying goes, after all.

rovertime90

AARRRGH wrote: »

The banks just lent the money. It was a a government department (the financial regulator) which allowed unlimited lending.

Lets be honest, the banks were wreckless full spot, agreed that the financal regulator didnt help.

AARRRGH

P. Breathnach wrote: »

And every crime is the fault of the Gárdaí.

You're not comparing like with like, unless of course you think what the banks did was illegal. Obviously I can't argue with that sort of logic...

AARRRGH

rovertime90 wrote: »

Lets be honest, the banks were wreckless full spot, agreed that the financal regulator didnt help.

Oh I think the banks were reckless, but it was a government department which allowed it.

Idbatterim

look if any of my family were in the PS and had to take a pay cut, I couldnt care less, its not like their losing their job or having to work any harder! They need a reality check!

Degsy

AARRRGH wrote: »

Ah not this rubbish again.

It has been repeatedly proven beyond any doubt that public service workers on average are paid a lot more money than private sector workers.

No it hasnt..because you cannot compare like with like.
This "public versus private sectore" is media and government bullcrap designed to pit both sides against each other while the govt screws everybody over except the rich.

Zzippy

dvpower wrote: »

The reason your friends in the private sector haven't had pay cuts or been made redundant is because their firms are presumaby doing OK.
But you can be sure that as soon as this changes, their management will take corrective action. They will have no choice about that. They might be lucky and get through the recession unscathed.

The public sector is like a business that is in trouble. Its income (tax receipts) is not enough to sustain it, so it needs to cut its costs. This means reducing services and/or reducing salary costs. This may not be fair on individual public servants who are going to feel the brunt, but it is reality. The public service is in receipt of a massive and ongoing bailout (the current spending deficit) that cannot go on forever.

Its just bad luck. Like ordinary construction workers or those in the car industry, public servants happen to find themselves in a sector that is in trouble. Luckily for public servants, their jobs are pretty much gauranteed by the state, so the pain will be cushioned.

You're comparing the public service to a private firm, as if it competes in the marketplace and has competition, therefore can't raise more revenue. That's a fallacious argument. The public service is a public necessity, that everyone, private sector and public, pays for through our taxes. You can't decide to stop paying tax and avail of alternative government, or public services. Well, you can, if you want to emigrate. But all workers have the responsibility to pay for public services through paying tax.

If the government is broke, it can do two things - cut costs or raise revenue. Or it can do both. It has already cut costs, and is planning more cuts. Fair enough. But why should it not raise more revenue too, through additional tax? The only reason against doing that in your analogy with a private firm is that in a private firm, raising costs would mean losing business to competitors. But the government is the only firm in the business - there are no competitors providing an alternative public service. So raising tax is another viable means of funding the shortfall.

I have a similar experience to another poster here - lots of private sector friends, none of whom have lost their job or taken a pay cut. The private sector have provided no statistics on what percentage have taken pay cuts, yet consistently insist it is "large" or "huge". The same commentators are happy to jump on any stats about the PS as evidence that PS workers are better off.
When I see reliable stats on pay cuts in the private sector I'll believe those commentators. Until then I remain skeptical. A small increase in tax for everyone is fairer than 2 pay cuts for PS staff and none for a lot of private sector staff. We all use public services, we all have to pay for it.

meglome

Degsy wrote: »

Why should the public sector be scapegoated for the governments mismanagement and stupidity?
When has the government every said "Its time to tax the wealthy,not people with mortages on 30k a year".
This is all a conspiracy to set both sides against each other so we lose sight of who really caused this mess..

Personally I don't see it as scapegoating anyone. We are where we are, the country has no money and is borrowing vast sums. One day I may enjoy kicking Bertie square in the balls (only joking of course) but it won't fix anything. Our company deals with the Dept of Edu and directly with 'ex' teachers (teachers in secondment) and not one of them is on less than 50K, many are up to 70 or 80k. In any cutbacks if they have to go back to their schools they will still be getting paid that. Most of them are on nearly double the average industrial wage. As a capitalist I don't as such begrudge anyone getting paid well but as a realist I know when the chickens have come home to roost.

AARRRGH

Degsy wrote: »

No it hasnt..because you cannot compare like with like.
This "public versus private sectore" is media and government bullcrap designed to pit both sides against each other while the govt screws everybody over except the rich.

You can spin things however you want, but the facts are clear that public sector workers earn more money (on average) than private sector workers.

But anyway, I don't really care what people earn. What I am concerned about is the overall wage bill and the fact that the country cannot afford it.

I agree that the public sector v private sector debate is a diversion tactic, however the fact remains that the public sector bill has got to seriously come down. If people won't accept wage cuts, the only other option is redundancies.

bridgitt

AARRRGH wrote: »

You can spin things however you want, but the facts are clear that public sector workers earn more money (on average) than private sector workers.

But anyway, I don't really care what people earn. What I am concerned about is the overall wage bill and the fact that the country cannot afford it.

I agree that the public sector v private sector debate is a diversion tactic, however the fact remains that the public sector bill has got to seriously come down. If people won't accept wage cuts, the only other option is redundancies.

+1

Can the private sector - who is paid less, with less perks ( pension, holidays, hours etc ) - have a counter demo I wonder ? How much longer can the silent majority, who have no union to represent them and who cannot go on strike, keep going ?