The Public Sector is sick

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

I would not accept that...

Of course you wouldn't.

jimmmy

Instead of going for the player instead of the ball, perhaps you could indicate why you think there is "a great deal of ignorance on both sides" ? After all, as said previously, both sides are very closely related.
Or maybe you think the economic gulf is as big as in Apartheid Africa ? ( I do not , by the way ).

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

Instead of going for the player instead of the ball,

Yet again you make such a complaint. Use the report button if you think it appropriate.

perhaps you could indicate why you think there is "a great deal of ignorance on both sides" ?

I see little point in doing that because, as I also said, there is also "an apparent unwillingness to learn".

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Yet again you make such a complaint. Use the report button if you think it appropriate.

Only trying to help you, not get you banned.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I see little point in doing that because, as I also said, there is also "an apparent unwillingness to learn".

I am certainly willing to learn : if there is something you think I should know, which I do not already know, please try !

lily lou

irish_bob wrote: »

most likely you would be earning far less in the private sector , a clerical officer for example cannot realistically expect to ever earn 50 k so its pointless to bring such a figure into the debate

ps , im not saying you personally are a clerical officer

My point really was "average" doesn't equal "most common", most public sector workers don't earn €50k and most don't take 14 days sick leave, these figures are just being used to get public support.

jimmmy

lily lou wrote: »

My point really was "average" doesn't equal "most common", most public sector workers don't earn €50k and most don't take 14 days sick leave,

Possibly true, but we do know for definite the average public sector annual salary is €50k and the average number of sick leave days is 14 : some take more and some take less. Thats why an average is an average. The governments Central Statistics Office should - and does - know average public sector pay. Its currently 973 euro per week, up from 966 euro last time they measured it. Yes, some public servants earn less, and some earn more.

gaeilgegrinds

Eh...teachers do NOT earn that. I've never taken a sick day. My mother taught for 29 years, took a total of 6 days. SOME teachers in our school take a long time. Two took sixty days last year. There you go, my take on averages.

MaceFace

gaeilgegrinds wrote: »

Eh...teachers do NOT earn that. I've never taken a sick day. My mother taught for 29 years, took a total of 6 days. SOME teachers in our school take a long time. Two took sixty days last year. There you go, my take on averages.

Just reminded me of something I heard here recently.
A teacher who was on maternity leave and was due back in Sep or Oct (I think) decided to go back in June on the first day holidays started so they got full pay for the summer and then took the rest of their leave from Sep.

gaeilgegrinds

Well I for one am certainly taking sick leave for 2 weeks before my maternity. My school would not be a safe place for a heavily pregnant woman. I obviously can't comment on other people. And that extra leave is not for my sake, for my baby's.

mickoneill30

gaeilgegrinds wrote: »

Well I for one am certainly taking sick leave for 2 weeks before my maternity. My school would not be a safe place for a heavily pregnant woman. I obviously can't comment on other people. And that extra leave is not for my sake, for my baby's.

Ehm, couldnt you couldn't take holidays as you're not actually sick? If it's swine flu you're worried about the vaccination scheme starts next Monday.

In one post you're saying you've never taken a sick day to show how the averages don't affect everybody.
In the next post you say you're going to take 10 days sick leave. Not really helping your case there.

How are you going to get a sick cert?

whatwaytovote

I bought my first house for £56000. I had a first time buyers grant of £3000. The grant which was supposed to aid or encourage first time buyers to invest in a house was swallowed up by a similar rise in house prices. As potential buyers saught wage rises to counter the most recent rise in house prices, the auctioneers and property speculators pushed their prices up. The public sector started to look at what was happening. They could not afford to keep up with the rise in house prices and so asked their union to negotiate for them. Benchmarking! Benchmarking was designed to help the Garda, Nurse, and other civil service employees to buy their first house. The predatory nature of business people on this island or maybe every island saw them putting prices up to net some of this income. Not happy with selling more to a rising population, they saught to increase their proffit margin. We ended up paying excessive prices for something available on the european mainland and the UK at a considerably cheaper price. So here we are now. The building boom is over. We have a decreased income and we are borrowing to stay afloat. We want someone to blame. We cannot seem to get satisfaction. The Government were given your mandate to lead and by god they are going to try and dig themselves and some of their cronies out no matter what the cost. After all you can struggle by on that pension in Europe if needs be. NAMA! That is how we will bail out the banks. Price Hikes in insurance on some increased claims pretext is what we will be done to get rid of some of the losses of the insurance companys. What about the rest of the business sector? The wifes Merc still has to be changed, the golf, the holidays. They all have to be payed for. Thats easy, just cut staff, then pay, then make the ones that are left work harder after all they are lucky to have a job. (WHO SAYS SO? The papers, the radio presenters. THATS WHO! The papers are the last bastion of unbiased reporting. At least you can rely on a hungry journalist or reporter to go looking for the truth. Hungry! They dont look to hungry to me. Investagative Journalisim! Do you remember the concept. A journalist driven by a desire to get to the truth, probed a news worthy item from all sides. Anyway the journalist is no longer as independent as he would have us believe. His office is supplied by media mogul he works for. The same mogul that owns the phone company, the insurance company, the radio station, he even owns their opinion, after all they ARE on the payroll.) How do we bring prices back in line with our EU counterparts. We can regulate the public sector but the private has proven to be too influenced by profit to regulate itself. We have to take the money out of the economy by increasing income tax for all and reducing Vat. Retailers will be forced to reduce prices. The cost of living should go down. Some retailers will be lost as they struggle with their landlords to reduce rents but the landlords will eventually reduce rent also. It's happening in the housing market. A retailer can no longer expect to make the profit margin he once did. Is it cheaper to support a failing farmer with grants who declared that they have only earned an income of 8000euro per annum? Wouldent it be cheaper to put him on the dole and rent his land to a bigger farmer that finds it cost effective to work the land for a profit.

gaeilgegrinds

Past tense. No days taken.

Future tense. Will do for the sake of my baby. I have to take sick leave in order not to go in and so it is certified to pay another teacher. Teachers often get hit and pushed in my school. One had a firework thrown at her last week, another was stabbed with a pen, hardly suitable for a heavily pregnant woman.

As for being worried about swine flu, it's rampant in our school. I'm booked in to get my jab Tues. My better half is a doctor, doubt he'd let any harm come to either of us, he claims we'll be fine.

gaeilgegrinds

I just reread that post, since when can teachers just take two weeks holidays ad hoc? Hardly not considering we get so much off anyway!

Stark

whatwaytovote wrote: »

I bought my first house for £56000. I had a first time buyers grant of £3000. The grant which was supposed to aid or encourage first time buyers to invest in a house was swallowed up by a similar rise in house prices. As potential buyers saught wage rises to counter the most recent rise in house prices, the auctioneers and property speculators pushed their prices up. The public sector started to look at what was happening. They could not afford to keep up with the rise in house prices and so asked their union to negotiate for them. Benchmarking! Benchmarking was designed to help the Garda, Nurse, and other civil service employees to buy their first house. The predatory nature of business people on this island or maybe every island saw them putting prices up to net some of this income. Not happy with selling more to a rising population, they saught to increase their proffit margin. We ended up paying excessive prices for something available on the european mainland and the UK at a considerably cheaper price. So here we are now. The building boom is over. We have a decreased income and we are borrowing to stay afloat. We want someone to blame. We cannot seem to get satisfaction. The Government were given your mandate to lead and by god they are going to try and dig themselves and some of their cronies out no matter what the cost. After all you can struggle by on that pension in Europe if needs be. NAMA! That is how we will bail out the banks. Price Hikes in insurance on some increased claims pretext is what we will be done to get rid of some of the losses of the insurance companys. What about the rest of the business sector? The wifes Merc still has to be changed, the golf, the holidays. They all have to be payed for. Thats easy, just cut staff, then pay, then make the ones that are left work harder after all they are lucky to have a job. (WHO SAYS SO? The papers, the radio presenters. THATS WHO! The papers are the last bastion of unbiased reporting. At least you can rely on a hungry journalist or reporter to go looking for the truth. Hungry! They dont look to hungry to me. Investagative Journalisim! Do you remember the concept. A journalist driven by a desire to get to the truth, probed a news worthy item from all sides. Anyway the journalist is no longer as independent as he would have us believe. His office is supplied by media mogul he works for. The same mogul that owns the phone company, the insurance company, the radio station, he even owns their opinion, after all they ARE on the payroll.) How do we bring prices back in line with our EU counterparts. We can regulate the public sector but the private has proven to be too influenced by profit to regulate itself. We have to take the money out of the economy by increasing income tax for all and reducing Vat. Retailers will be forced to reduce prices. The cost of living should go down. Some retailers will be lost as they struggle with their landlords to reduce rents but the landlords will eventually reduce rent also. It's happening in the housing market. A retailer can no longer expect to make the profit margin he once did. Is it cheaper to support a failing farmer with grants who declared that they have only earned an income of 8000euro per annum? Wouldent it be cheaper to put him on the dole and rent his land to a bigger farmer that finds it cost effective to work the land for a profit.

I didn't read any of this but I hope you're in a position to afford paragraphs at some stage in the future.

irish_bob

lily lou wrote: »

My point really was "average" doesn't equal "most common", most public sector workers don't earn €50k and most don't take 14 days sick leave, these figures are just being used to get public support.

im sorry but the average public sector wage is just south of 50 k per year so the average ps worker does indeed make 50 k per year

whatwaytovote

Perhaps you could read a bit and suggest a few? No?

Riskymove

irish_bob wrote: »

im sorry but the average public sector wage is just south of 50 k per year so the average ps worker does indeed make 50 k per year

that's just plain wrong and a continuing attempt to portray something thats not correct

"the average public sector wage" is a statistical fact

"the average ps worker" is a nonsense term, there is no such thing

the likelihood is that there are more earning below the average figure than there is people earning above it

My point really was "average" doesn't equal "most common"

exactly

ardmacha

im sorry but the average public sector wage is just south of 50 k per year so the average ps worker does indeed make 50 k per year

It says nothing of the sort. Nor does it say the proportion of PS workers that earn more or less than €50K.

S.L.F

jimmmy wrote: »

HSE staff take 19 sickies a year.

Not sure about you but I'd much perfer that when I'm having an operation my surgeon isn't coughing all over me while performing surgery.

An extreme example of course but I'm sure since you do the same thing it's not so bad.

Just to be fair to all you said

HSE staff take 19 sickies a year.

The word "sickies" implies the sick leave taken was for non-medical reasons, are you implying that the entire health service take sickies when they aren't sick.

*******************************************************

On a different note the mention of the number of days (14 for women and 8 for men) has disturbed me, I know someone who was sick from a Thursday to a Monday (sick Thurs, Fri and Monday), in the private service this is taken as 3 days but in the public service this is taken as 5 days even though they don't work on the weekends.

mikemac

MaceFace wrote: »

Just reminded me of something I heard here recently.
A teacher who was on maternity leave and was due back in Sep or Oct (I think) decided to go back in June on the first day holidays started so they got full pay for the summer and then took the rest of their leave from Sep.

Not condoning it now but that's genius

S.L.F

ardmacha wrote: »

It says nothing of the sort. Nor does it say the proportion of PS workers that earn more or less than €50K.

Not to mention the fact that some are cleaners others are admin for 100,000 people but the average wage is still €50,000.

The big problem is the huge range of careers that are in the PS, police, army, health, architects, engineers, librarians, clerical, solicitors, judges, politicians etc etc all on different rates of pay and in all the different sectors they can be on different pay scales and on different grades.

I have often wondered if they included the likes of the semi-state bodies in the average wage of PS if they did this would push up the average by quite a lot

Paulzx

MaceFace wrote: »

Just reminded me of something I heard here recently.
A teacher who was on maternity leave and was due back in Sep or Oct (I think) decided to go back in June on the first day holidays started so they got full pay for the summer and then took the rest of their leave from Sep.

I love all these anecdotal bulls**t stories. It is not possible to split maternity leave with a 3 month gap in the middle. Even when you finish paid maternity leave and want to take the statuatory unpaid maternity it must continue straight after without a break.

lily lou

irish_bob wrote: »

im sorry but the average public sector wage is just south of 50 k per year so the average ps worker does indeed make 50 k per year

Yes but average doesn't equal majority.

Tipp Man

S.L.F wrote: »

I have often wondered if they included the likes of the semi-state bodies in the average wage of PS if they did this would push up the average by quite a lot

Well as far as i'm aware the wages in the ESB are the highest of any utilites company in Europe. I think the average wage there is 76k so in answer to your question probably yes

Mr Yellow

Any 1 know how to get one of these radiator sitting coffee drinking jobs??? hahaa I promise to take only a few 'sickies'..... Cant promise with the swine flu tho....

aftermn

There is lots wrong with the public sector.

In my experience, there is also lots wrong with the private sector, often different types of wrong, but wrong non the less.

Many years ago I worked on the buses. It was the very start of the 'value for money' mania. Staff suggestions to cut loss making routes and increase money spinners were accepted by menegement but shot down by politicians.

Who elected the politicians?

S.L.F

Tipp Man wrote: »

Well as far as i'm aware the wages in the ESB are the highest of any utilites company in Europe. I think the average wage there is 76k so in answer to your question probably yes

This is one of the problems with the ERSI report the ESB, RTE, Bord Na Mona, Bord Gas etc etc are not paid by the dept of finance they are paid from money earned by the semi-state bodies themselves.

So by including them in the report it skews the average wage upwards.

jimmmy

I wonder if the sickies rate in "the ESB, RTE, Bord Na Mona, Bord Gas etc etc " are the private sector average or the much higher public service average ?

mspacman

KevinH wrote: »

So 2/5 civil servants take 0 days a year. Assuming this holds true for women and men it means that the women who do take sick leave average 23.33 days a year and men who do take sick leave average 13.33 days a year.

These figures suggest to me that there is a relatively small number of women and men who absolutely take the p1ss with sick days and drive the average up for everybody.

Exactly. I have been working in the public sector for the past three years and have only taken one sick day. And actually as it happens, I'm only entitled to four paid sick days per year.

Get over yourselves you lot. It's just driven by the media, more anti-public sector b******s! Inform yourselves correctly before constantly launching on us.

It is the those public sector workers at the top of the scale you should be chasing up. The CEO's, the university presidents, now...the bank managers!!!! Not us lower paid, bottom of the scale public sector workers!!!

jimmmy

mspacman wrote: »

Exactly. I have been working in the public sector for the past three years and have only taken one sick day.

The statistics are taken from hundreds of thousands of people : of course there are people who take less sick days like your good self. O.P. : "The average woman working in state departments was absent 14 days, while the average man was off for eight days, almost double the rate of absence in the private sector."

mspacman wrote: »

It's just driven by the media,

As I heard someone say recently "terribe ting, dat terrible media, quoting dem statistics at de ordinary public servant". lol