My outrage at some members of the public service

Scofflaw

ck3960 wrote: »

I spent 4 years in uni and I have met some Irish firefighters and most say they are in a dangerous job but the money is way too much. They surely can't be on more money than highly educated people. I spend 4 years in Uni and now in management now but I'm not even close to 50k after 2 years
There is something not right there!

so you did 4 yrs uni, have 2 years experience and arent close to 50k,

compare that to me
i have a 4 year honours science degree, followed by an 18 month higher diploma (both specifically required for my job) i have 3 and a half years experience. the most i will ever earn will be 42,000 (after 20 years continous service) yes i do shift work (13hr shifts) and get premiums, namely:
time and 1/6th from 6pm until midnight
for doing a week of night shifts (7 twelve hour shifts) i get extra 240e
double pay sundays
and 14 euro extra for each saturday.
monthly tax, prsi, levies etc- amount to 1200 euro each month..
i come out with around 2500 a month,
its a good thing i like my job, its the only thing holding me in it at the moment.

That's what you get for choosing science, I'm afraid. It's why science has all those "science outreach" and "get kids interested in scientific careers" efforts while financial services doesn't.

cordially,
Scofflaw

P. Breathnach

gurramok wrote: »

In other words, for you pushing the subject matter, i have searched to put this one to bed. Have a gander. The statement of the pension levy as a paycut is everywhere on boards so i dug deeper to find those who give a % deduction...

And you did not find one that claimed that it was a cut to net pay.

Might I remind you of the point I challenged?

We have PS workers who always quote 'my take home pay is down 7%+ due to the pension levy" which is misleading as its gross pay and their take home pay itself is affected by the tax relief on that pension levy which brings that % lower so can we agree on this?

I have bolded the bit that provoked my challenge. It now looks to me as if you cannot back up your claim.

Sneakee

seclachi wrote: »

Oh come on, he got a 150 marks in his leaving cert ? This sort of comment makes me rage.. I got 250 points in my leaving which many would consider crap too. Well let me tell you something, my main interest in life was always IT, and doing the leaving half a decade ago there wasnt a single IT subject, closest thing I had was engineering (I cant imagine it is much better now). I didnt have a massive interest in the other subjects, which were uninteresting to me. I also got dicked over by a poor maths teach who left me with a massive gap in maths. I went on to do electronics in college which I found pretty tough thanks to my poor maths, but I stuck at it, college is full of academic bull anyway, it ended up being a case of learning off how to do exampapers, I felt pretty self confident as I had so much trouble with the maths.

Then I went on to do a work placement in an IT area, I was fantasticly lucky as a I got to work with some guys who were interested in helping a student out, and they treated me pretty much as an equal. I found that my lifetime of working with computers as a hobby had paid off and I was able actually help out seasoned engineers with VB scripts etc. I was even asked if I was top of my class, which I was pretty far from. I managed to come back another year for a college project and the combined experiance helped me get a fantastic job.

People with there stupid judgements based off one or two facts need to f**k off, I`m so sick of it, like the OP, he takes one look at his mates check, looks at his job as a fireman and thinks hes undeserving, do you know him everyday ? are you his boss ? The guy who got 150 points, maybe he was just s**t at school subjects, if your a civil engineer you have like 3 subjects, TD, Woodworking and engineering, you could be crap at the rest, how much does french relate to it ? Maybe he went to college afterwords and was a H1 student ? Maybe he wasnt but when it came to actually doing the job instead of acidemic BS he turned out to be fantastic !?

The fact you mentioned the leaving cert tipped me over the edge, it such a f**king joke really, if everybody in the college wanted to go on to do a humanitys degree it would be fine, but what use is it to other specializations, especially IT or engineers ?

The leaving Cert is designed as a standard to compare people, if you angry at it be angry at the system not me! What else have I got to compare people with. Should I compare wages, does high wages mean they are better than me??? Is that how I should be comparing people on one another??? Does a prison guard who is out of Secondary school who may not be as intelligent as me or anyone deserve to be on more money than me?

Look at every public job in Ireland, prison guards,Teachers, police, nurses, fire fighters, etc compare them to their counterparts in the United States and you see the divide! The American techers, police, nurses, etc are on far less a wage even in expensive cities such as New York than any of their Irish counter parts...You tell me why???? Cost of living is not the reason! Why is Ireland the only country to be over generous to their public servants?

The person who did get those marks was not the most intelligent person but was hard manual labourer...Lovely guy and he freely admits to not being the smartest guy.

In fairness now, I'm surprised you still went for that area despite the high level of maths needed. You worked at it so I commend you.

ck3960

Scofflaw wrote: »

That's what you get for choosing science, I'm afraid. It's why science has all those "science outreach" and "get kids interested in scientific careers" efforts while financial services doesn't.

cordially,
Scofflaw

i'm not a scientist
i'm a midwife

jimmmy

A lot of public servants whinge their take home pay is down by 50 a week or whatever due to the pension levy..they forget to say this is money they are paying to those who currently are on the public service gravy train, and that ( God willing ) their day to hop on the very same gravy train will come too.

Scofflaw

bluefinger wrote: »

Just for clarity, does anyone know the basic wage for a firefighter after three years. I earned approx 30k when in college in a customer service position because i basically worked every unsociable hour i could. 50k is a bit of a red herring tbh.

From the original benchmarking report:

Fire-fighters
8.6 The Fire Service, of which the fire-fighter is one of five grades, is primarily concerned with the protection of life and property from destruction by fire. In Dublin, however, fire-fighters are also trained to carry out the functions of emergency ambulance services.

8.7 The Body examined the basic grade of full-time Fire-fighter. The following salary level is recommended:

Full-time Fire-fighter

Existing Salary
€19,224 — €22,749 — €24,918 — €27,100 — €29,268 — €29,960 — €31,741* — €33,056* — €34,5451*

Recommended Salary % increase
€20,185 — €23,886 — €26,165 — €28,455 — €30,731 — €31,458 — €33,328* — €34,709* — €36,2721*

* long service increments payable after 3, 5, and 11 years

Numbers in that grade: 854

[EDIT]Note that that's full-time firefighters - which is largely the cities. Most of the country is covered by 'Retained Fire-fighters'. (cf. Riskymove)[/EDIT]

cordially,
Scofflaw

jimmmy

Sneakee wrote: »

Look at every public job in Ireland, prison guards,Teachers, police, nurses, fire fighters, etc compare them to their counterparts in the United States and you see the divide! The American techers, police, nurses, etc are on far less a wage even in expensive cities such as New York than any of their Irish counter parts...You tell me why???? Cost of living is not the reason! Why is Ireland the only country to be over generous to their public servants?

Beccause Bertie bent over for the public service unions, and because during the boom (A) our country continued to get billions of handouts from the EC ( our government created a property bubble , and collected tens of billions from stamp duty + other taxes and threw the money at itself and its own employees / retired employees.

Scofflaw

ck3960 wrote: »

i'm not a scientist
i'm a midwife

I stand corrected - apologies for the assumption! Your experience mirrors the experience of those I know who stayed in science (I started in science, and moved to IT).

cordially,
Scofflaw

i57dwun4yb1pt8

yep keep on arguing about it all while the government ride you in to the ground and sell your country out from under you .

if we all directed this inane moaning at each other into a concerted public hanging of the cabinet - i think we'd get the country back on track fairly sharpish

Riskymove

Scofflaw wrote: »

Numbers in that grade: 854

for clarity

thats fulltime fire fighters only

most of the country are covered by retained firefighters

gurramok

Riskymove wrote: »

But as I say surely its the same for everyone

If a private sector worker says he took a 10% pay cut...I assume he means a gross pay cut....I dont jump on him telling him he's dishonest as he doesn't account for the tax changes etc meaning his take home reduction is less than 10%

That 10% the private sector worker takes, he generally never gets any of it back via tax changes.
Thats different to the pension levy which has been touted as a paycut as it has tax relief.

dresden8 wrote: »

I trust you will be taking all these dishonest private sector workers to task about them exaggerating their paycuts and reminding them to use the percentage nett of tax et al.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055742602

I don't see exaggerations there, point them out in specific posts.

gurramok

P. Breathnach wrote: »

And you did not find one that claimed that it was a cut to net pay.

Might I remind you of the point I challenged?

I have bolded the bit that provoked my challenge. It now looks to me as if you cannot back up your claim.

Haha funny man. They stated paycuts, when in fact those paycuts were really half of what they were using tax relief.

Sneakee

I have Certs in Biology and Food Science and a degree in Biopharmacuetical Science(Medical devices, etc). I work now in lower management in an exciting move for me away from lab work into a struggling food industry.
I've done some exciting stuff in the company and they saw my potential to pull me out of the lab.
I still feel that the public servants are overpaid and the government simply kept them quiet with wage increases to favour votes. End of......The wages must fall!

Riskymove

gurramok wrote: »

That 10% the private sector worker takes, he generally never gets any of it back via tax changes.
Thats different to the pension levy which has been touted as a paycut as it has tax relief.

ah the old move the goalposts when you dont have an answer tactic

gurramok

Riskymove wrote: »

ah the old move the goalposts when you dont have an answer tactic

Nope, the truth. It's in the table. That paycut does not affect the private sector, they get none of their paycuts back.

seclachi

Sneakee wrote: »

The leaving Cert is designed as a standard to compare people, if you angry at it be angry at the system not me! What else have I got to compare people with. Should I compare wages, does high wages mean they are better than me??? Is that how I should be comparing people on one another??? Does a prison guard who is out of Secondary school who may not be as intelligent as me or anyone deserve to be on more money than me?

Look at every public job in Ireland, prison guards,Teachers, police, nurses, fire fighters, etc compare them to their counterparts in the United States and you see the divide! The American techers, police, nurses, etc are on far less a wage even in expensive cities such as New York than any of their Irish counter parts...You tell me why???? Cost of living is not the reason! Why is Ireland the only country to be over generous to their public servants?

The person who did get those marks was not the most intelligent person but was hard manual labourer...Lovely guy and he freely admits to not being the smartest guy.

In fairness now, I'm surprised you still went for that area despite the high level of maths needed. You worked at it so I commend you.

The leaving cert is a measure of academic worth, and a poor one at that. Civil engineering can be a hands on job as well as academic, the person you mentioned might be able to take one look at a building and give a far better estimation of it that somebody will all the LC points in the world.

I wouldnt compare your friend unless I worked alongside him and knew for a fact he was crap, the fact he got 150 points in some test a decade ago is meaningless.

I think the the frontline PS workers make very poor targets, If you pulled a 100 people off the street you`d be hard pressed to find some who would seriosuly want to be a prison guard or fireman, they can be threatening jobs.

The biggest problem with the public sector is the management, they sat back and let it grow and grow out of proportion, the government had to know stamp duty would never last and it would all come to a griding halt, but instead they went for the short term and tried to please the punters.

I dont disagree that it has to be cut though, its obvious, the people out protesting are in la-la land. If the government was a private company it would be absolutly slash and burn at this point, unfortunatly no government can restort to that as the services are so vital. But at this stage it looks like there is no other choice.

To be honest if I was in Cowens shoes Id be leaving the vitals til last and start hitting up stuff like RTE, I think the country would survive well enough without alot of its junk.

Riskymove

gurramok wrote: »

Nope, the truth. It's in the table. That paycut does not affect the private sector, they get none of their paycuts back.

that has nothing to do with what we were talking about...you have simply gone off on a tangent

on your logic a private sector worker who says he got a 10% pay cut is dishonest


but I disagree

seclachi

Sneakee wrote: »

In fairness now, I'm surprised you still went for that area despite the high level of maths needed. You worked at it so I commend you.

Thats my point, people arent black and white, they arent a known quantity. Id recommend looking closer at people if your getting into management, otherwise you`ll step on alot of toes.

gurramok

Riskymove wrote: »

that has nothing to do with what we were talking about...you have simply gone off on a tangent

on your logic a private sector worker who says he got a 10% pay cut is dishonest


but I disagree

Eh no. The PS worker says he got a 9% paycut when in fact it was probably about 4%.
The private sector worker gets a 9% cut with none of it back, its 9%, big difference.

Riskymove

gurramok wrote: »

Eh no. The PS worker says he got a 9% paycut when in fact it was probably about 4%.
The private sector worker gets a 9% cut with none of it back, its 9%, big difference.

but a 9% cut in gross pay is not a 9% cut in net pay

P. Breathnach

gurramok wrote: »

Haha funny man. They stated paycuts, when in fact those paycuts were really half of what they were using tax relief.

Deal with my challenge: can you back up your specific claim that "We have PS workers who always quote 'my take home pay is down 7%+ due to the pension levy"?

Or can I infer that you are making things up? I don't want to be forced to conclude that you are telling lies.

TheDoc

Absurdum wrote: »

So because a civil engineer did a few years in college it automatically entitles them to earn more than someone who may not have?

Officialy now the most unbelieveable comment I have ever read on boards.

gurramok

Riskymove wrote: »

but a 9% cut in gross pay is not a 9% cut in net pay

That depends, the PS get some of it back via tax relief, you seem not to be able to comprehend that.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Deal with my challenge: can you back up your specific claim that "We have PS workers who always quote 'my take home pay is down 7%+ due to the pension levy"?

Or can I infer that you are making things up? I don't want to be forced to conclude that you are telling lies.

Nope, i gave examples. Read them again. They said 'i've taken a paycut of x%' when in fact it was really a paycut of x%-(tax relief%).

Scofflaw

Riskymove wrote: »

Eh no. The PS worker says he got a 9% paycut when in fact it was probably about 4%.
The private sector worker gets a 9% cut with none of it back, its 9%, big difference.

but a 9% cut in gross pay is not a 9% cut in net pay

In neither case, presumably - but the results are still different depending on whether it's public or private sector, I think. Can someone work out the difference in net pay between the following:

1. Public Sector worker on €50,000 gross, talking about the reduction caused by a 7% pension levy, on which pension relief is payable

2. Private Sector worker on €50,000 gross, talking about a 7% cut in gross pay.

I presume in the first case tax is still payable on the €50,000 gross, whereas in the latter case tax is now payable on the new gross of €46,500. In neither case will the 7% cut in gross pay equate to a 7% cut in net pay.

Surely it's better to work out the difference than to continue squabbling over the meaning?

cordially,
Scofflaw

ck3960

jimmmy wrote: »

Beccause Bertie bent over for the public service unions, and because during the boom (A) our country continued to get billions of handouts from the EC ( our government created a property bubble , and collected tens of billions from stamp duty + other taxes and threw the money at itself and its own employees / retired employees.

fact:
eg a paed icu nurse here earns 39,000- 42,000 pa
if this nurse moved to states she would earn a little under 100,000 us dollars,

why????
because they are highly educated (4th level) highly skilled, are in high demand. simples.
i do get so frustrated. i work bloody hard for my measly salary. where i work is so shortstaffed that when this "strike" goes ahead next tuesday the "skeleton" staff required to be on for emergency cover is the exactly the same number as every other day of the week!!! its at a level now where its frequently unsafe- but we get on with it. sign our name to the patients care and hope we can run around fast enough to make sure everything is okay. this isn't what i signed up for, i love the work i do but i often am really frustrated by the fact that we don't have the time to do our job properly. and at the end of the day its unfortunately the patients who suffer.

you want to talk about a waste of money then heres one
my training altogether cost the government 96,000 euros
when i qualified as a nurse, 25% of my class left the profession for greener pastures. when i qualified as a midwife only 6 out of 25 could be offered a contract (a temporary 6 month contract). a lot went abroad. talk about a brain drain.

so its off to australia i reckon. a nice wage, nice working conditions with a bit of sunshine. sounds good

P. Breathnach

gurramok wrote: »

... Nope, i gave examples. Read them again. They said 'i've taken a paycut of x%' when in fact it was really a paycut of x%-(tax relief%).

I saw your examples. They do not support your claim. When you said that "We have PS workers who always quote 'my take home pay is down 7%+ due to the pension levy" you were telling a lie.

I don't expect that you will admit to it.

murphaph

American medical staff get paid a fortune because they have to contribute a fortune to their education! Becoming a doctor etc. in the US costs a hundred thousand dollars+

That money is borrowed and needs repaying somehow, so they charge a lot for their services.

Our doctors are trained for free, at the cost of the taxpayer (a GOOD thing) but then paid over the top by the same tax payer (a BAD thing).

If we pay to train our doctors they should be contractually obliged to work in Ireland at normal rates of pay for ca. 15 years. If they break the contract they should be liable to repay the costs of their training. End of brain drain.

Johnboymac

For those who have not already seen this article, finally some one in the media making sense.
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

meditraitor

ck3960 wrote: »

fact:
eg a paed icu nurse here earns 39,000- 42,000 pa
if this nurse moved to states she would earn a little under 100,000 us dollars,

€42,000 = $62,790



Not the states! a state, the only state a nurse can possibly earn $100,000 is California. and this is from a starting point of $49,132 which is €32k

Dont let facts get in the way of a good rant

jimmmy

Does the
Irish Examiner article mention that the
public service in Ireland is so overpaid and the government
cannot continue to borrow to pay them ?