Union Officials - Pay Cuts?

murphaph

seclachi wrote: »

Fair enough, but after 11 years there is going to be a fair increase from inflation in any country. 26.5k is not much given the qualification I have heard.

To be honest, getting paid extra just because you have a qualification is silly, unless that qualification means you can actually do something that someone else can't.

seclachi wrote: »

My point is, there are plenty more people in the PS who are getting paid far more for less

Most probably. These individuals need to be found out but we haven't got the time or the resources to perform a root and branch review of who does what in our bloated public service. That will have to wait until we have at least stabilised the economy.

seclachi wrote: »

Im sure I read about how anpost just send redundant managers to an empty office to work and paid them the same crazy salary. How does that make sense ?

It doesn't of course. If it's true it's just more example of the lunacy that goes on in the public and semi state sector (like the admitted Iarnrod Eireann thief being given his job back!)

seclachi wrote: »

If all that BS is sorted and the payroll is still too high, only then I would advocate pay cuts for people on less than 30k.

See above-all that BS takes time to sort. Time we don't have, but it should be sorted as a matter of urgency. This recession, at least, has thrown the spotlight on all this waste to a degree never before seen.

Idbatterim

I was listening to the radio earlier and some politician or trade union leader was appalled at the Governments blaze attitude towards the PS stirke, I think their reaction is spot on! what do they want us to do, curl up into a little ball and quiver with fear! i couldnt care less about their strike, or their grievances! It wont affect me one bit! I really hope they have the spine to tackle the PS this time!

nesf

Zulu wrote: »

I've no problem standing up for what I believe.

Did you cross them while being a member of the union who is striking? It's very different to crossing it as a non-unionised worker or as a worker from a non-striking union.

danman

I've crossed picket lines in the past, and I would again.

The Brickies Union in Dublin constantly put picket lines outside various sites.
I always believed that they were vastly overpaid to begin with, to do a job that my 3 yearold can now do with Lego, so I, and many others, took pleasure in crossing their picket lines.

seclachi

murphaph wrote: »

To be honest, getting paid extra just because you have a qualification is silly, unless that qualification means you can actually do something that someone else can't.


Most probably. These individuals need to be found out but we haven't got the time or the resources to perform a root and branch review of who does what in our bloated public service. That will have to wait until we have at least stabilised the economy.


It doesn't of course. If it's true it's just more example of the lunacy that goes on in the public and semi state sector (like the admitted Iarnrod Eireann thief being given his job back!)


See above-all that BS takes time to sort. Time we don't have, but it should be sorted as a matter of urgency. This recession, at least, has thrown the spotlight on all this waste to a degree never before seen.

Valid points, but I dont see the worth in hacking and slashing sub 30k earners wages. Taking 7% off a 30k worker as example(2100); The government would have to cut 50 workers pays to make up for one unless manager earning 100k. (Well maybe closer to 30 after tax).

I just dont get the whole job for life thing, job security is nice, but it ties there hands when it comes to cutting out the rot.

seclachi

danman wrote: »

I've crossed picket lines in the past, and I would again.

The Brickies Union in Dublin constantly put picket lines outside various sites.
I always believed that they were vastly overpaid to begin with, to do a job that my 3 yearold can now do with Lego, so I, and many others, took pleasure in crossing their picket lines.

Are you a fellow brickie though ? Its one thing to cross the picket if you dont work with them everyday, and another if you will be. I know though with the recent electrical union strike people with absolutely no relation to them were afraid to cross the picket at my place of business.

danman

Liam79 wrote: »

Very easy for you to say isnt it
:rolleyes:
she has to work with those people for the resst of her life! U really need to come out of the fog............

See, that is the type of statement the enrages those of us in the private sector.

A job for life.

Stark

murphaph wrote: »

To be honest, getting paid extra just because you have a qualification is silly, unless that qualification means you can actually do something that someone else can't.

I remember working a part-time job for my university while I was in college and postgraduate students would get paid more than undergraduates for IT work even though half of them were studying subjects like English and the undergraduates would be studying computer science and the like. Very annoying, especially if you were doing tech support callouts (more skilled) and they were simply supervising labs.

Liam79 wrote:

As my wife prepares to go on strike tomorrow, taking a days wages from her massive salary of 26,500 (which she spent 5 years in college to get)

Is she full-time?

danman

seclachi wrote: »

Are you a fellow brickie though ? Its one thing to cross the picket if you dont work with them everyday, and another if you will be. I know though with the recent electrical union strike people with absolutely no relation to them were afraid to cross the picket at my place of business.

Why?
What sort of dark macabre voodoo could the Union perform on fellow workers.

And yes, I did work alongside them everyday. I had no problem crossing their pickets because they were always looking for more money or to close their shop even more.

This is the main reason that Architects and design teams now design buildings with much less brick and blocks as in the past. Other methods are used, precast, concrete and metal stud.

One precast company started to make cladding panels that looked like a brick wall. A labourer placed bricks into a mould and concrete was poured over them. The union picketed the factory, saying that a brickey should be placing the bricks into the mould at a rate per brick. The company laughed them out and the workers crossed the picket everyday.

The Brickey Union priced themselves out of a lot of work in Dublin. They created a closed shop. They decided who worked for each company and at what cost. No one from outside the Pale was allowed to work on a site as a brickey.

The public sector unions should have a look at the brickey union and how their fellow workers felt about them. There is a correlation between the two.

nesf

Liam79 wrote: »

As my wife prepares to go on strike tomorrow, taking a days wages from her massive salary of 26,500 (which she spent 5 years in college to get), i was wondering....will Peter McLoone/Jack O'Connor/ David Begg etc also be taking a days pay cut....or is that just for the workers who "do what they are told" ??

Yeah but you have to account for her wage increasing automatically. In the private sector a similar worker may start on more but their salary is essentially fixed unless they move up in terms of responsibility and duties. In the public sector you might keep the same role and responsibilities for your career but your salary will increase dramatically over your career because of you going up points in the salary scale.

Liam79

Stark wrote: »

I remember working a part-time job for my university while I was in college and postgraduate students would get paid more than undergraduates for IT work even though half of them were studying subjects like English and the undergraduates would be studying computer science and the like. Very annoying, especially if you were doing tech support callouts (more skilled) and they were simply supervising labs.
Is she full-time?

Yes, full time Grade 3 Library Asst

Sizzler

Liam79 wrote: »

As my wife prepares to go on strike tomorrow, taking a days wages from her massive salary of 26,500 (which she spent 5 years in college to get), i was wondering....will Peter McLoone/Jack O'Connor/ David Begg etc also be taking a days pay cut....or is that just for the workers who "do what they are told" ??

Check my sig Liam, I think you might like it

Listen, those guys you have mentioned above (God I can't bring myself to type their names again ), they are milking the union system dry. They have no clue what the likes of your wife have to go through to earn a crust, they earn 125K+ in 2 of the above 3 cases, how could they possibly relate to any public sector worker earning 25-30K a year How any union member can have respect for these people is beyond me. They are only good for mouthing off in the mass media on an almost daily basis. If the unions disbanded tomorrow these guys wouldnt get a job selling hot dogs on Grafton St on a saturday night at closing time!

seclachi

danman wrote: »

Why?
What sort of dark macabre voodoo could the Union perform on fellow workers.

And yes, I did work alongside them everyday. I had no problem crossing their pickets because they were always looking for more money or to close their shop even more.

This is the main reason that Architects and design teams now design buildings with much less brick and blocks as in the past. Other methods are used, precast, concrete and metal stud.

One precast company started to make cladding panels that looked like a brick wall. A labourer placed bricks into a mould and concrete was poured over them. The union picketed the factory, saying that a brickey should be placing the bricks into the mould at a rate per brick. The company laughed them out and the workers crossed the picket everyday.

The Brickey Union priced themselves out of a lot of work in Dublin. They created a closed shop. They decided who worked for each company and at what cost. No one from outside the Pale was allowed to work on a site as a brickey.

The public sector unions should have a look at the brickey union and how their fellow workers felt about them. There is a correlation between the two.

I can imagine on some building sites there are people who set about making your life very uncomfortable for crossing a picket. It depends though on if they felt the strike was deserved or not.

I share your sentiment though, I dont have any union covering my back, I have to stand on my own two feet and if for any reason Im deemed unworthy I would be out the gap in 2 minutes. Not like some of the japes I have heard unions pulling over the years of getting grossly incompetent people back AND compensated for there trouble.

danman

seclachi wrote: »

I can imagine on some building sites there are people who set about making your life very uncomfortable for crossing a picket. It depends though on if they felt the strike was deserved or not.

They were only one of a lot of trades on a site. They wouldn't dare try to intimidate any of the other trades. No one on any of the sites I worked supported their strikes.

I've tried to remember their name, I think it's BATU.

Don't get me wrong, I've always believed in Unions, even though I've never joined one. None of the unions cover my perticular trade.
I've always had to negotiate my own wages.

But the way that the unions are playing the poor man is really getting on my wick.

Trampas

Are the unions going to pay their members on Tuesday who are striking?

Taxipete29

Trampas wrote: »

Are the unions going to pay their members on Tuesday who are striking?

Strike pay is usually reserved for long drawn out disputes as opposed to single days of action. The unions will seek to get that money paid to the workers in any negotiations they enter into. I would guess that if they get nothing else from the Govt, they will get this.

Gumbo

nesf wrote: »

Yeah but you have to account for her wage increasing automatically. In the private sector a similar worker may start on more but their salary is essentially fixed unless they move up in terms of responsibility and duties. In the public sector you might keep the same role and responsibilities for your career but your salary will increase dramatically over your career because of you going up points in the salary scale.

i wouldnt say dramatic increases to the normal worker.....im classed as a professional in my PS job and if i last the 13 years it will take me to get to the highest scale available i will be 10k better off.

when i worked in the private sector i went from 32k to 42k in one yearly review!

Zzippy

Rujib1 wrote: »

Sick of hearing of these lowish headline salary numbers for public service employees.
1. €26.5k is not low by a lot of private sector salaries. Try working in facory floors, fast food places, hotels, resturaunts, pubs, shops, department stores, agriculture, cleaning, talk centres etc,etc, That's over half the country.

In the private sector, jobs that require 5 years college/university are also better paid than all of those minimum wage, no qualifications required type jobs that you quoted. Are you saying she should be on minimum wage? Maybe you want all public servants on minimum wage? :rolleyes:

Rujib1 wrote: »

Shut up or get a real job in the private sector trenches.

How bout you shut up? Another one falling into the private vs public sh1te, the government has your leg well pulled.

dvpower

kceire wrote: »

i wouldnt say dramatic increases to the normal worker.....im classed as a professional in my PS job and if i last the 13 years it will take me to get to the highest scale available i will be 10k better off.

when i worked in the private sector i went from 32k to 42k in one yearly review!

That's the thing in the private sector; your salary can dramatically rise in the good times and dramatically fall (sometimes to zero) in the bad times.

In the public service this doesn't tend to happen; its a steady upward trajectory except in exceptional circumstances, like now, where a modest correction may be made.

wantolose

im cracking up, i work in the pubic sector, as does a few of my family , my husband included, my husband and i both work in the hospital, we didnt vote for this strike, and neither did alot of other peope that we work with vote for it, we will be down 2 days wages one of which is night duty, plus pay a babysitter, and we are not high earners in the public sector, we are on the bottom of the pecking order.

I just wish people would cop themselves on...there is no bloody money in the country, what is wrong with these clowns at the top of the unions??:mad: ps i dont give a dam what people think about me not voting for strike, because there are loads of people that didnt vote for it, but they are ****ting their pants to say it , incase they are bullied yes bullied by their fellow workers!:mad:

dresden8

wantolose wrote: »

there is no bloody money in the country,

You've been listening to rich people again.

nesf

kceire wrote: »

i wouldnt say dramatic increases to the normal worker.....im classed as a professional in my PS job and if i last the 13 years it will take me to get to the highest scale available i will be 10k better off.

when i worked in the private sector i went from 32k to 42k in one yearly review!

It's 10K out of approximately 40K final pay? The pay increases are approximately 1/4-1/3rd I think in most scales from bottom to top for most people I think. The thing is they're guaranteed and not performance related. You might be able to get far better increases in the private sector but they wouldn't be automatic and they would be subject to performance and goals etc.

Gumbo

nesf wrote: »

It's 10K out of approximately 40K final pay? The pay increases are approximately 1/4-1/3rd I think in most scales from bottom to top for most people I think. The thing is they're guaranteed and not performance related. You might be able to get far better increases in the private sector but they wouldn't be automatic and they would be subject to performance and goals etc.

that i do agree with, if it was performance related i would be boss by now
PMDS should come into incriments more, theres no point setting goals and then not doing anything about them.

nesf

kceire wrote: »

that i do agree with, if it was performance related i would be boss by now
PMDS should come into incriments more, theres no point setting goals and then not doing anything about them.

Exactly. What incentive is there for you to work hard when the laziest fecker in the department is getting the same increments and raises that you are? It's an idiotic system really.

wantolose

yes i agree with nesf, what is the incentive... well it depends, i worked in an office a public service one for about 8 months it was only a temp contract about 8 years ago, before that i had worked all my life in the private sector, both here in ireland and abroad, i could not believe the dossing for want of a better word that went on in that office , i was shocked, you were only in the door in the morning and it was almost break time and that quiclky led to lunch and sure then it was teatime again and sure then you were off home it was unreal and it goes on every day of the week in this country, but that all depends where you work, i am a nurse now, and by god you work your butt off, it is almost impossible to get things done and families on on your back all day....nagging, and there are loads of people sitting on there butts drinking tea and getting away with it, because nobody has the back bone to get up and say , get up of your lazy backside and do some work, because we live and breathe the unions, there are some people who think it is their right to come to work and arse about all day, i had a run in with a cleaner the other day because she didnt want to clean a spill (just water not bodily fluids), she went off her head, when she was asked if she wouldnt mind cleaning it...but no she did mind because she was a lazy lump........and then of course we have the suits dont get me started on them, there are managers for managers in the hse its a bloody joke, and none of them know what the other is at, its a bloody mess:mad:

To The North

wantolose wrote: »

im cracking up, i work in the pubic sector, as does a few of my family , my husband included, my husband and i both work in the hospital, we didnt vote for this strike, and neither did alot of other peope that we work with vote for it, we will be down 2 days wages one of which is night duty, plus pay a babysitter, and we are not high earners in the public sector, we are on the bottom of the pecking order.

I just wish people would cop themselves on...there is no bloody money in the country, what is wrong with these clowns at the top of the unions??:mad: ps i dont give a dam what people think about me not voting for strike, because there are loads of people that didnt vote for it, but they are ****ting their pants to say it , incase they are bullied yes bullied by their fellow workers!:mad:

the people at the top of the unions aren't clowns, i'm pretty sure they know exactly what they are doing. if the country really desperately needed these big cuts in the public sector so very badly & it was the only way to save the economy i seriously doubt they'd be wasting their members wages & efforts on a pointless crusade, they're not idiots and i don't believe they're really imbecilic enough to demand something that will actually break the back of the country, no one is. but they know that this is just the quick, dirty and easy way for the government to do it, so they're willing to help their members fight.

the possibility of a strike is what you take on when you become a member of a union, if you really seriously have a problem with the strike then leave the union, don't give them any more of your money. if your coworkers are bullying you for making a choice they don't agree with then report them to both their union and managers, people like that aren't worth your worry & should be reprimanded for behaving so horrendously.

at this stage i'm pretty sure most public servants have accepted that there will be some cuts, but they want to make sure they are applied fairly & wont be more than certain wage grades can handle. they also want to make sure that there wont be further job cuts as services are already under pressure and it's not even a full year into the 3 year moratorium on jobs. the whole country needs a functioning public service & job cuts are not going to help anything. i mean for example you've seen the huge waiting times for people trying to sign onto the dole, how are things like that going to get any better if there are further cuts in jobs?

i agree whole heartedly with nesf, what the public sector really needs is reform & a proper way for people to earn their increments, or not earn them as the case may be. the PMDS system at the moment is a complete waste of time & money, there's no point to it as the results of it go absolutely no where. i think there is a lot of bad management of money & resources, that desperately needs to change. it would do the whole country a lot of good if it were looked at properly.

at the moment they are talking about 6 - 8% cuts each year for the next 3 years. why not give 3 years of working towards reform? imagine what could be done in that time. i feel that severe cuts now will have a huge demoralising effect. if in three years time i'll be earning far less than when i started then there's no way i'm sticking around working in a system where there's little chance of promotion and no reason to be motivated, and i think that a lot of other young people like me will up and go leaving behind the older generations who seem to be (in my experience) the most resistant to reform.

sceptre

I've deleted some recent messages from the past two hours on this thread for being a silly personal exchange. Please take note that personal attacks based on someone's punctuation or diction are beneath the standard required for posting here. Relevant penalties have been applied. Please carry on in the absence of unnecessary personal insults.

Lemming

To The North wrote: »

at the moment they are talking about 6 - 8% cuts each year for the next 3 years. why not give 3 years of working towards reform?

The country has its back up against the wall, and unfortunately the luxury of having a go at reform and "ah sure we'll see how it goes" doesn't really cut it for the circumstances that we face as a nation. In short, time is not on our side and reform, whilst badly needed, will not in itself yield the savings needed.

i feel that severe cuts now will have a huge demoralising effect. if in three years time i'll be earning far less than when i started then there's no way i'm sticking around working in a system where there's little chance of promotion and no reason to be motivated, and i think that a lot of other young people like me will up and go leaving behind the older generations who seem to be (in my experience) the most resistant to reform.

No offense, but back in private-sector-land, the notion of keeping your job is reason enough for motivation among most people (or at least the general mood among everyone I know at any rate) right now ... And of course, welcome to the concept of "if you are not happy with your job, seek better conditions or leave". The rest of us have been dealing with it for years.

ixoy

Reform is, in an ideal world, a much nicer approach especially if it gets rid of dead wood. There's a number of problems with this though:

1) Unions would fiercely resist. They couldn't be seen to only be there for some of their members because otherwise people (even if they're crap at their job) wouldn't join.

2) It'd be expensive. You'd need to pay redundancy sums and if you're looking at getting rid of old dead wood this would be very expensive. You'd probably end up getting rid of the new entrants who might have been more amenable to reform.

It's a shame. I know a number of people - on a good wage - whose job, it would appear, is to read the Metro. These people are also the most vociferous about cutbacks yet I doubt there'd be any blip in the work done if their employment was terminated. I'd much prefer to fire three of these and save 120k and thus remove the need for a cut of 7% from 20 others. But alas this won't happen for the reasons above and so, to get the saving as quickly as possible, it's going to be a blanket pay cut and probably cutting into other areas as well.

To The North

Lemming wrote: »

The country has its back up against the wall, and unfortunately the luxury of having a go at reform and "ah sure we'll see how it goes" doesn't really cut it for the circumstances that we face as a nation. In short, time is not on our side and reform, whilst badly needed, will not in itself yield the savings needed.

it's a good point, but the fact that they're looking for cuts over a three year period suggests to me that this is not the emergency cut they claim it is. i think a lot of money could be saved through less severe cuts and reform in the same period.