Should the fire brigade be allowed to strike

Blackbolt19

nesf wrote: »

The Army cannot strike, further to that they can't have anything resembling a union. Doctors, nurses et al can strike but I think they are required to provide emergency cover by law (though I could be wrong and this might just be convention/tradition/agreement between the unions and the Government).

Its an agreement between the unions and the government.

No problem with the agreement per say, just the sting in the tail. If all PS workers go on strike office staff, road workers and all the rest exept emergency service workers will be in a position to stay away from work but firefighters will be working basically as normal and due to the agreement between the unions and government (which none of us ever heard about until the threatened strike last year) we will be working and not getting paid for doing it.

Now take a look at it this way, no matter where you work or what you do if you boss walks in and says to you that you will be working tomorrow but I am not going to pay you and you have no choice in the matter what would you do?? If a strike (which I personally do not agree with) does go ahead and it lasts for, say, two weeks, whet you end up with is a section of public service workers doing their jobs, as I said, basically as normal and not getting paid.


there was also a comment in the thread (sorry I forgot to quote it) about the wages of firefighters. Maybe the poster did not know this but the vast majority of firefighters in Irleland and are retained or as they are normally referred to "part time" firefighters , (although how being on duty 24/7/365 is part time is beyond me). retained firefighters earn no where near the amount quoted. As for the "huge pension" that ALL public servants get, I hate to drop this one in but retained firefighters do not get a pension even though they are paying the pension levy. What thet get is a once off gratuity that amounts to one years retainer for every eight years served capped at 4 reatiners.

Someone once did out some simple figures on this. Two public sector workers, each on €25000 a year with 25 years to go, (thats very high and rare for a retained firefighter to earn that much).The no firefighter pays the pension levy as does the firefighter, on retirement the normal worker will get back every penny he paid into the levy within 6 years but the firefighter will never get it back, in fact he will have paid in €8,500 more than the cap allows him to recieve.

What I am trying to point out here is that not all the facts are coming out and every worker is not equal. There is a them and us argument going on and we have all fallen into the trap that the spin doctors have laid. The real them and us is not public sector vs private sector its workers vs government and the unions. It was their dodgy deals and bad management that got us into this in the first place and they have managed to divert us into fighting amoungst ourselves.

and before anyone points it out , there are probably spelling mistakes in this post and I know it already.