Have the Public Servants won the dispute?

miju

omahaid wrote: »

How can it be a job loss if the people are on temporary contracts ? Surely they are temporary?

temporary or not it's someone who was in employment now no longer in employment and therefore not on the public payroll either (for the record alot of health sector nurses etc have been on a yearly rolling contract for years). is that not a job loss????

Son Of A Vidic

How will this fudge work? How will front line staff like Nurses, Gardai etc be able to take 20 days unpaid leave???? Another spineless back down from our amazing government, they just better not pass more 'Pain' unto the private sector or tax payers. We have suffered enough!

Drumpot

miju wrote: »

ya see it's not about me, me, me attitude it's about sharing the pain EVENLY and FAIRLY which is not happening in the main. CSO reports on private sector pay very clearly showed up that a couple of weeks ago.

There are more job losses in the public sector than you think and not through "natural wastage" pretty much 100% of temporary contracts are not being renewed and these workers are haemmoraging from the public sector as well well as "natural" wastage staff but don't let that get in the way of your rant.

My post was extreme, but IS the attitude of the militant public servants we see on tv all the time . .

They say "we feel sorry for those unemployed . . But " . . What about private sector workers on contracts ? In fact what has contracts anything to do with it ? You know exactly where you stand at the start of any contract. .Why should it be a stat thrown at us because its a public service job . .

And I do appreciate that people are struggling . . Im struggling myself, but I cant strike . . Im not particularly envious of those who can strike. In the last year I have had to adjust my budget over 30% to take into account several financial constraints (including my wife on short time , paycut and our first child). .

Between us we dont even make close to 50k , so I think you can see how we find Nurses complaining about "ONLY" being on 30k a little bit annoying . .. I hear people (public and private) complaining about struggling and then going on hols for a week! . . If you can go on hols for a week , you arent struggling . . Most people I know (public and private) havent made the appropriate cutbacks to save money. They talk about struggling but havent even made a budget!!

People in this country have absolutely no concept of whats going on economically. . And they dont want to . . People are glad to be led by self interested unions that are simply telling them what they want to hear. .

Even the usual populist jumping labour party arent saying that the public service cuts shouldnt happen . . Speaks for itself . .

erictheviking

medicman2009 wrote: »

How will this fudge work? How will front line staff like Nurses, Gardai etc be able to take 20 days unpaid leave???? Another spineless back down from our amazing government, they just better not pass more 'Pain' unto the private sector or tax payers. We have suffered enough!

:D:D
Or else what?:D:D:D

omahaid

Jamie-b wrote: »

.
It annoys me when people talk about the job security we all have when in reality a sizable portion of the public sector don't have any

I suppose when I would refer to job security in the PS, I would always talk about full time workers not contractors. In my company contractors are treated separately regardless of how long they have worked there.

On topic however, I think the lower paid PS workers will suffer more, a person on a small wage will feel the compulsory unpaid time off a lot more than PS workers on high salaries. Would it not have been fair for high paid PS workers to pay more? I think the PS unions have screwed over the low paid workers.

miju

medicman2009 wrote: »

How will this fudge work? How will front line staff like Nurses, Gardai etc be able to take 20 days unpaid leave???? Another spineless back down from our amazing government, they just better not pass more 'Pain' unto the private sector or tax payers. We have suffered enough!

it won't work. on paper it's €800m of "savings" but in reality it's not even half that as frontline staff according to union sources will be spared.

omahaid

miju wrote: »

temporary or not it's someone who was in employment now no longer in employment and therefore not on the public payroll either (for the record alot of health sector nurses etc have been on a yearly rolling contract for years). is that not a job loss????

No more than any contract finishing up, a temporary worker is a temporary worker. Why didn't they

miju wrote: »

well then you should have joined the public sector to be quite honest so why didnt you?

Jamie-b

suppose when I would refer to job security in the PS, I would always talk about full time workers not contractors. In my company contractors are treated separately regardless of how long they have worked there

Where I am a large chunk of the staff don't have permanant contracts but are staff nonetheless and many are there years. As you know it's hard to get rid of people in the public service so they just keep you rolling over on contract after contract, but then you're the first person out the door regardless of performance.

No more than any contract finishing up, a temporary worker is a temporary worker

They are not temporary in the usual sense of the word as the job keeps being renewed.

miju

Drumpot wrote: »

My post was extreme, but IS the attitude of the militant public servants we see on tv all the time . .

They say "we feel sorry for those unemployed . . But " . . What about private sector workers on contracts ? In fact what has contracts anything to do with it ? You know exactly where you stand at the start of any contract. .Why should it be a stat thrown at us because its a public service job . .

And I do appreciate that people are struggling . . Im struggling myself, but I cant strike . . Im not particularly envious of those who can strike. In the last year I have had to adjust my budget over 30% to take into account several financial constraints (including my wife on short time , paycut and our first child). .

Between us we dont even make close to 50k , so I think you can see how we find Nurses complaining about "ONLY" being on 30k a little bit annoying . .. I hear people (public and private) complaining about struggling and then going on hols for a week! . . If you can go on hols for a week , you arent struggling . . Most people I know (public and private) havent made the appropriate cutbacks to save money. They talk about struggling but havent even made a budget!!

People in this country have absolutely no concept of whats going on economically. . And they dont want to . . People are glad to be led by self interested unions that are simply telling them what they want to hear. .

Even the usual populist jumping labour party arent saying that the public service cuts shouldnt happen . . Speaks for itself . .

believe it or not I am FULLY in agreement with you on this. But I will say theres a hell of alot of people in the public sector who can't afford to strike either.

We don't get strike pay from the union so thats a whole days wages lost for me and quite frankly right now I coulda done with the days wages.

omahaid

Jamie-b wrote: »

Where I am a large chunk of the staff don't have permanant contracts but are staff nonetheless and many are there years. As you know it's hard to get rid of people in the public service so they just keep you rolling over on contract after contract, but then you're the first person out the door regardless of performance.

Are these staff members of a trade union?

seangal

hmmm wrote: »

If an argument is made that this can be implemented with no diminution of services, it means that the PS is overstaffed and numbers should be reduced. If they say it will impact on services then the cost overwhelmingly falls on the users of the services (longer waiting lists, more crime etc etc). The other scenario is where they have to hire in people to cover for those on unpaid leave which makes no sense.

This is a farcical idea and yet another cop out from the Government (the people who are supposed to run the country, not the unions).

why you so negative??
maybe it will cut the paybill for the short time to allow the older people to leave the ps who are allso the high paid in the ps
this will allow a younger PS and non replacement of staff that leave
this should lead to a better ps

miju

omahaid wrote: »

No more than any contract finishing up, a temporary worker is a temporary worker. Why didn't they

see this is the kind of private sector ****e reasoning that has alot of the public sector people saying "**** ya". arguing stupid semantics. the fact is simple someone no longer being paid to do a job by their employer (the government not any 3rd party contract) has lost their job plain and simple.

and besides they are not temporary workers in the normal sense they are simply on "rolling contracts" and have been for many years.

Jamie-b

Are these staff members of a trade union?

Some are some aren't. The use of consecutive fixed term contracts to avoid giving people permanent jobs has long been a gripe of the unions apparently- hasn't changed it as far as I can see

omahaid

miju wrote: »

see this is the kind of private sector ****e reasoning that has alot of the public sector people saying "**** ya". arguing stupid semantics. the fact is simple someone no longer being paid to do a job by their employer (the government not any 3rd party contract) has lost their job plain and simple.

How is it stupid semantics? Our company employed workers on years contract, but because of the downturn the contracts were not renewed. I know some of them, they took the job in the knowledge they were temporary. When the contracts weren't renewed they were disappointed but not surprised, they know the situation.

Seriously, are the PS that surprised that in a downturn that temporary workers are let go first? It was a temporary job, do I feel sorry for these people, course I do.

seangal

I am just wondering what I will do with all my free time
Like if I have to take 14 day unpaid
28 day annual leave and that excludes xmas time off
I don’t know it like another trip around the world

omahaid

Jamie-b wrote: »

Some are some aren't. The use of consecutive fixed term contracts to avoid giving people permanent jobs has long been a gripe of the unions apparently- hasn't changed it as far as I can see

To an outsider, it looks like in this case the trade unions looked after the top of the PS and the people at the bottom suffered most.

Drumpot

miju wrote: »

believe it or not I am FULLY in agreement with you on this. But I will say theres a hell of alot of people in the public sector who can't afford to strike either.

We don't get strike pay from the union so thats a whole days wages lost for me and quite frankly right now I coulda done with the days wages.

Part of the problem is that the public servants unions are coming across as very disingenuous and dismissive of the pain private sector workers have gone through . .

And private sector voices are coming across as dieing for public servants blood and uncaring about the pain public servants are currently feeling . .

I have been in arguements myself and know it gets dragged down to these kind of "debates" by one or both sides because its such an important issue for all parties involved . .

There are hundreds of thousands of lower/poor paid privates sector employees who will never get their voices heard like the public service machine. Thats where the bitterness stems from.

For what its worth, I tried to get a public service job in 2002 when I finished college and was up against 300 people for 15 positions. Im not saying this was the case in every Public service job, but it certainly begs the question, "was it simply the higher paid private sector employees who laughed at these jobs"...

The celtic tiger passed me and many many people I worked with, by . . I have plenty of qualifications and never earned more then 30k in over 8 years of experience (took 1 year out in college for work experience). .

Again, Im not saying that I represent every private sector worker, but I know that I represent a huge majority who have no union voice to represent them . .

AntiRip

well there's been a breakthrough apparently.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1201/partnership.html

looks like the tale is wagging the dog!

erictheviking

omahaid wrote: »

To an outsider, it looks like in this case the trade unions looked after the top of the PS and the people at the bottom suffered most.

Yes it does! I think the lower paid have been sold out!

Drumpot

omahaid wrote: »

To an outsider, it looks like in this case the trade unions looked after the top of the PS and the people at the bottom suffered most.

Welcome to capitalism (was referred to as feudalism in history class!) . . . . .

Jamie-b

To an outsider, it looks like in this case the trade unions looked after the top of the PS and the people at the bottom suffered most.

What annoys me is that I will lose my job when someone who is lazy or bad at their job keeps theirs (don't want to fuel the PS bashing! but I have encountered one or two)

Brewster

Yeah, effectively public servants are taking another paycut. There are some specialist grades in public sector that can't take their annual leave as it stands, let alone being forced to take more leave. These people simply won't bother taking it and it will end up as a straight forward paycut.

seangal

erictheviking wrote: »

Yes it does! I think the lower paid have been sold out!

well that depends on how it is put in place
if it is 10 day for lower paid and 14 days for higher paid they it might not be a sell out on the lower paid

diverdriver

The celtic tiger passed me and many many people I worked with, by . . I have plenty of qualifications and never earned more then 30k in over 8 years of experience (took 1 year out in college for work experience). .

Again, Im not saying that I represent every private sector worker, but I know that I represent a huge majority who have no union voice to represent them . .

You're not alone, it passed by most of the average workers out there. One of the myths was that everyone was better off. In fact the only two things changed, there were more lower paid jobs and there was greater access to credit. The majority of people, public service included were no better off in the good times than they are now.

That was the great myth of the Celtic Tiger, that we were all better off. In fact like you, I never earned more than 30k in a year in fact it was 28k. That was true of most people. Many people had two jobs to keep themselves going. Meanwhile of course there were the rip off merchants who overcharged us one and all. Which made sure that any benefit of higher pay was lost in greater costs.

Luckily for the public service they had benchmarking. This was supposed to ensure the public service remained competitive in terms of attracting staff and keep their pay inline with increasing costs. It did that all right, overdid it in fact with the results we see now. The fact that PS workers earning up 35k are considered low paid shows how distorted the reality became. Shift working supervisors in my previous job earned 35k in their dreams. In seven years working for a profitable multinational, my pay was less when I left than when three years earlier. A colleague still there told me that he still hasn't reached that pay level now six years later. That was truth of the Celtic Tiger for many people, low pay and often contract work, renewed every three months sometimes. They were supposed to be the 'good old days'.

It was collective insanity and we were all fooled. A return back to reality is needed by everyone. Tonight though it seems to be happening. This is no victory for anyone. We are all being collectively punished for the failures of this government and the banks and the developers.

TCP/IP_King

miju wrote: »

.. it's someone who was in employment now no longer in employment and therefore not on the public payroll either ...

If you're unemployed you're on the public payroll - a fact often lost in all the PbS V PvS bullsh1t that goes on in boards.

And I'm not "Public Sector" in either sense.

nesf

Jamie-b wrote: »

Some are some aren't. The use of consecutive fixed term contracts to avoid giving people permanent jobs has long been a gripe of the unions apparently- hasn't changed it as far as I can see

After 5 (I think) contracts you have to be offered a permanent position under EU law. There's only so far they can push the temporary worker ploy though given how difficult it is to fire a permanent public sector worker it's understandable that temporary contracts are common. They are a symptom of inflexible work practices, not a cause etc.

ixoy

miju wrote: »

2: 16 days unpaid leave equates to about a 5% cut in everyones pay when you factor in increments which are going to be left alone this only equates to a 2-3% pay cut give or take. Something I can well live with.

It's interesting that increments hasn't come up much. Many PS/CS workers are still getting effective pay rises based on length of service and it hasn't been frozen so that it might take just two years to get back to your pre-levy wage (more so for the lower levels on the rung). Not quite the horrendous cuts some spun out.

Gubberment can claim €850m of pay bill savings when in reality from what I've heard when the frontline services are excluded (which seems to be the plan) the savings will only be about €300m

So it's potentially €1bn short? You might think this sounds fair but where is that 1bn going to come from? More borrowings? It seems the government have (once again) post poned the pain.

bobblepuzzle

This is rediculous! The only alternative to not giving drastic pay and benefit cuts to civil servants is to raise taxes (unpaid leave! are u kidding!)... and if you think private sector workers like myself are going to take it lying down then the government better wake up! We won't fund their grossly overpaid jobs or pensions! :mad:

ParkRunner

We hardly know any details of the agreement so this thread is a bit premature in my opinion. The cost savings from the public sector pay bill will be from a lot more than just unpaid leave..early retirement for one will save a significant amount and there are more medium term measures agreed too for restructuring the public sector from what I heard.

Gumbo

Pringles^IRE wrote: »

This is rediculous! The only alternative to not giving drastic pay and benefit cuts to civil servants is to raise taxes (unpaid leave! are u kidding!)... and if you think private sector workers like myself are going to take it lying down then the government better wake up! We won't fund their grossly overpaid jobs or pensions! :mad:

you should play the lotto tomorrow night because if you can already see the details of the proposed cuts (whih havent been released yet) then surely you can see tomorrow nights lotto numbers......in fact stick 2e on for me too

calm down man, and wait till you see the details and see if the cuts will save the government the required amount.