Trade Unions will be crushed

Dickerty

seangal wrote: »

in production ect
IBEC put the cost at 400 million due to people not at work and the cost of all the cancellation ect

IBEC are full of poo.

Most of these people don't actually produce anything that is worth money, so the production cost is not so high. We save on salary, energy bills, medical supplies, etc. The cost of sending out cancellation letters would not make a dent in that.

freewheeler

westtip wrote: »

Exactly and the reason they were useless is because they just caved in to every demand.

The party is over. Now they have to clean up the mess and the Public Sector has a hangover but didn't mind binging on the champagne for the past few years.

We all know that FF bought the last couple of elections..but that doesn't take from the fact that although yes we have a well paid public service at least they work for what they've got..look at the money that has been squandered and stolen by the government!! I just find it a bit rich that suddenly the unions and the public service are suddenly public enemy #1 and i reiterate..they are not the cause of this mess!

freewheeler

baaaa wrote: »

No they don't,right now the immediate concern is to keep country afloat.
The future you speak about will not occur if the country goes down.

and you would trust our government to re-float us?? for real?? when have they EVER displayed the necessary attributes required for this task?

westtip

freewheeler wrote: »

We all know that FF bought the last couple of elections..but that doesn't take from the fact that although yes we have a well paid public service at least they work for what they've got..look at the money that has been squandered and stolen by the government!! I just find it a bit rich that suddenly the unions and the public service are suddenly public enemy #1 and i reiterate..they are not the cause of this mess!

Yes they work but their rates of pay are ridiculous by standards across the Euro zone. We just cannot afford it.

K-9

seangal wrote: »

Tell that to the parents of children that have to take days off work due to strike and the loss to the country is about 400 million a day for a public sector strike

People will put up with it for a few days, then like the Nurses and Teachers strikes before, public opinion will turn against them. People know the money isn't there.

seangal wrote: »

what he mean is people have called for 30k people to be let go in the public sector over and over
But when the unions came up with the unpaid leave which would equal 5000k people less in the public sector they are now saying " this will destroy the service "
They cant make there mind up FFS

Most know 30k would never be let go because the Unions would end up fighting each other over who to let go.

The public are now realising what this unpaid leave means. More cuts on top of already planned cuts to services.

baaaa

freewheeler wrote: »

I just find it a bit rich that suddenly the unions and the public service are suddenly public enemy #1 and i reiterate..they are not the cause of this mess!

We can't pay our bills.The public sector bill is too high.We need to reduce it and the PS won't let us.
Whoever won't let us get our spending under control-it's currenty their fault.

freewheeler

yes they are well paid..maybe too well paid..but i dont blame them for fighting to keep what they have if i were them i'd do the same..let's get rid of about 50% of our (mostly useless) TD's everyone knows we have too many..cut THEIR expenses..make all the millionaires pay more..why should working class people always be screwed? Oh i forgot they cant buy TD's like some can...

oscarBravo

freewheeler wrote: »

...make all the millionaires pay more...

How much will each millionaire have to pay to make up a shortfall of €2,000,000,000 per month? And what do you do when they up sticks and leave?

atomicent

gerry28 wrote: »

I don't think Cowan is foolish enough to try and make such a mockery of the unions.

We pay our subscription for them to represent us. If cowan thinks he can take a blatant hand at them on this then he is taking a blatant hand at the union members.

For some reason when the pension levy was introduced people accepted it and moved on.

I get the feeling that this budget will be massively different.

Everyone at work is talking about the budget and are waiting and paying close attention to what will happen next tue.

Cowan could run the risk of losing thousands and thousands of votes for a very long time if they are deemed to be too harsh on the 9th.

Cowen has got the hardest job in the country at the moment, I dont think anyone would want to be in his shoes. People in the public sector are being made redndant left right and centre, surely those in the public sector who are guaranteed their jobs would be happy to take a paycut to try and get the country rolling again.
Things were too good before, and people got ahead of themselves, the banks are to blame more so than fianna fail for firing money at people, fine gael or any other party would have done the same if they were in power at the time, difference is they werent, and they arent now either, fianna fail will get us out, but people are going to have to make sacrifices, and to be honest, the public sector getting their 20+ holidays and being intitled to a further god knows how many days sick leave with pay is rediculous. we have the most public servants per capita in europe, and probably in europe, its about time the government called theyre bluff because their is no need for half of them.
A perfect example is below from personal experience:

I recently had to go to tax my car in the tax office, their are 6 or 7 booths in the county council office, and each booth had a person behind it with not a sinner to be seen in the tax office, this time one year ago if you were to go to tax your car there would be a queue out the door with maybe two people behind the counters, what does this say??
exactly!!
so I say, the boom was here, the boom is gone, it will never be what it was, so why have so many public servants? our poulation is only 4.5 million, Manchester is bigger, we have a country full of councillors seanad members and dail members and why?
Crane drivers in england are earning about 8-9 pounds sterling an hour, and in ireland the same driver(union member is looking for and the employer is obliged to pay€18.50 per hour?? this is one example of many in our jumped up over payed construction industry which is hanging by a thread.
please tell me if I'm wrong but its time the current government done something as unions have held the counrty to randsom for long enough.

ardmacha

we have the most public servants per capita in europe,

This is not true, please do not post untruths.

Manchester is bigger,

Also untrue.

Rev. BlueJeans

I'm no fan of either, but Reagan and Thatcher broke the unions in the dark days of eighties, and perhaps it's time to do so again.

Bertie was hailed as a master negotiator in the years of the "boom". Easy to negotiate when your answer to everything is a resounding yes.

Martin252

Any one that thinks them trade unions are looking out for the ordinary 5/8 s persons is totally mad. Its like they are trying to run the country now and not the other clowns, there has to be pay cuts in the public sector if there is not we,re sunk. Did anyone ever wonder the salary the head trade unions men are on. A lot lot more then the average wage, are them dickheads taking a cut don,t think so.. :mad:

Hootanany

Absurdum wrote: »

Cowen couldn't crush a paper cup.

He could if he sat on them one by one

jhegarty

seangal wrote: »

in production ect
IBEC put the cost at 400 million due to people not at work and the cost of all the cancellation ect

I don't understand.

Who are was not at work who produced anything ?

netmann

freewheeler wrote: »

yes they are well paid..maybe too well paid..but i dont blame them for fighting to keep what they have if i were them i'd do the same..let's get rid of about 50% of our (mostly useless) TD's everyone knows we have too many..cut THEIR expenses..make all the millionaires pay more..why should working class people always be screwed? Oh i forgot they cant buy TD's like some can...

Agree with some of this. Get rid of some of the many useless TDs and their expenses but also get rid of some of the ridulous allowances in the rest of the PS. The Government could come up with a fair way in how they split the 1.3 Billion pay cuts by taking more from the higher paid public sector workers. Example take most from those earning 100K and more, those earning between 50K and 100K pay slightly less and those between 30K and 50K less again without touching those on lower wages, say 30K and less. Not sure if trying to make millionaires pay more would work, generally speaking these are the people who have the talents to up ship and move overseas where they would pay little or no tax. They generally employ crafty accountants who use all available loopholes to avoid paying tax but these are probably the same people who we're going to depend on to create the jobs to get us out of this mess and we also need to encourage foreign direct investment. Would taxing the weathly any more than we do already encourage any of this?

jmayo

gerry28 wrote: »

I don't think Cowan is foolish enough to try and make such a mockery of the unions.

Cowan could run the risk of losing thousands and thousands of votes for a very long time if they are deemed to be too harsh on the 9th.

Ah so usual ff thinking give in to get votes.
Party first, country second ehhh ?
This is the first of at least 3 massive painful budgets.

Get used to it, we all have to be screwed now because half of us voted for the incompetent numpties that helped get us here.

Stark wrote: »

He'll have gained my vote though. And I have never voted for FF in my life.

Don't say that. :mad:
He is just doing his job and trying to rectify the mess HE CREATED.
He deserves no praise for now supposedly trying to do the right thing.

Note I said trying supposedly

Dickerty wrote: »

IBEC are full of poo.
...

That I will agree with.
In case anyone doesn't really know it, the biggest contributors and thus the ones that pull the strings of IBEC are as follows:
AIB, BOI, IL&P, Anglo, etc etc.
Now who are responsible for the banking fiasco again, please remind me ?

IBEC do not represent most small businesses, self employed, etc just like the unions do not represent non unionsed workers, and there are a fair you in the country.

freewheeler wrote: »

We all know that FF bought the last couple of elections..but that doesn't take from the fact that although yes we have a well paid public service at least they work for what they've got..look at the money that has been squandered and stolen by the government!! I just find it a bit rich that suddenly the unions and the public service are suddenly public enemy #1 and i reiterate..they are not the cause of this mess!

Ehhh money squandered by the government sand none squandered by public servants.
Yes lets see.
PPARS - who was it running it again, who were the ones managing it HSE employees ?
NRA road procurement - who is that works in this quango ?
CB/ IFSRA - who exactly works in the regulatory authorities ?
Fás - who works in Fás ?

Are not all the people working in the above organisations public service employees ???

LoLth

jhegarty wrote: »

I don't understand.

Who are was not at work who produced anything ?

working parents who could not arrange or afford child minders.

PS strike = schools closed = kids at home = guardian has to be there to mind them.

so workers in the private sector had to stay at home to mind their kids which means they weren't at work earning money for themselves and their employers and they werent producing goods to be sold.

any clearer now?

Hootanany

Not both parents surely PS produce nothing they make work for them self's Flexi Time pah

jhegarty

LoLth wrote: »

working parents who could not arrange or afford child minders.

PS strike = schools closed = kids at home = guardian has to be there to mind them.

so workers in the private sector had to stay at home to mind their kids which means they weren't at work earning money for themselves and their employers and they werent producing goods to be sold.

any clearer now?

But wouldn't that be taken from annual leave ?

who_ru

gerry28 wrote: »

Cowan could run the risk of losing thousands and thousands of votes for a very long time if they are deemed to be too harsh on the 9th.

of course you had no problem with it when they were too generous to you with benchmarking and the crazy pay awards that were made in return for no increase in productivity or delivery of services - when you were sticking it to the taxpayer everything was great but now when this country is all but bankrupt and being funded by the ECB you aggressively argue that the govt has no right to correct this country's finances. cut welfare of course and all other areas but not PS pay because you can't take any more pain.

cowan WILL lose a lot more votes if he doesn't do what is right for this country and the future of it's people on the 9th.

Rb

If FF broke the Unions I would certainly consider giving them my vote in the next GE, or at the very least no.2/3.

If, by some chance they do go hard on the PS and their unions next week and it is followed by an "all out strike" until "something" is done, it would merely result in the private sector, those who make up the majority of the country, losing all respect for the public sector workers. Especially at this time, I believe violence and public degradation of the strikers would be quite likely and in my opinion, not unwarranted.

herya

jhegarty wrote: »

But wouldn't that be taken from annual leave ?

If you have any left, which at the end of the year is not always possible. Otherwise it's an extra unpaid leave.

K-9

Rb wrote: »

If FF broke the Unions I would certainly consider giving them my vote in the next GE, or at the very least no.2/3.

If, by some chance they do go hard on the PS and their unions next week and it is followed by an "all out strike" until "something" is done, it would merely result in the private sector, those who make up the majority of the country, losing all respect for the public sector workers. Especially at this time, I believe violence and public degradation of the strikers would be quite likely and in my opinion, not unwarranted.

FF backbenchers are even saying the Unions proposals aren't enough.

Taxipete29

Rb wrote: »

If FF broke the Unions I would certainly consider giving them my vote in the next GE, or at the very least no.2/3.

If, by some chance they do go hard on the PS and their unions next week and it is followed by an "all out strike" until "something" is done, it would merely result in the private sector, those who make up the majority of the country, losing all respect for the public sector workers. Especially at this time, I believe violence and public degradation of the strikers would be quite likely and in my opinion, not unwarranted.

If you think that breaking the unions warrants voting FF you are more foolish than your post suggests.

Violence doesnt solve any issue and is never warranted, certainly not in this case.

Unions need to be reformed. Its not the Union movement that is the problem. Its the current crop of leaders. They need to be more realistic about the economic situation. I dont agree with their strikes, but breaking the Unions only benefits employers in the long term not workers

johnathan woss

Rb wrote: »

If FF broke the Unions I would certainly consider giving them my vote in the next GE, or at the very least no.2/3.

If, by some chance they do go hard on the PS and their unions next week and it is followed by an "all out strike" until "something" is done, it would merely result in the private sector, those who make up the majority of the country, losing all respect for the public sector workers. Especially at this time, I believe violence and public degradation of the strikers would be quite likely and in my opinion, not unwarranted.

Those are big words from behind a computer screen.

I would not agree with public sector strikes but I would defend anyone's right to withdraw their labour without fear of physical violence.

Rb

Taxipete29 wrote: »

If you think that breaking the unions warrants voting FF you are more foolish than your post suggests.

Violence doesnt solve any issue and is never warranted, certainly not in this case.

Unions need to be reformed. Its not the Union movement that is the problem. Its the current crop of leaders. They need to be more realistic about the economic situation. I dont agree with their strikes, but breaking the Unions only benefits employers in the long term not workers

The leaders are the problem? So the members and their mentality have nothing to do with it? The unfortunate truth is that said leaders are supported by their members, it's fairly easy to leave a union and if people disagreed with the expressed sentiment and behaviour they could just cancel their membership. This in itself would cause damage to the unions, but it won't happen as they have ths support of the lovely people on crazy wages and conditions for the work involved and aren't willing to bring themselves down to realistic levels.

johnathan woss wrote: »

Those are big words from behind a computer screen.

Not really, considering I'm not actually threatening anyone nor am I saying I'd be down bashing heads in myself. All I said is that an awful lot of people are extremely angry and discontent with the PS is growing by the day, and that it wouldn't surprise me if it turned extreme, nor that I believe it would be absolutely unwarranted.

I would not agree with public sector strikes but I would defend anyone's right to withdraw their labour without fear of physical violence.

Well, if it happens it happens.

jank

The Irish Unions in their current form need to be destroyed. There is always a place for unions in a western society but the Irish Unions are more like a mafia than a union. They dont care if the country goes under once "their" pension is guaranteed.

The cracks are showing though. Public opinion of the unions are at an all time low. People want the country to get on with it, stabilize the economy and go from their but we are still bickering about cuts that will have to be made remember each year for the next 3-4 years. Yet we are falling at the first hurdle. That IMO IS the Unions and the Government fault. The Unions have not destroyed the country, that was FF but they sure are trying to make up for lost time at the moment.

funnyname

If the unions are crushed will the Gardaí support the Government like the cops did in the UK?

johnathan woss

Rb wrote: »

Not really, considering I'm not actually threatening anyone nor am I saying I'd be down bashing heads in myself. All I said is that an awful lot of people are extremely angry and discontent with the PS is growing by the day, and that it wouldn't surprise me if it turned extreme, nor that I believe it would be absolutely unwarranted.


Well, if it happens it happens.

Well you said that violence against the strikers would be "not unwarranted", i.e. warranted.

So at the very least you would not defend a striker who was being attacked by thugs. Why would you defend someone against a warranted attack ?

Indeed, if you feel that violence was warranted why exactly would you not be "bashing heads" yourself ?

johnathan woss

funnyname wrote: »

If the unions are crushed will the Gardaí support the Government like the cops did in the UK?

I suspect that at some stage in the next few years the guards will be made exempt from paycuts across the public sector.