At what point public sector benefits kicked in

pietromas

At what points in history did the benefits currently enjoyed by the public sector, e.g. discounted current earnings linked pensions and benchmarking, kick in? I'd like some dates of the agreements or bills or whatever so I can try track down the media coverage at the time. Anything relating to agreements on shorter than average working weeks or longer than average holidays or paid leave would also be of interest. Basically any of the official perks.

Please don't reply just to start a public/private flame war. Loads of threads for that already.

Pushtrak

The public/private war is just a strawman to get them fighting against, rather than together.

Sad it has worked so admirably.

irish_bob

Pushtrak wrote: »

The public/private war is just a strawman to get them fighting against, rather than together.

Sad it has worked so admirably.

time to change that particular union released record

imme

irish_bob wrote: »

time to change that particular union released record

oh, I must have missed that press release, thanks for keeping us up to date on union issues Irish Bob.;)

@OP, what's a discounted pension. I don't know that you're going to get any answers on here.

nesf

imme wrote: »

@OP, what's a discounted pension. I don't know that you're going to get any answers on here.

I think he means a defined benefit pension that isn't paid for in full by employees. This would probably be true for pensions over 30K or so I think.

fly_agaric

pietromas wrote: »

At what points in history did the benefits currently enjoyed by the public sector, e.g. discounted current earnings linked pensions and benchmarking, kick in? I'd like some dates of the agreements or bills or whatever so I can try track down the media coverage at the time. Anything relating to agreements on shorter than average working weeks or longer than average holidays or paid leave would also be of interest. Basically any of the official perks.

I know - use www.google.com, go browse through some government. websites or visit a library instead of asking anonymous eejits to do research for you!:)

edit: here's a start (on benchmarking)

http://www.finance.gov.ie/ViewDoc.asp?DocId=-1&CatID=31

By the way - concerning the pensions it might be a more sensible question to ask when defined benefit schemes started to disappear/stop being offered? Most businesses (under imperatives of competition/"race to the bottom") have more or less decided that employee pensions are a cost someone else (i.e. employees themselves, or state) should (must?) pay for while pension system has not changed in public sector.

pietromas

Thanks, but try throwing any search query containing "pension site:.ie" into google and see how useful the results are. Its all opinion. And I don't dare simply ask in a forum what the situation is, as that is certain to yield misinformation. Hence I want to track down the details for myself by going to sources I consider reasonably trustworthy (such as the times/indo) and see what they had to say at the time the various deals were struck. Alas I know not when the deals were made (other than benchmarking as you have kindly linked to, but there again some trustworthy summary would be useful as they are some large documents).

And by "discounted" wrt pension, I meant in the sense that the contributions being made would not pay (for the majority at least) for the pension in a defined contribution scheme even assuming it was invested well in favourable markets. As I understand it this discount (as I term it) was introduced some time ago (pre-benchmarking?) when private sector salaries were running ahead of public, in lieu of pay increases. This is one thing in particular which I would like to see some record of (if it is true).

Thanks.

nice_guy80

the sad fact is that tpday in 2009/2010 the public sector pensions are a far more efficient way to fund pensions as they are using day to day cash

they are not reliant on investments paying off over time.

whereas there has been widespread mismanagement of pension funds in the private sector by investment firms/hedge funds. and the private sector workers then get screwed

its amazing how there is never any debate about the mismanagement of pension funds.

imme

here's a few bits for you:
http://www.benchmarking.gov.ie/
http://www.finance.gov.ie/ViewDoc.asp?DocId=-1&CatID=31
http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=500

GusherING

I think you're not going to be very successful in your search. Defined benefit pension benefits were the norm in both the public and private sector decades ago. Over time these have become increasingly rare in the private sector due to cost mainly.

There was no 'deal' to make public sector workers get great pension benefits. If anything, a lot of the social partnership agreements simply kept the status quo for defined benefit pensions in place. You won't find a newspaper article that said 'Public Sectors rolling in dosh thanks to new pension arrangements' from 1985 if that's what you're looking for.

(You will of course find plenty of those headlines in 2009 papers while the media try to divide people into public and private sectors!):rolleyes:

P. Breathnach

GusherING wrote: »

I think you're not going to be very successful in your search. Defined benefit pension benefits were the norm in both the public and private sector decades ago. Over time these have become increasingly rare in the private sector due to cost mainly.

There was no 'deal' to make public sector workers get great pension benefits. If anything, a lot of the social partnership agreements simply kept the status quo for defined benefit pensions in place...

That's about right. I don't have sources other than my own memory and understanding of things, but my reach covers some decades, both my own experience and that of the generation ahead of me in the public service.

Defined benefit schemes were indeed the norm for all salaried employment 40-50 years ago. In the private sector the arrangement was fairly explicit, with employee and employer contributing to a fund, typically paying equal amounts. In the public sector, there was no fund, and the arrangements were not so explicit. Indeed, they sometimes appeared confusing: for example, at one time a clerical officer in a local authority had a higher salary scale than the analogous grade in the civil service, but the difference disappeared in a puff of smoke when one took note of the fact that the local authority officer had to pay 5% pension contribution, whereas the civil servant had a non-contributory pension scheme (I prefer to think of it as an imputed contribution).

The arrangements have been modified somewhat over the years, particularly in 1995 when public servants were brought fully into the PRSI scheme, but the essence has remained: defined benefit based on final salary.

My understanding about the retirement lump sum arrangement is that a choice was to be made between a pension of 2/3 pay, or 1/2 pay + lump sum. Public servants elected the 1/2 pay + lump sum option -- probably a good choice, given life expectancies back then.

At one stage, there was no provision for the family of a public servant who died before reaching pension age. The Widows and Orphans scheme was introduced: for a contribution of 1.5% of pay, a pension for the family could be secured. Those serving at the time (I think it was in the late 1950s) could opt in or out; those appointed later had no choice. The scheme was later renamed Spouses and Children. That brought pension contributions up from 5% to 6.5%, the amount public servants usually cite.

fly_agaric

pietromas wrote: »

And by "discounted" wrt pension, I meant in the sense that the contributions being made would not pay (for the majority at least) for the pension in a defined contribution scheme even assuming it was invested well in favourable markets. As I understand it this discount (as I term it) was introduced some time ago (pre-benchmarking?) when private sector salaries were running ahead of public, in lieu of pay increases. This is one thing in particular which I would like to see some record of (if it is true).

Thanks.

Sort of forgot about this - sorry...

As others above said I don't think there was ever any "deal" AFAIK, the pensions associated with these jobs were always "defined benefit" and the employer (the state) always paid a large portion of the cost so that the pension was "discounted" as you put it. Nothing has changed. The salaries are larger, mainly because of benchmarking, and so the pensions (linked to wages of employees currently at the same level you were when you retired) increased too.

Many jobs in the private sector used to have pensions like this but now they do not mainly because of how capitalism/the market works when noone is willing (or able, given "globalisation") to put some manners on it.

edit: this may have some background on benchmarking also. http://www.esri.ie/publications/latest_publications/view/index.xml?id=2848