How long PS last without Pay?

average_runner

If all out strike happens how long can a PS servant last without paid considering they are struggling on current small salary????


Interesting to see on the news, a PS nurse in the queue for passport turning on her own PS workers!! So all is not well there

johngalway

Passport office workers are a disgrace. No harm in finding out your theory. The rest of the public are getting screwed so I hope they get a taste of their own medicine.

A good point made on radio earlier was anyone who has to travel regularly for work, when you need to get a new passport they take your old one, so you're without any passport at all!

Great way to do their bit and help the economy out. I know of 400,000+ who would line up for their jobs!

largepants

Ah here we go again with the 400k who would take the jobs. Change the freaking record will you.

The tact the PS should take is to go all out and refuse to pay their mortgages until it's sorted. What are banks going to do with another 400k houses on their books.

Si in answer to your question - longer than you think.

Kensington

Nobody knows. How much do the unions have in reserves? How much do they intend to pay their employees in strike pay? Also, the CPSU could find itself in serious, serious financial trouble if the Department of Foreign Affairs decides to counter-sue with any claims from members of the public, or to recoup losses incurred as a result of the CPSU not sticking to the "work-to-rule" threats over the past week.

largepants wrote:

The tact the PS should take is to go all out and refuse to pay their mortgages until it's sorted. What are banks going to do with another 400k houses on their books.

A good way of proving a point I guess. Don't go looking for any form of finance for the next ten years though as you'll have a massive black mark against your name.

johngalway

largepants wrote: »

Ah here we go again with the 400k who would take the jobs. Change the freaking record will you.

No

Permabear

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MagicSean

average_runner wrote: »

If all out strike happens how long can a PS servant last without paid considering they are struggling on current small salary????


Interesting to see on the news, a PS nurse in the queue for passport turning on her own PS workers!! So all is not well there

Longer than the public could go without a public service.

average_runner

I dont think so as they havent done it yet.


Nurses tried their luck a few years ago and got their ass kicked!

Tipp Man

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Agreed completely, I think Lenihan should have gone further with his cuts in the budget as I think it would have been easier to do it, get this stupid striking out of the way, and then get back to normality. Problem is now when he goes for more wages and a minimum of 50,000 redundancies we are going to have a hell of a strike and this carry on will continue for a longer period

But to be honest I don't care, its a pain in the rear end if you need something but at the end of the day I'd gladly put up with a 2 week all out strike if it saw big wage cuts and big staff number cuts

Tipp Man

k_mac wrote: »

Longer than the public could go without a public service.

doubt it - in my own personal circumstances if ye went on strike for the rest of the year i don't think i'd even notice

jimmycrackcorm

I say give in to their demands - give them back their pay and pension levy then follow it by bringing back benchmarking - with a vengeance.

MagicSean

Tipp Man wrote: »

doubt it - in my own personal circumstances if ye went on strike for the rest of the year i don't think i'd even notice

So you'd be happy with no nurses, ambulances or fireman for the year?

seamus

The public service unions have a "war chest" which they can use to pay their members, and it's big enough to last for about a month.

The only thing we need to remember is that the PS unions don't generally have the majority support of the public service, or at best they have a very narrow majority. A prolonged strike would do just as much damage to them from the inside as from the outside.

As average runner points out - PS workers also use the public services. An all-out strike won't seem so appealing to a teacher when their water goes and the local county council workers refuse to fix it.

The unions won't get majority support for an all-out strike from the emergency services - most of them have a social conscience and many emergency service workers will simply ignore any strike notices.

The unions are barely holding onto their membership by their fingertips. They haven't a hope of getting support for an all-out strike, either from their members or from the public.

MagicSean

Forgot about teachers, postal workers, social welfare and roads workers.

helimachoptor

k_mac wrote: »

So you'd be happy with no nurses, ambulances or fireman for the year?

I presume he means the pen pushing PS/CS.

MagicSean

seamus wrote: »

The public service unions have a "war chest" which they can use to pay their members, and it's big enough to last for about a month.

The only thing we need to remember is that the PS unions don't generally have the majority support of the public service, or at best they have a very narrow majority. A prolonged strike would do just as much damage to them from the inside as from the outside.

As average runner points out - PS workers also use the public services. An all-out strike won't seem so appealing to a teacher when their water goes and the local county council workers refuse to fix it.

The unions won't get majority support for an all-out strike from the emergency services - most of them have a social conscience and many emergency service workers will simply ignore any strike notices.

With so many people telling them how useless they are, how long do you think the social conscience will last?

MagicSean

helimachoptor wrote: »

I presume he means the pen pushing PS/CS.

Many people mean them. But they forget that the public service is much bigger than the passport office.

seamus

k_mac wrote: »

With so many people telling them how useless they are, how long do you think the social conscience will last?

Most emergency service workers don't choose their course of work for the glamour, the money or the fame. If they did, they wouldn't last long. For many of them, it's more than a job. It has to be, otherwise you wouldn't do it.

Jaysoose

k_mac wrote: »

Longer than the public could go without a public service.

I doubt we would notice the difference.

gandalf

k_mac wrote: »

With so many people telling them how useless they are, how long do you think the social conscience will last?

Again bar a couple of hot heads who have been mirrored from the Pro-PS side I don't recall people calling everyone in the PS useless.

I certainly wouldn't call the true front-line workers Nurses, Doctors, Gardai, Prison Officers & Paramedics useless. If most of those cannot do their jobs at a certain competency they tend to get found out.

With regard to the OP I do not think the majority of the PS would be capable to staying out too long. Like a lot of us they have mortgages to pay and other outgoings to service. I think you'll find that it is a minority of the union members who have the stomach to go down this route blindly following the 150k club of union leaders.

MaceFace

average_runner wrote: »

If all out strike happens how long can a PS servant last without paid considering they are struggling on current small salary????


Interesting to see on the news, a PS nurse in the queue for passport turning on her own PS workers!! So all is not well there

Did I hear that one of the unions had reserves of €50m while another only had €2m.
If an all out strike was to happen, they would be paid the normal basic payout (something like 100 quid a week) so I think the unions could only afford to pay this for a week or so.

Anyways, an all out strike would not happen. The unions know very well how well to disrupt "normal" conditions.

Most likely what will happen is there will be a set of rolling strikes which will be targetted where they will inflict most pain (social welfare, hospitals, fire bridage, education) They may even restrict it to small sections, so close down Tallaght hospital for 3 hours which would cause mayhem or all schools between 10.30 and 11.00 am.

Its going to get very messy.

helimachoptor

k_mac wrote: »

Many people mean them. But they forget that the public service is much bigger than the passport office.

Agreed

seamus

You also have to consider that many public services are replaceable at short notice

Postal - Contract in a large delivery company to provide a postal service at a significantly smaller cost than An Post's monthly payroll

Council Services - Plenty of construction companies out there who know how to maintain water systems, fix roads, traffic lights and street lamps

To name but two...

MaceFace is right. A complete strike is easier to counter than a series of short-burst strikes.

MagicSean

seamus wrote: »

Most emergency service workers don't choose their course of work for the glamour, the money or the fame. If they did, they wouldn't last long. For many of them, it's more than a job. It has to be, otherwise you wouldn't do it.

Everyone has a limit. The Op asked about a full public service strike and that includes the majority of emergency services. So I think a full scale strike would be noticed very fast.

Tipp Man

k_mac wrote: »

So you'd be happy with no nurses, ambulances or fireman for the year?

k_mac wrote: »

Forgot about teachers, postal workers, social welfare and roads workers.

Let me see, in my 32 years on this planet i have never used an ambulance or a fireman (touch wood) and it must be 15 years since I've seen a nurse (outside of coppers that is)

I'm doing an evening course at the moment, but guess what I'm paying the teachers for that, An Post - the only thing they do for me is collect my TV licence (pity they wouldn't go on strike), i'm moved from snail mail to email a long time ago, Social Welfare - I'll probably never in my lifetime use them and bless the road workers - those workers that toil tirelessly to ensure we have the best road network in the work or the road workers who are doing f##k all to repair the atrocious state of our country (and city) roads which is causing damage to my car ever time i sit in it, oh sorry how could i ever do without them

gandalf

MaceFace wrote: »

Did I hear that one of the unions had reserves of €50m while another only had €2m.
If an all out strike was to happen, they would be paid the normal basic payout (something like 100 quid a week) so I think the unions could only afford to pay this for a week or so.

Anyways, an all out strike would not happen. The unions know very well how well to disrupt "normal" conditions.

Most likely what will happen is there will be a set of rolling strikes which will be targetted where they will inflict most pain (social welfare, hospitals, fire bridage, education) They may even restrict it to small sections, so close down Tallaght hospital for 3 hours which would cause mayhem or all schools between 10.30 and 11.00 am.

Its going to get very messy.

I agree that this is more than likely the route they will take but then the gloves are off. I can see people being docked full days pay for partial actions and closer consideration given to outsourcing a lot of the functions that are carried out by certain areas of the PS.

This whole action could work out very costly especially for the lowest paid and less qualified or skill specific areas of the PS. The very areas that have already been hit the hardest by the pay cuts last December.

dean21

helimachoptor wrote: »

I presume he means the pen pushing PS/CS.

they hold it togeather
You need to remember that the cleaner in a hospital is just as important as the consultant

JoeyJJ

If the schools were off, it would cause a problem with dual working families with younger children people would need time off add that to the pain. That could cause problems in private sector reduced capacity.

bamboozle

k_mac wrote: »

So you'd be happy with no nurses, ambulances or fireman for the year?

that's never going to happen as the unions dont have reserves to pay more than a few days strike pay, so there wont be an all out strike.

if the government had an ounce of cop-on they'll call the bluff of the unions and get them back working 'properly' again.

dean21

The strike would not last 2 days as the government would fall. But this game is all about bluff and as it stands the unions are afraid to call the governments bluff

gandalf

JoeyJJ wrote: »

That could cause problems in private sector reduced capacity.

Less tax would be taken in due to lost pay because people have to take unpaid leave to mind their kids, the government have less money to pay the PS and more cuts are made. Leads to more strikes....oh you see where we are going