Government to reverse some Public Secor Pay cuts

woodoo

Ralphdejones wrote: »

Funny how public servants were public enemy no. 1 in the media just 6 months ago, now there is not a ripple about them, and the government is talking about giving them payrises and there is not a whimper of complaint from the media. There is something very funny going on with the media in this country.

The sindo had a full onslaught in last weeks paper about the public sector. They had 5 or 6 journalists all going hell for leather against any payrise.

We have passed the days of PS cuts now. That storm has passed. There will be no more cuts, no increment freezes etc. It will be improvements now whether that is a reduction in the pension levy or a direct pay rise. About time too the public sector has suffered enough.

Gumbo

Head The Wall wrote: »

Typical PS response when they don't believe the figures in front of them

Typical generalisation at its best. One persons Responce = the whole of the PS now? Maybe in London, but not here.

Ralphdejones

woodoo wrote: »

The sindo had a full onslaught in last weeks paper about the public sector. They had 5 or 6 journalists all going hell for leather against any payrise.

Irish journalists only write on themes their puppet masters tell them to.
Maybe there is a split in the camp so, or perhaps they are a bit behind, or perhaps there is an election coming in the next couple of years, or a combination of all three.

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

Not being a lawyer I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of the subject, but contracts can be changed without agreement through parliamentary acts of legislation. If the government were to increase the minimum wage, an employers contractual rights would not be protected (nether in common law nor the constitution). My layman understanding would be that ss long as the legislation itself was not found to be unconstitutional, then there is not conflict with contract law.

Rubbish.

The government cannot break agreements it has entered into without just cause.

In this case, the agreement (i.e. contracts of employment with its staff) were broken with just cause because of the temporary financial emergency which of course means that once that temporary financial emergency has passed, the ability to maintain and prolong the breach of the agreement no longer exists because the just cause has disappeared.

Your example of the minimum wage also misses the point as it increases the wage of the minor party in the contract - the employee.

A better example is the cut in the minimum wage back in 2010.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1210/295369-budget/

This applied to private sector workers but it became clear, soon after its implementation that it only applied to new workers as the cut could not be applied to existing private sector contracts.

Godge

Head The Wall wrote: »

Typical PS response when they don't believe the figures in front of them

The source of the "tripe" is an actual govt document which you can download and look at your self

Analysis of Exchequer Pay and Pensions Bill
2007 - 2012


I presume you will provide us with figures showing the drop in staff numbers of 30,000 since 2007

My figures come from a govt body so it will need to contradict that

I await your info

Once again public service critics use out-of-date data. If you are so au fait with government reports, maybe you could provide us with a more up-to-date report than 2012

Godge

Head The Wall wrote: »

Some more figures and links here for people to peruse, I've selected the pertinent points





This is not really what I would call progress, the govt and their spin doctors may be trying to convince people that everything is good but it's painfully obvious it isn't


Irish Economy 2014: Public pay and pensions bill down 6% since 2007







Sometimes you have to question the govt's maths, there was all this talk of reduced numbers and all they would save

It seems they have 15,000 less staff (all people on contracts obviously and probably the obligatory two a year that get fired) and gained another 34,000 pensioners.

Public Sector Pension cost has increased from €1.5 Billion in 2007 to €3.1 billion today. This is a number that is only going to go one way as well. This cost is what the current PS Pension Levy pays for and they want to get rid of it. Where will the funds come from then. Surely not the taxpayer????


Average Public Service Numbers* (Current and Pensoners)

2007 - 356,448
2012 - 384,800


Average Public Service numbers*

2007 - 269,668
2012 - 264,421

Average Pensioner numbers

2007 - 86,780
2012 - 120,379


Maybe I'm reading this all wrong, please correct me if I am

Thank you for this information, whether you are reading it properly or not, it clearly proides that public service numbers and pay have been reduced consideraly. What is your problem with this?

kippy

Godge wrote: »

Rubbish.

The government cannot break agreements it has entered into without just cause.

In this case, the agreement (i.e. contracts of employment with its staff) were broken with just cause because of the temporary financial emergency which of course means that once that temporary financial emergency has passed, the ability to maintain and prolong the breach of the agreement no longer exists because the just cause has disappeared.

Your example of the minimum wage also misses the point as it increases the wage of the minor party in the contract - the employee.

A better example is the cut in the minimum wage back in 2010.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1210/295369-budget/

This applied to private sector workers but it became clear, soon after its implementation that it only applied to new workers as the cut could not be applied to existing private sector contracts.

You dont believe a 200 plus billion national debt with associated interest payments is just cause?

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

Rubbish.

The government cannot break agreements it has entered into without just cause.

In this case, the agreement (i.e. contracts of employment with its staff) were broken with just cause because of the temporary financial emergency which of course means that once that temporary financial emergency has passed, the ability to maintain and prolong the breach of the agreement no longer exists because the just cause has disappeared.

Your example of the minimum wage also misses the point as it increases the wage of the minor party in the contract - the employee.

A better example is the cut in the minimum wage back in 2010.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1210/295369-budget/

This applied to private sector workers but it became clear, soon after its implementation that it only applied to new workers as the cut could not be applied to existing private sector contracts.

Now who is talking rubbish. The point about acts of legislation is not my opinion, its a fact. The question of whether the legislation is constitutional requires someone with knowledge in the area. The contract was changed as a result of legislation.

As to your 'better example' a decrease in the minimum wage doesn't have any impact on any existing contracts so its not even an example of where an act of legislation would change a contract.

Godge

kippy wrote: »

You dont believe a 200 plus billion national debt with associated interest payments is just cause?

Yes, I have always said that the pay cuts were legally sound because of their temporary nature in response to the financial emergency.

The implication of that is that once the financial emergency has passed (budget deficit under 3%) and money is available, they are not legally sound. It doesn't matter whether our situation is merely serious rather than an emergency, if there is money available, public servants will come looking for it.

sarumite wrote: »

Now who is talking rubbish. The point about acts of legislation is not my opinion, its a fact. The question of whether the legislation is constitutional requires someone with knowledge in the area. The contract was changed as a result of legislation.

As to your 'better example' a decrease in the minimum wage doesn't have any impact on any existing contracts so its not even an example of where an act of legislation would change a contract.

Well, give me an example, any example of where legislation has disimproved the existing terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employees as set out in a contract. other than the financial emergency acts, there are none because of the contractual and constitutional legal implications.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

Well, give me an example, any example of where legislation has disimproved the existing terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employees as set out in a contract. other than the financial emergency acts, there are none because of the contractual and constitutional legal implications.

Now you are just shifting the goal post. Either a contract can be changed without agreement through acts of legislation or it cannot despite acts of legislation. There are no contractual legal implications if a contract is altered through an act of legislation. IF the legislation in question is constitutional then there are no constitutional legal implications either. This is not my opinion it is a fact.

kippy

Godge wrote: »

Yes, I have always said that the pay cuts were legally sound because of their temporary nature in response to the financial emergency.

The implication of that is that once the financial emergency has passed (budget deficit under 3%) and money is available, they are not legally sound. It doesn't matter whether our situation is merely serious rather than an emergency, if there is money available, public servants will come looking for it.



Well, give me an example, any example of where legislation has disimproved the existing terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employees as set out in a contract. other than the financial emergency acts, there are none because of the contractual and constitutional legal implications.

Ok. So our debt situation is not a financial emergency.

ardmacha

kippy wrote: »

Ok. So our debt situation is not a financial emergency.

Well if it is an emergency, then I would suppose that it would be a case of all hands to the tiller, and not just public servants. How about everyone's pay restorations and increases going to the government until the "emergency" is over. With laws able to do anything, then this should be possible.

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

Well if it is an emergency, then I would suppose that it would be a case of all hands to the tiller, and not just public servants. How about everyone's pay restorations and increases going to the government until the "emergency" is over. With laws able to do anything, then this should be possible.

Why do that though? It wouldnt make any sense?

ardmacha

kippy wrote: »

Why do that though? It wouldnt make any sense?

Of course it makes sense, why should one citizen be more responsible for the debt than another, or at least another of similar means?

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

Of course it makes sense, why should one citizen be more responsible for the debt than another, or at least another of similar means?

Increase taxes then.....
Point is the environment is not anywhere close to allowing an increase in spendin on PS wages.

ardmacha

kippy wrote: »

Increase taxes then.....
Point is the environment is not anywhere close to allowing an increase in spendin on PS wages.

How different is the present situation? Compared to say 1993, debt is a bit higher, but interest is lower so spending on debt is 1% less as a percentage of GDP. Unemployment is probably lower now.

sarumite

ardmacha wrote: »

Well if it is an emergency, then I would suppose that it would be a case of all hands to the tiller, and not just public servants. How about everyone's pay restorations and increases going to the government until the "emergency" is over. With laws able to do anything, then this should be possible.

Impossible to implement both practically and politically. Private sector employers would just not bother with any pay increases and their employees wouldn't care since they would not have benefited from it anyway. Meanwhile the government would be under siege from PS unions demanding their increments be reinstated.

noodler

Godge wrote: »

Yes, I have always said that the pay cuts were legally sound because of their temporary nature in response to the financial emergency.

The implication of that is that once the financial emergency has passed (budget deficit under 3%) and money is available, they are not legally sound. It doesn't matter whether our situation is merely serious rather than an emergency, if there is money available, public servants will come looking for it.



Well, give me an example, any example of where legislation has disimproved the existing terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employees as set out in a contract. other than the financial emergency acts, there are none because of the contractual and constitutional legal implications.

During the CP2 negotiations this was not your position at all.

Ralphdejones

Watch them give the lower paid public servants a pittance of a raise, and the fat cat managers a fat bigger than ever raise.

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

How different is the present situation? Compared to say 1993, debt is a bit higher, but interest is lower so spending on debt is 1% less as a percentage of GDP. Unemployment is probably lower now.

How different is the present situation?
Oh its exactly the same as 1993 - why wouldn't it be..........

(outside of a few fundamental factors that we no longer control)

Godge

noodler wrote: »

During the CP2 negotiations this was not your position at all.

There is a difference between saying they are legal and saying they are fair.

I always said they were legal, I disputed their fairness.

Godge

Ralphdejones wrote: »

Watch them give the lower paid public servants a pittance of a raise, and the fat cat managers a fat bigger than ever raise.

the HRA cuts are promised back by specific dates, that means higher paid get their money back, which increases the pressure to do something for those lower-paid before then.

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

Now you are just shifting the goal post. Either a contract can be changed without agreement through acts of legislation or it cannot despite acts of legislation. There are no contractual legal implications if a contract is altered through an act of legislation. IF the legislation in question is constitutional then there are no constitutional legal implications either. This is not my opinion it is a fact.

A contract can be improved through acts of legislation e.g. improving the minimum wage. That is well established.

A contract cannot be disimproved through acts of legislation except in the case of a temporary financial emergency. This is not fully tested by Irish law but the unions haven't challenged it.

jank

So does anyone have a concrete logical argument that this makes economic sense in the macro scheme of things? If the government wants to increase wages, the fairest and most equitable way would be to reduce the tax burden on ALL taxpayers. The Trade Union movement should be calling for low taxes in theory but we all know the reasons why they won't. They haven't gone away you know..

ems_medic

hmmm wrote: »

The health service is barely functioning, and instead of saying that any extra revenue will go towards increased services instead it's going to be diverted into the pockets of the public service workers.

Hah, completely fails to see the contradiction in his public services bashing

ardmacha

sarumite wrote: »

Impossible to implement both practically and politically. Private sector employers would just not bother with any pay increases and their employees wouldn't care since they would not have benefited from it anyway. Meanwhile the government would be under siege from PS unions demanding their increments be reinstated.

We are not talking about increments, but about pay rises.

jank wrote:

] does anyone have a concrete logical argument that this makes economic sense in the macro scheme of things? If the government wants to increase wages, the fairest and most equitable way would be to reduce the tax burden on ALL taxpayers.

In the bust the government imposed temporary measures on one group of people, the PS, to a much greater extent than other citizens. If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

ems_medic

ardmacha wrote: »

If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

100% agree with this for record Im a public servant currently on career break from PS.

Why am I on career break? Strangely enough in the private sector I earn what the normal rate for my work was in the boom.

So I earn more in private than I do in public so wont be returning to public sector. Funny really as people on this thread was services increased without putting monry into workers pockets.

Sillyness of these threads

kippy

Looks like the USC is the preferred tool to give something back however the minister looks to move tax bands instead:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/irish-tax-institute-usc-cut-would-benefit-more-people-640072.html

jank

ardmacha wrote: »

In the bust the government imposed temporary measures on one group of people, the PS, to a much greater extent than other citizens. If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless. How many full time PS workers were let go? It is clear there was an agreement here. Take the hit to the PS but no one will lose their jobs. Now, the unions want to be relevant again but most of the public are used to their tricks at this stage.

Is it 'moral' for someone on minimum wage to pay more tax to service those in a privilege position with a pay rise? Are you serious?
The USC is meant to be a temporary tax. Why not get rid of this instead of giving PS workers a pay rise?

hmmm

ems_medic wrote: »

100% agree with this for record Im a public servant currently on career break from PS.

A career break where you can take up employment with a different employer? It's perks like this that really get up the nose of the private sector, I don't think many would argue against an equivalent wage if only the conditions of employment were also equivalent.

ardmacha

jank wrote: »

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless. How many full time PS workers were let go? It is clear there was an agreement here. Take the hit to the PS but no one will lose their jobs.

Horsecack, for the most part the public didn't wish to do without the services so had no intention of letting go of staff, so that their litte Johnny couldt go to school or their Granny could go to hospital. Public servants do not enjoy stability of employment because of some "priviledge", they do so because there is continuing demand for their services.

jank wrote: »

Is it 'moral' for someone on minimum wage to pay more tax to service those in a privilege position with a pay rise? Are you serious?

This is one of the great fallacies which underlies a lot of the nonsense here and in the media, that a brain surgeon or forensic auditor cannot get paid more because some untrained citizen somewhere is paid less. Employees should be paid the going rate, issues of equity should be matters for tax and welfare policy. If the country is to be run on the basis you and other irresponsible commentators suggest, then I any rational person should emigrate.

ems_medic

jank wrote: »

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless. How many full time PS workers were let go?

Thousands actually as none of the contracted staff had their contracts renewed and were let go, whats the point your trying to make?

ems_medic

hmmm wrote: »

A career break where you can take up employment with a different employer? It's perks like this that really get up the nose of the private sector, I don't think many would argue against an equivalent wage if only the conditions of employment were also equivalent.

Career breaks are hardly a new perk now are they? If Public Sector has such great perks then why did I return to the Private Sector?. It's a simple enough trade off as well work on your career break you get 3 years, don't work and you get 5.

Whether you choose to believe it or not the simple fact is PS workers are payed less than their private sector equivalents but the perks make up for this, what Haddington Road essentially did was introduce "private sector" conditions into the public sector for less pay and no more flexibility with hours, holidays etc.

The end result is a VERY significant amount of people like me have opted for the career break and gone back to the private sector, leading to a decrease of PS headcount / wage bills on paper only.

In my case (and I'm sure I'm not alone) the real irony of course is that I am working for a public sector body now but as a private sector employee with the exact same hours / conditions as ex colleagues with significant increase in pay, so there is no net gain from my career break (which was the reason they introduced the working career break in first place). So in my case they are actually paying MORE for my services now than before they cut my wages.

That's the problem when a Government listen to the baying masses and take action without fully thinking them through.

Gumbo

jank wrote: »

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless

I think your figures are way off the mark there tbh.
There may have been 440k on the live register at the peak of the recession, but how many of these were on it at the height of the boom too?

kippy

kceire wrote: »

I think your figures are way off the mark there tbh.
There may have been 440k on the live register at the peak of the recession, but how many of these were on it at the height of the boom too?

Roughly 110K

antoobrien

Has anybody got a summary timeline of when the various cuts and levies were applied to the PS pay structures?

Can't find any offhand, but I don't think that PS pay was cut in either the budget delivered in 2008 (for 2009) or the supplemental budget in 2009.

Can anyone clarify this for me?

antoobrien

ardmacha wrote: »

We are not talking about increments, but about pay rises.

Increment: An increase or addition, especially one of a series on a fixed scale

Increment = pay increase, regardless of whether or not the pay scale changes.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

A contract can be improved through acts of legislation e.g. improving the minimum wage. That is well established.

A contract cannot be disimproved through acts of legislation except in the case of a temporary financial emergency.

Whether a contract has been improved or deteriorated depends on the perspective of the different parties involved in the contract. The fact is a contract can be changed through an act of legislation and depending on your perspective this could improve or deteriorate the value of the contract (this is not limited to employment law either). Your obstinate refusal to acknowledge this fact is becoming ridiculous.

This is not fully tested by Irish law but the unions haven't challenged it.

The reason deterioration of working conditions hasn't been implemented before has nothing to do with legal or constitutional issues, its purely political concern. No politician in their right mind would pass a law that reduced the working conditions of workers in favour of an employer outside of an absolute economic emergency.

Sheldons Brain

antoobrien wrote: »

Increment: An increase or addition, especially one of a series on a fixed scale

Increment = pay increase, regardless of whether or not the pay scale changes.

I don't think anyone disputes that an increment represents a pay increase for an individual. What this thread is about is whether there should be aggregate increase to a body of employees. Yet many people here, for reasons of obstruction, go on and on about increments. It is a bit like someone ranting about the movement of individual raindrops in a thread about how much rainfall there is.

barneystinson

Has the t in sector been missing from the thread title since the start?!

kippy

barneystinson wrote: »

Has the t in sector been missing from the thread title since the start?!

Yes.

barneystinson

kippy wrote: »

Yes.

Only noticed it now. Very annoying, and can't unsee it now

Sheldons Brain

barneystinson wrote: »

Only noticed it now. Very annoying, and can't unsee it now

A cut of one sixth was required, about the same as the PS, and this cut preserved the appearance of the word.

Godge

antoobrien wrote: »

Has anybody got a summary timeline of when the various cuts and levies were applied to the PS pay structures?

Can't find any offhand, but I don't think that PS pay was cut in either the budget delivered in 2008 (for 2009) or the supplemental budget in 2009.

Can anyone clarify this for me?

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2009/a0509.pdf

This was the first cut, introduced in early 2009 that brought the pension levy and the cuts to the farm management waste levy.

This was all signalled in the budgets for 2009, why are you trying to rewrite history?

sarumite wrote: »

Whether a contract has been improved or deteriorated depends on the perspective of the different parties involved in the contract. The fact is a contract can be changed through an act of legislation and depending on your perspective this could improve or deteriorate the value of the contract (this is not limited to employment law either). Your obstinate refusal to acknowledge this fact is becoming ridiculous.

Rubbish.

The state has the power, the employee has little.

sarumite wrote: »

The reason deterioration of working conditions hasn't been implemented before has nothing to do with legal or constitutional issues, its purely political concern. No politician in their right mind would pass a law that reduced the working conditions of workers in favour of an employer outside of an absolute economic emergency.

Yes, it does, the constitution protects the weak. The weak in this case is the employee, the power is the state. To allow the state to do what it did requires exceptional circumstances. They applied, they no longer apply. Get real.

jank

ardmacha wrote: »

Horsecack, for the most part the public didn't wish to do without the services so had no intention of letting go of staff, so that their litte Johnny couldt go to school or their Granny could go to hospital. Public servants do not enjoy stability of employment because of some "priviledge", they do so because there is continuing demand for their services.

So everyone in the PS is flat out and productive 100%? Tell me how many administrative staff were let go when the HSE was formed? ZERO
Pointing at a nurse and saying that she/he is the true reflection of the PS is the older trick in the book.

ardmacha wrote: »

This is one of the great fallacies which underlies a lot of the nonsense here and in the media, that a brain surgeon or forensic auditor cannot get paid more because some untrained citizen somewhere is paid less. Employees should be paid the going rate, issues of equity should be matters for tax and welfare policy. If the country is to be run on the basis you and other irresponsible commentators suggest, then I any rational person should emigrate.

Employees should be paid the going market rate, no problem from me on that one. However, you are still defending that argument that the PS deserve their pay increase more than all employees deserve a tax cut. Then you talk about morals and equality. You couldn't make this us tbh.

Gumbo

jank wrote: »

So everyone in the PS is flat out and productive 100%?

In both sectors you are going to get people not performing, in the private sector, 100% of employees are not flat out either.

antoobrien

Godge wrote: »

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2009/a0509.pdf

This was the first cut, introduced in early 2009 that brought the pension levy and the cuts to the farm management waste levy.

Thanks

Godge wrote: »

This was all signalled in the budgets for 2009, why are you trying to rewrite history?

Do asking a question to clarify the history -when it's admitted that the knowledge is lacking - is rewriting history now?

It's easy to see why this debate has gone to pot.

limnam

kceire wrote: »

In both sectors you are going to get people not performing, in the private sector, 100% of employees are not flat out either.

That maybe true.

But.

A lot of the time your overall salary is tied into performance. Don't perform, earn less money. Bonus's/Sales etc

It's a lot easier to remove a non performing private employee than it is a public sector one. A lot of public sector jobs don't even have KPI's so they have no idea if they're performing or not.

Sheldons Brain

jank wrote: »

So everyone in the PS is flat out and productive 100%? Tell me how many administrative staff were let go when the HSE was formed? ZERO
Pointing at a nurse and saying that she/he is the true reflection of the PS is the older trick in the book.

No, not everyone is performing at 100% and that is a problem that should be addressed directly. The government have singularly avoided any attention on productivity as a concept, as this would show up the incompetence of management. The attitude here and in the media seems to be that there is one person in the PS who isn't good value for money, then that justifies the treatment of whole sector. You have a lot in common with Benjamin Netanyahu who thinks that if one Hamas guy lives in an apartment block that the whole thing should be attacked.

fliball123

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

I don't think anyone disputes that an increment represents a pay increase for an individual. What this thread is about is whether there should be aggregate increase to a body of employees. Yet many people here, for reasons of obstruction, go on and on about increments. It is a bit like someone ranting about the movement of individual raindrops in a thread about how much rainfall there is.

They go on about them because its taking money away from other areas and we have to borrow it. Thats the only issue people have with it.