Public service pay cut?

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

not at all, its clearly obvious theres serious issues in the public sector, serious dysfunctions, inefficiencies, wastes etc etc etc, but theres also serious dysfunctions occurring in the private sector to. a critical part during this era has been to undermine the public sector in as many ways as possible, and one of the main methods has been to demonise it, and it has worked

Exactly, those dysfunctions, inefficiencies and waste have implications in the private sector, which impact on performance and productivity. The end result usually means loss of profit, reduction/stagnation of wages and/or job losses. Something which rarely happens in the PS, yet PS employees still think they deserve pay increases irrespective of the issues you list. Thank you for helping me make my point, the PS don’t need the private sector to undermine them, they do a good job of that themselves when they threaten strikes over pay rises and vaccinations etc.

Dav010

Dav010 wrote: »

I’m not sure I would class commentary on the PS as attacks, more likely to be widely held opinions. The public are **** sick of the whinging from a section of the population who enjoy the greatest degree of job security. It really is disingenuous to equate the plight and concerns of hundreds of thousands of people who have lost jobs in the with the “precariousness of employment” in the PS.

Public sector workers are "the public" too. Many public sector are (surprise surprise!) married to those in the private sector.

Personally, I'm heartily sick of the whinging from the private sector about the public sector when times are bad. It was the same in 2010.

Funny how they couldn't give a toss about the terms and conditions of those in the public sector when times times are good (for them) and they always come out shouting about the cost of the public service wage bill when times are bad, yet still demand all the services.

Sour grapes, is what it comes down too. Best to just ignore it.

To that person who posted that they are starting a public service job next week - get used to this. You'll be listening to constant moaning about your pay and conditions from the day you start, until the day you retire. Then they'll bitch about your pension - all while they're probably earning more than you.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Exactly, those dysfunctions, inefficiencies and waste have implications in the private sector, which impact on performance and productivity. The end result usually means loss of profit, reduction/stagnation of wages and/or job losses. Something which rarely happens in the PS, yet PS employees still think they deserve pay increases irrespective of the issues you list. Thank you for helping me make my point.

...and what about the dysfunctions, inefficiencies and wastes of the private sector?

oh and you do realise another part of this modern political and economic ideologies has been to dismantle union movements, which has been very successful, particularly in the private sector, which in turn has lead to low wage inflation, and as you rightfully said, stagnant for many, increasing 'precariousness' of employment, a significant rise in productivity levels, etc etc etc

Dav010

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Public sector workers are "the public" too. Many public sector are (surprise surprise!) married to those in the private sector.

Personally, I'm heartily sick of the whinging from the private sector about the public sector when times are bad. It was the same in 2010.

Funny how they couldn't give a toss about the terms and conditions of those in the public sector when times times are good (for them) and they always come out shouting about the cost of the public service wage bill when times are bad, yet still demand all the services.

Sour grapes, is what it comes down too. Best to just ignore it.

To that person who posted that they are starting a public service job next week - get used to this. You'll be listening to constant moaning about your pay and conditions from the day you start, until the day you retire. Then they'll bitch about your pension - all while they're probably earning more than you.

If the private sector earn more than you, it is usually because it is linked to performance and demand for their skills. But their continued employment is sensitive to market forces and demand for the services they provide, as hundreds of thousands on the live register have found over the past year.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

If the private sector earn more than you, it is usually because it is linked to performance and demand for their skills. But their continued employment is sensitive to market forces and demand for the services they provide, as hundreds of thousands on the live register have found over the past year.

ah now, thats not exactly true!

oh and here it is, 'market forces'!

B.A._Baracus

Don't think the public service pay should be cut.
All about earning as much as you can get. What right do I have to sit here and look over yonder and say "see that bloke over there, the public service worker, he's earning too much, he's pay should be cut" - while I will always broker the best pay I can get. As we all do.

Wanderer78

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Don't think the public service pay should be cut.
All about earning as much as you can get. What right do I have to sit here and look over yonder and say "see that bloke over there, the public service worker, he's earning too much, he's pay should be cut" - while I will always broker the best pay I can get. As we all do.

pay cuts in the public and private sectors generally arent good for an economy, as it generally reduces the velocity of the money supply, slowing the economy down

Dav010

Dav010 wrote: »

If the private sector earn more than you, it is usually because it is linked to performance and demand for their skills. But their continued employment is sensitive to market forces and demand for the services they provide, as hundreds of thousands on the live register have found over the past year.

Oh, the old "linked to performance" argument. Change the record.

I am heartily sick and tired of the sheer disrespect for civil and public servants who work damn hard and are constantly demeaned for it.

I know so many who have performed their asses off over the last twelve months, and your response is "cut their pay".

Well no.

I think you'll find that we won't be amenable to taking the pain for the country this time, like we did the last time.

Wanderer78

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh, the old "linked to performance" argument. Change the record.

I am heartily sick and tired of the sheer disrespect for civil and public servants who work damn hard and are constantly demeaned for it.

I know so many who have performed their asses off over the last twelve months, and your response is "cut their pay".

Well no.

I think you'll find that we won't be amenable to taking the pain for the country this time, like we did the last time.

that was actually a scam, it in fact done great harm to our economy and society

Dav010

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Oh, the old "linked to performance" argument. Change the record.

I am heartily sick and tired of the sheer disrespect for civil and public servants who work damn hard and are constantly demeaned for it.

I know so many who have performed their asses off over the last twelve months, and your response is "cut their pay".

Well no.

I think you'll find that we won't be amenable to taking the pain for the country this time, like we did the last time.

You took it like everyone else, but only you bleat on about pay restorations and how important you are. You should take the pain like everyone else.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

You took it like everyone else, but only you bleat on about pay restorations and how important you are.

would you say the private sector is more important than the public sector?

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

would you say the private sector is more important than the public sector?

No, I think they are symbiotic and equally important, but I also don’t think you should be insulated from pay cuts and job loses.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

No, I think they are symbiotic and equally important, but I also don’t think you should be insulated from pay cuts and job loses.

absolutely agree, im not insulted, more concerned than anything, job loses and pay cuts in both public and private sectors are not good for anyone

Hotblack Desiato

fliball123 wrote: »

If you want to live in Dublin or any other affluent or highly desirable areas you have to pay a premium for the privilege

So.. where are public servants providing essential services in Dublin supposed to live, then? Or for that matter the private sector employee who makes your coffee, delivers your takeaway or cleans your office toilet?
The housing crisis has to be tackled seriously, it has very bad effects on the whole economy while enriching a very few.

Insurance costs are going to be slashed in the next year due to the cost of payouts coming down.

Suuuure. But that's only one aspect of how the legal profession (private sector) has this whole country bent over a barrel.

Banks are pulling out of here left right and center and you have a choice of course not to use a bank at all if you dont want to. Your can use cash , mobile wallets, revolute cards, etc these are now actively competing in this space so if you dont want to pay bank charges you dont have to and you can always go old school and stuff the cash under your mattress

Groceries with the entrance of Aldi and Lidl the price of groceries has come down too. If you want your lovely Marks and Spencers gormet dinner you have to pay a premium for this.

Waffle. Employer stopped paying in cash decades ago. Irish IBAN required to get paid.

Hotblack Desiato

Dav010 wrote: »

I’ll ask you for the last time, how many Public servants are in danger of losing their jobs? People on temporary contracts know that the job is temporary, the title is the giveaway, that is not the same as losing their jobs unexpectedly due to cut backs or closure.

I'll give you an example - secondary teaching.

Newly qualified teachers are now being offered not a job but a class here and a class there in different schools, not enough to make ends meet even living at home, and with no job security.

Then we have principals on the radio complaining they can't get enough teachers in certain subjects. Well how about you don't treat your newest employees like dirt simply because you can? Cause and effect. Teaching is now a very unattractive prospect for a lot of people when choosing a degree or postgrad


NB I am not and have never been or desired to be a teacher or related to any teachers.

cee_jay

fliball123 wrote: »

You can add public sector services to the top of that bloody list

Housing costs are high yet those on lower incomes can avail of hap and other allowances to help with rent there are other allowance for FTBs that brings the price of housing down for them as well. If you want to live in Dublin or any other affluent or highly desirable areas you have to pay a premium for the privilege

Insurance costs are going to be slashed in the next year due to the cost of payouts coming down. The insurance companies have been warned to pass this on.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0412/1209371-motor-insurance-costs/

Banks are pulling out of here left right and center and you have a choice of course not to use a bank at all if you dont want to. Your can use cash , mobile wallets, revolute cards, etc these are now actively competing in this space so if you dont want to pay bank charges you dont have to and you can always go old school and stuff the cash under your mattress

Groceries with the entrance of Aldi and Lidl the price of groceries has come down too. If you want your lovely Marks and Spencers gormet dinner you have to pay a premium for this.

If you want premium services delivered to the country, well you have to pay a premium for that also. Cutting the pay of the public service does not entice the cream of the crop in to work on the delivery of services.
Take digitalization for example. Citizens expect more and more services to be delivered online, this is even more relevant and brought to the fore with the pandemic. To achieve this, we need the public service to focus on developing digital and data-related skills, perhaps by creating job profiles and career paths based on forecasted needs, and providing programmes for training and retraining of civil servants. How do you retain these staff after the training if the private sector is offering more money and benefits, while the public service is being subjected to cut after cut? The answer is you can't - and the service hoped for by the citizen is never reached. How to you entice people to join in this area who already have these skills? Nigh on impossible when the public service pay is being cut (and the pay is actually much lower than similar posts in the private sector to begin with).
So what ends up happening? Consultants are brought in to work on the digitization - and this probably ends up costing a lot more than a permanent staff member in the long run.
"Cut their pay" because another sector of the economy is suffering is, in my opinion, such a short sighted view of the overall picture of how the public service works. The above digitization issue is just one easy one to explain. There are so many wicked problems across the public service which need a premium, skilled staff to try and address - you won't get this as a citizen by just "cutting their pay".

Dav010

Ceejay, would you describe our public services as “premium services”? On what metric are you measuring that? Efficiency, performance, value for money etc? Do the cream of the crop really go to the PS? What are you basing this on? Perhaps that is the most obvious benefit of outsourcing to private contractors, the job gets done, and if it doesn’t, the private contractor gets the boot.

cee_jay

Dav010 wrote: »

Ceejay, would you describe our public services as “premium services”? On what metric are you measuring that? Efficiency, performance, value for money etc?

I'm not describing our public services as premium services. However, if we are to get to a place where we are providing better public services, cutting pay is not conducive to that as an end goal as the talent just move to the private sector.

Dav010

cee_jay wrote: »

I'm not describing our public services as premium services. However, if we are to get to a place where we are providing better public services, cutting pay is not conducive to that as an end goal as the talent just move to the private sector.

Then fire the public servants and outsource to private contractors whose contracts depend on performance. Unfortunately we know this will not happen as the unions will strike, so the status quo remains with untouchable dead weights.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Ceejay, would you describe our public services as “premium services”? On what metric are you measuring that? Efficiency, performance, value for money etc? Do the cream of the crop really go to the PS? What are you basing this on? Perhaps that is the most obvious benefit of outsourcing to private contractors, the job gets done, and if it doesn’t, the private contractor gets the boot.

our public sector is woeful for various different reasons, from inefficiencies, to horrendously badly designed structures, to this that and the other thing, but whats commonly not spoken about is the extractive element of the private sectors interwoven into the system also, its very messy stuff, and wont be solved easily. funnily enough, you ll also find some private sector contractors interwoven that are also horrendous, but for various different reasons, including probably brown envelopes, they remain, the real world doesnt exactly work on bootings!

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Then fire the public servants and outsource to private contractors whose contracts depend on performance. Unfortunately we know this will not happen as the unions will strike, so the status quo remains with untouchable dead weights.

can you show us a working model of this, anywhere in the world?

cee_jay

Dav010 wrote: »

Then fire the public servants and outsource to private contractors whose contracts depend on performance. Unfortunately we know this will not happen as the unions will strike, so the status quo remains with untouchable dead weights.

This would end up costing more than the current staff. Also, the private companies then end up holding the govt over a barrel with rising costs over the year to continue delivering the service.

Contractors all have different ways of working, and different ideas on how something should be progressed. If one contractor is cut due to performance issues, the time of a project delivery can increase significantly as a new contractor/company gets up to speed, and suggests roll backs etc as that is not how they would do something.

The reason being touted on this thread seems to be the national debt is rising, so we need to cut the pay of public services. So the suggestion now is to outsource everything at a higher cost?

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

can you show us a working model of this, anywhere in the world?

Look to the private sector. Profitable well run companies operate on efficiency, performance and service.

Wanderer78

cee_jay wrote: »

This would end up costing more than the current staff. Also, the private companies then end up holding the govt over a barrel with rising costs over the year to continue delivering the service.

Contractors all have different ways of working, and different ideas on how something should be progressed. If one contractor is cut due to performance issues, the time of a project delivery can increase significantly as a new contractor/company gets up to speed, and suggests roll backs etc as that is not how they would do something.

The reason being touted on this thread seems to be the national debt is rising, so we need to cut the pay of public services. So the suggestion now is to outsource everything at a higher cost?

...and this is flawed economics, the national debt is just the public entity of the money supply, arguably the more stable part of the supply, compared to the private sector supply, i.e. credit. its important to also realise, deposits have been rising significantly during this crisis, so theres a possibility of significant spending post covid, leading to rise in revenue, which in turn can be used to pay down this debt.

cee_jay

Dav010 wrote: »

Look to the private sector. Profitable well run companies operate on efficiency, performance and service.

Efficiency, performance and service is measured in every public service department I have worked in.
The public services do not exist to make profit. If a private company is existing to make a profit, they don't have all their staff as contractors/outsourced.

Dav010

cee_jay wrote: »

This would end up costing more than the current staff. Also, the private companies then end up holding the govt over a barrel with rising costs over the year to continue delivering the service.

Contractors all have different ways of working, and different ideas on how something should be progressed. If one contractor is cut due to performance issues, the time of a project delivery can increase significantly as a new contractor/company gets up to speed, and suggests roll backs etc as that is not how they would do something.

The reason being touted on this thread seems to be the national debt is rising, so we need to cut the pay of public services. So the suggestion now is to outsource everything at a higher cost?

So instead we keep plodding along, held over a barrel by unions, unable to cut away the waste and wasters?

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Look to the private sector. Profitable well run companies operate on efficiency, performance and service.

Wanderer78 wrote: »

can you show us a working model of this, anywhere in the world?

.....

strangely enough, many private sector businesses have needed to be bailed out many times throughout time, and is happening again now as we speak

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

.....

strangely enough, many private sector businesses have needed to be bailed out many times throughout time, and is happening again now as we speak

Which private sectors needed to be bailed out? Banks come to mind, if they weren’t, that would have affected you as much as anyone else.

Wanderer78

Dav010 wrote: »

Which private sectors needed to be bailed out? Banks come to mind, if they weren’t, that would have affected you as much as anyone else.

yes i agree the banks needed to be bailed out, but not in the way it happened, but they were/are private businesses, many other corporations were and currently are being bailed out as we speak

Dav010

Wanderer78 wrote: »

really? apologies, maybe you re younger than i suspect?

Enlighten me.