Public Pay Talks - see mod warning post 4293

Agreeing with bren2001 as regards Union membership.Same as all 'insurances' you'd dearly love to have them when you run into trouble,and then as bren says they are very,very good.

Unfortunately the majority of posters on here look to 'money' as being the 'end all' of an agreement. We were told yesterday that numerous things were discussed but % increase and money was not one of them.I would be of an opinion that one ,the Unions,in this case,decided to put down a foundation from where they could start from.A good foundation of discussing how far behind we are in sorting out housing, etc for our young workers,who will end up being a 'lost generation' as far as children,housing,pension provision goes....is all needed to paint a realistic picture for those in Ivory Towers who do not realise the difficulties of those starting out. Why do we have such recruitment problems in the Gardaí,for example,why are more and more Gardaí leaving,or indeed going down the wrong side of the law!Why are teachers leaving in droves ( because they are getting full permanent jobs with accommodation and flights home a few times a year,........get rid of ETBs they are only ring fencing funds for their own cronies...they do not give a flying fc*k about the young teacher being interviewed in front of them.)

Nurses,some hospitals in Australia have wards full of irish trained nurses and medics,similar story in England.Its not all about money,its about the opportunities provided for them by employers that want to keep them......unfortunately the Irish system ,like the ETB,dont give a damn about long term provision of care.NOTE: who is going to pay for your pensions when all these young graduates are paying their taxes to different governments? Of course the Golden Circle sleeveenism that has survived in Ireland for so long know that they will be alright but they do not care for the ordinary decent worker.

A good grounding or foundation will deliver or at least make 'the other side 'aware of how far they need to come to meet 'us',remember the country never had as much money,why waste it? Start building schemes in all towns that will deliver to the people that are delivering the services needed,be they carers,SNAs,teachers,gardaí,nurses etc,etc. ( I will not hold my breath as housing schemes in the past by various governments only delivered to those that do NOTHING for society other than cause trouble and destroy communities) As Leo said the other year,we need to do more for the people that get up early in the morning.....over to you Taoiseach!

Strikes are grand but think about it.......one day strikes don't hurt the government.......ministers will come out and give the usual spiel to the media but they don't care because the following day everyone is back to work.........but the people on strike lose a days wages....

An all out strike means that there is no money coming into a house hold so mortgages probably cant be paid.....bills will suffer........people will start to drift back in again after a few days...

Realistically, the only people with power for an all out strike are the nurses and the gardai....but they ain't going to go out on all all out strike

In my place, ETB, There are only a handful of union members left....rest have left ....management know this and any new people taken on are doing stuff way way above their pay grade.

The government know all this so they will just wait and wait.

This is just nonsense but it underlines the weakness of the unions in Ireland.

"I won't go on strike as I'll lose a day's pay" - FFS people went for months on strike in the past and the current generation of snowflakes cannot handle a day. Look at what happened in the UK with the rail companies who took on the nastiest of tory governments (arguably nastier than Thatcher's). They got a backdated pay rise of 5% and guarantees to protect their jobs with government climb downs.

What did we in the public sector get in 2023, a year of rampant inflation?

A 2% pay rise in March and 1.5% pay rise in October. This represents a 2.04% pay increase for the entirety of 2023. We all took massive real terms pay cuts, are getting much poorer, still doing austerity unpaid work hours and yet some still moan about striking.

Honestly if you whinge about striking then don't bother join a union.

I am in a union but its crazy to compare going on a strike today as opposed to going on strike for months in the past.....different times, different cost of living, higher bills, higher food cost etc etc.....been militant is grand but it aint gonna pay the bills....

Our last pay rise was awful but yet the unions pushed for it......

Bear in mind that civil servants still don't have full access to the industrial relations procedures private sector and semi-state workers do. This was promised a couple of pay deals back.

...because I refuse to join any union after the union rep in my old department openly said to the entire group that our discipline was overpaid. HIS wasn't but OURS was. Couldn't get the votes to remove him from his position.

The unions exist to serve the unions, not to serve the workers.

Unions are far from perfect, but would anyone really truly trust DPER and the government to give them anything an inch past the absolute bare minimum if we had no representation? If anyone really believes that they must've never held a job outside of the CS/PS or are POs and up that've forgotten the real world.

Some of the union members in my place were talking strike action during the week based on no movement in the talks.

He didn't appoint himself to that position. People don't bother their hole going to AGMs and then whinge about the outcomes.

100%.

Shop steward lol. The 1980s were 40 year ago.