Public Service bashing sticks at the ready, call to "benchmark pay again"

longshanks wrote: »

Ok, but first tell us a little bit about your arse.

Private sector already taking it up the arse thanks to our PS who are entitled not to do their jobs

Rabidlamb wrote: »

You've had cuts . . . . hmmm
Where I work 3 quarters of us got laid off in 2009 & the remainder have had 25% pay cuts.
Hearing the Public Service hark on about their pension contribution does my head in, I've been paying 8% into one for the past 13 years & it would have done better if I'd put it in the credit union.
Meanwhile your elder colleagues were looking forward to a €30k pension with their golden handshake after contributing nothing.
It annoys me & should annoy you too.

Hopefully a mass exodus of this protectionist class may force the government to lift the embargo.
I hope you fare well in the full-time hiring process.

Thank you for proving my earlier post.

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Brilliant! The simple rule of thumb when it comes to portraying the public sector versus the private sector is inherent in that e-mail... and is as follows:

Take the BEST case scenario within the public service and make believe that everyone in the public sector has similar pay and conditions (in this case that we all get paid over 200k or think it's small beans to be earning).

Then you take the WORST case scenario with the private sector and make believe that everyone in the private sector has similar pay and conditions.

By the way... explain your pension comments because it doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about which isn't surprising seeing as the public are fed lies on an almost daily basis.

In the real world in the private sector, last week i took in 30 euro, the week before, 80 euro.

MysticalRain wrote: »

That was discussed here in the Work & Jobs forum. Apparently those jobs were mainly niche roles that 99% of the 450k on the dole would not have been qualified to do anyway.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=77034426

You're right, seems like a niche role alright.

There is a widespread belief that, particularly when pension entitlements and job security are taken into account, public employees in Ireland are still better off than their private sector neighbours.

^ Indo hack\wanker speak for "We have no tangible proof, etc"

Big thick Bertie gave the public sector 20% benchmarking increases in 2003. Big thick Mary O'Rourke gave the ESB 15% wage increases, no questions asked. The two of them should be put into stocks and rotten fruit thrown at them in every village green in Ireland

Ally Dick wrote: »

Big thick Bertie gave the public sector 20% benchmarking increases in 2003. Big thick Mary O'Rourke gave the ESB 15% wage increases, no questions asked. The two of them should be put into stocks and rotten fruit thrown at them in every village green in Ireland

Well done for picking a percentage from your hole.

Have you actually read either of the benchmarking reports?

There were hundreds of different job grades assessed. Some got large percentage rises whilst others got minimal ones.

Looks like Big thick Bertie has a new companion

efb wrote: »

i bagsy the arse riding style

Sorry I'm on a promise to longshanks (I hope he lives up to his name godammit)

Rabidlamb wrote: »

You've had cuts . . . . hmmm
Where I work 3 quarters of us got laid off in 2009 & the remainder have had 25% pay cuts.

So what you're saying is that we've both received an approx 25% reduction in earnings over the past two years? And yet you're on here having a go? This illustrates the double standards in the debate: you receive cutbacks and shout it to the rooftops, I receive similar cutbacks and its ignored. You receive cutbacks in a sector where many have escaped them; I receive them in a sector where everyone has taken some hit. And yet you blather on about the sufferings of the private sector while negating the cutbacks suffered by the private sector.

Again, I'm not here to defend the PS per se, but rather to defend it against sweeping generalisations and ill-considered attacks.

Hearing the Public Service hark on about their pension contribution does my head in, I've been paying 8% into one for the past 13 years & it would have done better if I'd put it in the credit union.

So what? It was part of our terms and conditions and it was changed, resulting in a significant reduction in our take home pay. We're essentially paying on average 10% more for the same service. Pensions are still an attractive aspect of the PS, and I'm not moaning about the levy, but it's absurd to pretend that it wasn't a cut.

Meanwhile your elder colleagues were looking forward to a €30k pension with their golden handshake after contributing nothing.
It annoys me & should annoy you too.

It doesn't annoy me that blocklayers earned up to €100 000 pa at the height of the boom, and it doesn't annoy me that teachers received high wages either. I think, in both cases, the wages were too high and had to come down, but why would I attack individual members of each for taking what was offered?

I do consider that teaching (and other) Unions have to bear a significant part for their actions during the Celtic Tiger, but it could hardly be expected that an individual teacher or blocklayer or whatever would voluntarily return pay increases to the exchequer which is what some here appear to expect.

I hope you fare well in the full-time hiring process.

Why thank you.

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Now I like a bit of Public Service bashing as much as the next man.

Just for the sake of it?

I do admire those who come on to defend the indefensible.

In afirness, i don't think anyone in this thread has done any such thing. Indeed, I've merely pointed out that I've received the same cutbacks as you. How is it that your experiences of austerity are legitimate concerns, but mine aren't?

I sense that some of them are as frustrated as us with their upper echelons who are on a multiple of their salary just based on time served & not ability or dedication.

I'm frustrated with some aspects of the PS to be sure. I started a thread criticising teaching unions in the education forum back in Septermber where I ventedsome of those frustrations. I'm nore frustrated however by those who use the pretence of a debate on the public sector as an excuse to mindlessly attack the public sector, without any recourse to stats or evidence. When I'm teaching English or History I constrantly emphasise the need for evidence to back points or arguments- it appears that some on here obviously had teachers who didn't share my approach to those subjects!

From an economic perspective everyone should be paid as little as possible. That includes everyone from binmen to bureaucrats to company directors, regardless of which sector they work in. Any other approach fails in the long run.

As I understand it, the public sector has very little churn of permanent staff, except under the exceptional circumstances we have at the moment with people retiring early due to changes in Ts&Cs. This makes it very difficult to adjust wages over time to take account of changes in the job markets as happens with the more dynamic parts of the private sector (e.g. IT).

I don't know whether more churn is the solution, but if it isn't, then there ought to be some other more public-service-y method for adjusting wage levels to strike the right balance between underpay (can't recruit quality staff) and overpay (sucks talent from the private sector, gives crappy value for money, damages public finances).

Ironically, the part of the public service where there is the greatest scope for applying private sector HR practices is in dealing with highly qualified medical professionals, e.g. hospital consultants. There is a very dynamic global market in these skills, and consultants are big and ugly enough to fight their corners individually without needing the defence of unions. And yet we grossly overpay these people. WTF?

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Say it again out loud with a straight face.



It's a bit early for scotch old bean.



We all have bad days at the office, you were better than this yesterday.
Deep breath, clear head & try again.

Counter my arguments then.

1. Every position within the Civil Service is filled by competitive interview.

2. Given that top Civil Servants have thousands of staff, annual turnover/budgets in the billions, and are responsible for running a country not one of them is paid more than 200k. Someone doing their job in the private sector would be paid multiples of what they're on.