[sonicthebadger*]

MOD NOTE
Tangential discussion moved from another thread.
No, this has nothing to do with A&A per se but we're all taxpayers so lets talk!
Dades

Originally Posted by fitz0

They're civil servants. It would take divine intervention to get them to do work.

Uh oh! Someone has fallen for the "fight each other while we rob you" Public Sector v Private Sector ruse.

[Sam Vimes]

Originally Posted by sonicthebadger*

Uh oh! Someone has fallen for the "fight each other while we rob you" Public Sector v Private Sector ruse.

I really wish people would stop saying that. Even if we were to accept that taxes are the government are "robbing us", 1/3 of the amount that they "rob" goes to pay for the public sector. The public sector are not victims of the government's "robbing", they're the second largest beneficiary of it just behind social welfare recipients.

Now if I was to see public sector employees showing some kind of solidarity with the private sector by, for example, voluntarily giving up part of their pay packet on the understanding that the money saved would be used to reduce taxes for everyone instead of fighting absolutely necessary cuts every step of the way I might see your point but until then it would be far more accurate to describe the situation as "fight each other while we rob half of you to pay the other half ".

[fitz0]

Originally Posted by sonicthebadger*

Uh oh! Someone has fallen for the "fight each other while we rob you" Public Sector v Private Sector ruse.

Oh sorry, I forgot to add my punctuation.

*ahem*

[sonicthebadger*]

Originally Posted by Sam Vimes

I really wish people would stop saying that. Even if we were to accept that taxes are the government are "robbing us", 1/3 of the amount that they "rob" goes to pay for the public sector. The public sector are not victims of the government's "robbing", they're the second largest beneficiary of it just behind social welfare recipients.

Taxes are not robbery, I never said that. Citizens need good government and a strong effective civil service to provide things which are essential to human well being but have little or no value if you're only interested in the bottom line. Clean air for example, or a secular education system available to those of the majority of people who are not rich enough to pay for private schools. Comparing public sector workers to social welfare recipients serves to underline your disrespect for them and the work they do.

The Government are not the ones robbing us.

Originally Posted by Sam Vimes

Now if I was to see public sector employees showing some kind of solidarity with the private sector by, for example, voluntarily giving up part of their pay packet on the understanding that the money saved would be used to reduce taxes for everyone instead of fighting absolutely necessary cuts every step of the way I might see your point but until then it would be far more accurate to describe the situation as "fight each other while we rob half of you to pay the other half ".

Those who don't work in the public sector are quick to ignore the fact that many of the people who do have had their pay cut by various supposedly temporary emergency taxation measures, my sister tells me she takes home 25% less than she did in 2007. (Obviously I'm inclined to believe her, but you are free to disregard that as a testimonial and I certainly would in your shoes). But even without that dramatic figure, pay has been cut by increasing tax (for everyone, not just the private sector). The Croke Park agreement was a bloody disaster, I really think the public sector unions are not only out of touch but actively not listening to their members.

And just in case it was missed by anyone before now, the Government are not the ones robbing us.

[markfla]

Originally Posted by Sam Vimes

I really wish people would stop saying that. Even if we were to accept that taxes are the government are "robbing us", 1/3 of the amount that they "rob" goes to pay for the public sector. The public sector are not victims of the government's "robbing", they're the second largest beneficiary of it just behind social welfare recipients.

Now if I was to see public sector employees showing some kind of solidarity with the private sector by, for example, voluntarily giving up part of their pay packet on the understanding that the money saved would be used to reduce taxes for everyone instead of fighting absolutely necessary cuts every step of the way I might see your point but until then it would be far more accurate to describe the situation as "fight each other while we rob half of you to pay the other half ".

Well don't go crying to them if you're raped or robbed then or you have a sick family member, I'm sure you can do a better job at educating them too. Get called out to a car crash with mangled young people or suicides and you may change your tune. For the record I'm in private sector and haven't voluntarily reduced my wage. Sorry for derailing thread mods.

[Sam Vimes]

Originally Posted by sonicthebadger*

Taxes are not robbery, I never said that. Citizens need good government and a strong effective civil service to provide things which are essential to human well being but have little or no value if you're only interested in the bottom line. Clean air for example, or a secular education system available to those of the majority of people who are not rich enough to pay for private schools. Comparing public sector workers to social welfare recipients serves to underline your disrespect for them and the work they do.

The Government are not the ones robbing us.

Those who don't work in the public sector are quick to ignore the fact that many of the people who do have had their pay cut by various supposedly temporary emergency taxation measures, my sister tells me she takes home 25% less than she did in 2007. (Obviously I'm inclined to believe her, but you are free to disregard that as a testimonial and I certainly would in your shoes). But even without that dramatic figure, pay has been cut by increasing tax (for everyone, not just the private sector). The Croke Park agreement was a bloody disaster, I really think the public sector unions are not only out of touch but actively not listening to their members.

And just in case it was missed by anyone before now, the Government are not the ones robbing us.

Originally Posted by markfla

Well don't go crying to them if you're raped or robbed then or you have a sick family member, I'm sure you can do a better job at educating them too. Get called out to a car crash with mangled young people or suicides and you may change your tune. For the record I'm in private sector and haven't voluntarily reduced my wage. Sorry for derailing thread mods.

You both make compelling arguments for why the public sector should be paid well and well resourced and I agree with both of you. Unfortunately nothing that either of you said changes the fact that we're taking in ~€38 billion in tax and spending ~€55 billion. Those two simple figures are the only thing that matters in any conversation on public sector expenditure and the reason why there is so much "fighting" between the public and private sectors is the apparent desire of the public sector and their supporters to ignore them. Yes doctors, gardai and teachers work very hard and do very good jobs but no amount of hard work from the public sector will convince me that our country should borrow itself into bankruptcy to pay them money we don't have

[dmw07]

Originally Posted by Sam Vimes

You both make compelling arguments for why the public sector should be paid well and well resourced and I agree with both of you. Unfortunately nothing that either of you said changes the fact that we're taking in ~€38 billion in tax and spending ~€55 billion. Those two simple figures are the only thing that matters in any conversation on public sector expenditure and the reason why there is so much "fighting" between the public and private sectors is the apparent desire of the public sector and their supporters to ignore them. Yes doctors, gardai and teachers work very hard and do very good jobs but no amount of hard work from the public sector will convince me that our country should borrow itself into bankruptcy to pay them money we don't have

I agree in part with everyone here really.

Simple maths tells us to tighten the belts though.

That is not happening.

I champion doctors, nurses, garda and firemen (most of whom are part time and give up a lot of their spare time to do the job) and some don't even have the resources to do their jobs properly. But, there is a lot of dead wood and a lot of over paid, under worked employees in the public sector. Speaking from personal experience of about 6-7 close friends and family in the civil service.

The stereotype of civil servants is overplayed but they agree that what goes on in the public sector would never happen in the private. The organisation is terrible, the bonus method is retarded and a lot of under-preforming employees would be sacked.

The fat needs to be removed. That is being blocked, by the fat.

Things need to change.

[robindch]

Originally Posted by dmw07

The fat needs to be removed. That is being blocked, by the fat.

And the trades unions, who will raise hell if their ability to use their membership to parasitize indirectly upon the private sector, and the general public, is threatened.

Nothing I've ever heard about the civil service unions has suggested to me that they're significantly different from what went on in a certain largish, well-known manufacturing facility near Cork which, when I worked there, used to have 550 people employed (some of them gainfully), and now has none.

[dmw07]

Originally Posted by robindch

And the trades unions, who will raise hell if their ability to use their membership to parasitize indirectly upon the private sector, and the general public, is threatened.

Nothing I've ever heard about the civil service unions has suggested to me that they're significantly different from what went on in a certain largish, well-known manufacturing facility near Cork which, when I worked there, used to have 550 people employed (some of them gainfully), and now has none.

Unions


****Quiver****

[irishh_bob]

Originally Posted by markfla

Well don't go crying to them if you're raped or robbed then or you have a sick family member, I'm sure you can do a better job at educating them too. Get called out to a car crash with mangled young people or suicides and you may change your tune. For the record I'm in private sector and haven't voluntarily reduced my wage. Sorry for derailing thread mods.

is thier meant to be some kind of warning in there that if we complain about state sector wages , the guards and nurses will simply up and leave , if that is the purpose of your post , its a tad lame , thier are any number of people who are all too willing to don a garda or nurses uniform , the wages are exceptionally good for either in this country

[Gbear]

It's funny, I heard on newstalk the other day (and checked figures here ) that the average wage for German professors (of the lecturing variety I mean) is about 48k a year.

In Ireland the average is about 78k.

Also, germany has a slightly higher rate of upper band income tax (42%, in case anyone thought there might be a mitigating factor there).

Granted people rightly point out that there is a mitigating factor in the form of a higher cost of living but that higher cost of living is not entirely unrelated to the ludicrous wages we're paying those in the employ of the government.

It's not about taking the money away from the public sector. It's about taking back the money we didn't have to give them in the first place.
I do wonder if allowing public sectors to be represented by unions is a good idea at all. Whatever way it's fixed, power has to be taken out of the hands of those in the public sector and some semblance of fairness and only rewarding honest endeavour has to be driven into the public sector (although not really to the ground level staff).

Front line staff in the guards, nurses and teachers (if they were of a higher standard) have a right to a reasonable wage but people who are lazy asshats getting incremental wages they haven't earned, particularly in the higher echelons of the public sector, need to be pruned.

[Tim Robbins]

Originally Posted by dmw07

Unions


****Quiver****

Unions were really good about 100 years ago where they stood up for people who were being abused. Now, they do not care about people being abused.

1. In the "boom" they ensured that wage gaps between top ranked public sector and low ranked public sector remained very large.

2. The union big boys such as Jack O'Connor are all on well over 6 figure salaries.

3. The Unions have recently agreed that new members of the public sector get paid 10 percent less than everyone else. This is completly unfair. Why should someone doing the exact same work as the person sitting beside them get 10% less. Only because the person on 10% more is a paid up member.

4. They did not give two hoots about the gama workers who were only getting two euros an hour. Why because these people were not paying members?

It irks when they try to take the moral high ground.

They are as much to blame for the mess we are in as the banks.

You cannot get married by the state on a Saturday. It has to be a Monday to Friday. If you want to go to a parent teacher meeting you have to take a half from work, when it make more sense for the teacher to do the occasional Saturday morning in return for those 3 months off in the summer. You cannot bring your kids to a library at a bank holiday weekened because they take Saturday off every bank holiday weekend. You cannot even bring them during that week in Christmas because they take that all off too. don't ever try to return books at lunchtime because they close then - well at least they all do in Fingal.

These are all very basic things.

How about all these public sector union people who tell us how great they are give up their private health insurance and are forced to use the services they provide at a very high cost to the state?

Yeah that's sounds fair to me.

[smokingman]

I've never worked in the public sector but my wife went from working in IBM to it a few years ago. While she's out on maternity leave right now, she would come home every second week before that telling me that her boss had hauled her in to his office to tell her to slow down. I sh|t you not, that is exactly what she is told, week in, week out. She was apparently making the others in the office look bad but my wife is not the sort to laze away a day. She cannot understand the thought process that would make someone make their days seem longer by doing nothing. Having worked in high pressure offices all my working life, I also can't see the logic in not having your salary linked to how well you do your job as opposed to just getting increments no matter how lazy or useless or downright incompetent you are.

The more stories she tells me, the more I despair for this country.

It's a tough question to ask to find a solution but, while there are genuine hard working people in the public sector, I liken the lack of personal responsibility in it to the same trait in the religious.

"As long as I keep my head down, I'll go to heaven"
"As long as I keep my head down, I'll stay in this job for life"

"I'll follow the ten commandments as defined and be rigid against any new moralities like humanism"
"That's not my job, I file B21 forms; you're probably looking for someone that files B21a forms"

etcetera...

[Tim Robbins]

Originally Posted by Gbear

It's funny, I heard on newstalk the other day (and checked figures here ) that the average wage for German professors (of the lecturing variety I mean) is about 48k a year.

In Ireland the average is about 78k.

Professors? Sure what about those Fas people? Think about this. Fas is an organisation to help people with little or no qualifications get some skills and get a fairly basic job and the upper management go around flying in 1st class firing off all sorts of nonsense as expenses.

We are being robbed by the public sector.

[Tim Robbins]

Originally Posted by smokingman

"As long as I keep my head down, I'll go to heaven"
"As long as I keep my head down, I'll stay in this job for life"

"I'll follow the ten commandments as defined and be rigid against any new moralities like humanism"
"That's not my job, I file B21 forms; you're probably looking for someone that files B21a forms"

etcetera...

Where they differ is on guilt. Religious people feel guilty but public sector have this attitude: "Don't blame us for the recession!".

I think they are more like creationists. They refuse to recognise the evidence which shows that their high wages are the main cause of the deficit problem in the same way as creationists refuse to accept fossils and molecular evidence