Hugo wants more dosh

dajaffa

Seems Hugh Brady + his fellow Uni Pres mates are looking for a big pay hike...

Taken from the Irish Independent, Friday Jan 5th

Because we're worth it: Profs want €135,000 rise for 'mental horse-power'

THE country's seven university presidents are seeking a pay rise of up to €135,000 each.

They believe the 55pc pay rise would reward their unique "mental horse power", "emotional intelligence" and "street smart, problem-solving skills".

Details of their major pay claim are revealed in a confidential submission to the Review Body for Higher Remuneration in the Public Service.

The presidents, who are currently paid between €186,000 and €205,000, want a salary of at least €320,000 a year.

They say their role has moved from that of being an educator. "It is now more akin to that of the corporate chief executive who must develop and drive strategically and position their businesses to grow and be ethnically and effectively managed and led."

The "reward philosophy" for the post must be "robust" enough to continue to attract candidates of the calibre required, the submission says.

The Irish Independent has seen a copy of the university chiefs' 25-page joint claim, which was submitted some months ago by the Irish Universities Association. It was prepared with the assistance of an outside HR consultant.

The document is laced with management speak such as "win-win partnerships", "extending people's line of sight", "step-change" and "rewarding individual's on-going value" with base pay, variable pay or bonus pay.

It lists many arguments for addressing the "slippage" that has occurred in the presidents' salaries in comparison with the private sector and university presidents abroad.

There is no reference in the document to the fact that three of the seven university heads live on campus - in UCD, Trinity and DCU. Both the TCD Provost Dr John Hegarty and UCD President are by statute to live on the college grounds.

Already the three top paid university presidents - at TCD, UCD and UCC - earn more than government ministers who get €199,000. If their claim is conceded it would put their salaries ahead of that of the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern who is currently earning €252,000.

Secretary generals of government departments and Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy earn a salary of €192,000 since last June and there was an outcry some months ago when it emerged that five senior Health Service Executive advisors are earning up to €202,000 each for just 135 days work a year.

The seven heads earn almost twice as much as a TD whose salary starts at €90,770 but who gets more based on the length of service.

They are also far ahead of their own academic staff. The best paid professor in UCD earns €136,299 at the top of the scale.

As well as pressing for a substantial pay rise, the association eventually wants individual governing bodies to set up remuneration committees to decide on the reward for each university head.

"This opportunity to better align the pay of University Heads and send a powerful message that reward demands delivery and performance is critical to the success of Government policy in the third and fourth level sectors.

"It is also critical to recognise that the leadership positions in this sector are unique within the Irish public sector in that applicants for the posts will have international competition for competitively renumerated positions and performance of their institution and consequently their leadership is benchmarked internationally," it added.

Red Alert

If they are unhappy with the market wage for their job they should leave and find a new one. Same reason people leave McDonalds?

Jonny Arson

The article speaks for itself. No one can argue that our univeristies are in charge by filthy, greedy, $cum. It's sickening these rottweilers have the nerve to demand 55% pay rises of €135,000 when many students struggle to pay for fees, accomodation, food and don't have enough textbooks to use in the library which is to the detriment of their degrees.

Shame on UCD's pre$ident Hugh brady and his pre$idential cronies, an absolute disgrace. :mad: :mad:

abelard

dajaffa wrote:

"mental horse power"
"emotional intelligence"
"street smart, problem-solving skills".
"win-win partnerships"
"extending people's line of sight"
"step-change"
"rewarding individual's on-going value"

I might just vomit.

Red Alert

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

The article speaks for itself. No one can argue that our univeristies are in charge by filthy, greedy, $cum. It's sickening these rottweilers have the nerve to demand 55% pay rises of €135,000 when many students struggle to pay for fees, accomodation, food and don't have enough textbooks to use in the library which is to the detriment of their degrees.

Shame on UCD's pre$ident Hugh brady and his pre$idential cronies, an absolute disgrace. :mad: :mad:

you my man are absolute legend - that's the best post i've seen from anyone in ages

Sangre

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

The article speaks for itself. No one can argue that our univeristies are in charge by filthy, greedy, $cum. It's sickening these rottweilers have the nerve to demand 55% pay rises of €135,000 when many students struggle to pay for fees, accomodation, food and don't have enough textbooks to use in the library which is to the detriment of their degrees.

Shame on UCD's pre$ident Hugh brady and his pre$idential cronies, an absolute disgrace. :mad: :mad:

Yeah, he should work for free so we can increase grants!

hullaballoo

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

The article speaks for itself. No one can argue that our univeristies are in charge by filthy, greedy, $cum. It's sickening these rottweilers have the nerve to demand 55% pay rises of €135,000 when many students struggle to pay for fees, accomodation, food and don't have enough textbooks to use in the library which is to the detriment of their degrees.

Shame on UCD's pre$ident Hugh brady and his pre$idential cronies, an absolute disgrace. :mad: :mad:

I'd nearly ban you simply for being so ignorant with a post like that, Zane.

Surely this move is towards bettering the standard of teaching in the college, as opposed to ripping us off? I mean considering we come nowhere near actually paying teachers' wages, I can't see what your problem is.

This is like people getting annoyed that accountants, doctors and lawyers get paid well. They're fncking professionals. They deserve it.

Scraggs

"mental horse power"
"emotional intelligence"
"win-win partnerships"
"extending people's line of sight"
"step-change"
"rewarding individual's on-going value"

Loev these.

"street smart, problem-solving skills"

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm still Brady from the block.

funky penguin

Cookies!

Sangre

This isn't TCN funky_penguin, add something at least somewhat relevant or constructive please.

cast_iron

I would be very suspicious of the article.
The one word quotations could well be taken out of context, and half the article is dedicated to comparing it to others - Uni heads don't do the job of politicians and the like, and are usually better educated.

Typical Indo, if you ask me, and bigger fools the people who take it on their spin.

dajaffa

cast_iron wrote:

I would be very suspicious of the article.
The one word quotations could well be taken out of context, and half the article is dedicated to comparing it to others - Uni heads don't do the job of politicians and the like, and are usually better educated.

Typical Indo, if you ask me, and bigger fools the people who take it on their spin.

K I'm not a huge Indo fan myself, and yeah generally they'd be educated better than politicians, though in reality a big part of their ob would be akin to that of a politician, trying to secure funding + whatnot. I have to say though it is also ridiculous that part of the reasons given as to why they deserve an increase is that their salary compares badly to similar positions in the private sector. If we used that logic then there's a huge number of public servants who'd be demanding huge salary increases. There are benefits to working in the public sector, such as job security which people accept if they choose to work there.

The leader of each university getting substantially more than the Taoiseach? Eh... no.

cast_iron

dajaffa wrote:

I have to say though it is also ridiculous that part of the reasons given as to why they deserve an increase is that their salary compares badly to similar positions in the private sector.

Having not read the 25 page report, I can only comment on the above article. It doesn't argue simply that there is a bad comparison - but that "slippage" has occurred, which is a different thing.

dajaffa wrote:

There are benefits to working in the public sector, such as job security which people accept if they choose to work there.

Are the Presidents not limited to a term of office though?

Jonny Arson

hullaballoo wrote:

This is like people getting annoyed that accountants, doctors and lawyers get paid well. They're fncking professionals. They deserve it.

I haven't heard of many professionals requesting pay increases of 10 times above the standard rate of inflation while already been paid 6 figure sums with a college mansion thrown into the mix, there's no basis for a comparison with traditional professionals. No mattter what Brady and his buddies like to think Universities aren't corporations and there's a whole set of different aspects and responsibilites to what their job and a CEO entails.

From a pure ethical standpoint I'll state again that these demands are a slap across the face students and academics. I wonder what all the final year Early Irish students would think of this when their degree was pissed down the toilet by a lack of funding and care while our ''mental horse-power'' pre$ident demands his little salary increase which could have saved the department and these students degrees? If Brady is doing such a fine job revolutionising UCDD why are there so many disillusioned academics and staff? I could go on all day.

I can't believe there's actually a debate about these demands. Greed - that's all there is to this.

hullaballoo wrote:

I'd nearly ban you simply for being so ignorant with a post like that, Zane.

LOL!

Red Alert

A lot of doctors, lawyers, engineers etc are paid well because the money they get reflects how hard they actually work. I.e. how much of a difference they themselves make to their customer/client etc.

The question that needs to be asked is would UCD be any different had any other person been in the job. My gut feeling is no. And besides, with house prices in Dublin, when you've a free house thrown in (noting the fact he has to live there) what can you complain about?

He has a salary above what many highly qualified and skilled people have in the private sector, where they do not have a cult of personality to support them. Hugh brady is not alone here, as others like Wrixon in Cork and Hegarty in TCD are equally greedy.

Pantsless

I agree with Zane in both his posts.

I cant speak for the other Presidents but I dont see what exactly Dr Brady has done to warrent such an increase. His changes to the college system have been broadly unnecessary and frought with problems which has only led to disruption for students and staff. Now he stands back, surveys the damage, and asks for more money (ontop of his already generous fee).

dajaffa

cast_iron wrote:

Are the Presidents not limited to a term of office though?

Yeah 10 years, but that's no different to city/county managers who get 7 year terms. I'm going to assume that like city/county managers you're pensions sorted after you serve that term. If you want to work in the private sector afterwards you still get your pension on top of that.

AN I don't want to go on about this, but the college basically tried to save money by giving out fixed term contracts more and permanent ones less which didn't entitle people to pensions which nearly caused strike action earlier in the year. I don't know the ins and outs too well but if the college need to do that to save money, how can such a large pay increase be justified?

Chakar

Well of course the university presidents would ask for a higher salary over the odds.Its in their interest to do so and I would say they know that they will not recieve that much of an increase in salary.In the increase the Universities Association provided a benchmark on which to increase their salaries.Its a common practice and nevertheless they aren't deciding the levels of the salaries so its fine.

griffdaddy

Pantsless wrote:

His changes to the college system have been broadly unnecessary and frought with problems which has only led to disruption for students and staff.

People here really need to stop harping on about semesterisation and modularisation (assuming that's what you're talking about). It's the standard modus operandi for most major European and international universities, and provides greater transparency and evaluation when assessing someone's qualification, or indeed when moving between universities for exchanges or post-grads. It was inevitable that it was gonna come to UCD, and it just happened under Hugh Brady while we were there, big deal, it's not the end of the world, just get used to it and move on. These wage increases won't affect your day to day life, it's not like they're gonna sell the short loan collection in the library to pay for them.

Chakar

griffdaddy wrote:

People here really need to stop harping on about semesterisation and modularisation (assuming that's what you're talking about). It's the standard modus operandi for most major European and international universities, and provides greater transparency and evaluation when assessing someone's qualification, or indeed when moving between universities for exchanges or post-grads. It was inevitable that it was gonna come to UCD, and it just happened under Hugh Brady while we were there, big deal, it's not the end of the world, just get used to it and move on. These wage increases won't affect your day to day life, it's not like they're gonna sell the short loan collection in the library to pay for them.

I absolutely agree and I think the public sector salaries will be assessed as a whole by a commision on public service which will recommend increases and these will be publicised in due time.

?

The University Presidents claim their job is NOT like others of a similar paygrade in the public sector. Therefore, so their arguement goes, they need to be paid more than the Taoiseach, more than €5,000 a week. So why are you, Chakar, trying to cloud the issue and difuse the controversy by telling us to wait for some bureaucratic think-tank which will focus solely on the public sector?

The University Presidents don't want this! That's why they organised their own bench-marking process! I'll be the first to admit that most heads of Higher Education Institutes are skilled researchers and good at selling the research skills of their collegues-or underlings-to international investors. For this they are paid more than all their educational collegues and more than most TDs and high-ranking civil servants. Could anyone-other than themselves-tell us why they should be paid more? Most of the internal administrative grind of their respective institutes is handled by a battery of 'Vice-Presidents' and heads of Colleges/Schools/Programmes.

The only thing the Presidents can use to justify their pay-rises is the recent 'strategic developments' such as those going on in UCD and TCD. One must ask in turn what justifies these 'strategic developments'?

Ans:http://www.gatswatch.org/

hullaballoo

Pantsless wrote:

I agree with Zane in both his posts.

QFT.

Zane wrote:

I haven't heard of many professionals requesting pay increases of 10 times above the standard rate of inflation while already been paid 6 figure sums with a college mansion thrown into the mix, there's no basis for a comparison with traditional professionals. No mattter what Brady and his buddies like to think Universities aren't corporations and there's a whole set of different aspects and responsibilites to what their job and a CEO entails.

Beyond simply being an idle rant, I'm not quite sure what your point is. Lecturers ARE traditional professionals. And we all know that teachers in this country are underpaid. So why shouldn't they request a salary increase above the rate of inflation. Doctors' fees, accountants' fees, lawyers' fees and other non-traditional professions often get a hike beyond that warranted by inflation where there's a market for it.

Right now, the country (that includes the public AND private sector) is investing heavily in education. This means that there's a market for lecturing and teaching staff. Given that the current situation seems to offer only temporary, part-time and contract work, the job security needs to be reflected by their salary. They might earn a six-figure amount this semester, but they could be unemployed next semester.

These things always balance out.

Now, I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that you study economics, Zane. So what sort of thought did you put into your rant about corporatism and greed that might relate to some of the economic realities? Very little, from the looks of things.

LOL!

Yes, well, you would. Just be glad this isn't legal discussion.

Chakar

? wrote:

The University Presidents claim their job is NOT like others of a similar paygrade in the public sector. Therefore, so their argument goes, they need to be paid more than the Taoiseach, more than €5,000 a week. So why are you, Chakar, trying to cloud the issue and difuse the controversy by telling us to wait for some bureaucratic think-tank which will focus solely on the public sector?

The University Presidents don't want this! That's why they organised their own bench-marking process! I'll be the first to admit that most heads of Higher Education Institutes are skilled researchers and good at selling the research skills of their colleagues-or underlings-to international investors. For this they are paid more than all their educational collegues and more than most TDs and high-ranking civil servants. Could anyone-other than themselves-tell us why they should be paid more? Most of the internal administrative grind of their respective institutes is handled by a battery of 'Vice-Presidents' and heads of Colleges/Schools/Programmes.

The only thing the Presidents can use to justify their pay-rises is the recent 'strategic developments' such as those going on in UCD and TCD. One must ask in turn what justifies these 'strategic developments'?

Ans:http://www.gatswatch.org/

This "bureaucratic think tank" as you call it assesses the salaries of the public sector positions and recommends increases to the Government.

The university presidents are entitled to lobby for a high pay increase and they do so through the Universities Association.This is nothing unusual other representative associations like the Garda Representative Association also lobby for higher wages for their rank and file Gardai.

?

If the University Presidents had such faith in some govenment review of publis sector wages why did they go ahead a commision their own?

They obviously don't consider themselves equivalent to the rest of the public sector! And they aren't seeing as some of them get a free house!

Chakar

? wrote:

If the University Presidents had such faith in some govenment review of publis sector wages why did they go ahead a commision their own?

They obviously don't consider themselves equivalent to the rest of the public sector! And they aren't seeing as some of them get a free house!

Well I think they would want to increase the chances of an much higher salary increase.Its in their interest anyway.I personally don't really think it would have much impact on the decision itself as all the salaries have to be in line with each other in terms of position.So you can rule out a higher than normal increase for the presidents and not for the other important positions.

griffdaddy

bottom line, people like money. people grouping together and saying they want more money doesnt equal people getting more money. realistically, the whole thing is hot air and it would be very difficult for a such a tiny already ostracized group of high ranking academics to bully a government or bench-marking commision into a ridiculous wage hike.

The_Minister

Here's the Trinity forums thread on this, in case anyone is interested. The other colleges mentioned do not seem to have noticed.

Sangre

Even if Brady currently has a house on campus he clearly still has a mortgage to pay. Do you think he was homeless before he got the job?

griffdaddy

Sangre wrote:

Even if Brady currently has a house on campus he clearly still has a mortgage to pay. Do you think he was homeless before he got the job?

is that a joke?

cast_iron

Explain the funny side please.

griffdaddy

Even in Ireland's ridiculously expensive housing market you don't need an annual wage of €320,000 to sustain a mortgage. Sangre's post made him sound like some kinda pauper struggling to get by on 200 grand, hence i thought he was joking.

abelard

What irks me is that I really really don't feel, in Hugh's case at least, that he deserves the pay rise he's asking for. I mean I don't think he is deserving of an extra €135,000 per year.

He has overseen modularisation of almost the entire college, but there are still numerous problems with the system (inadequate places, the registration affair, some programmes basically ignoring the new structure, the exam seating thing, the fact that we can't trust the date they give us for publishing of exam timetable and, later on, results) along with others not directly concerned with modularisation. Maybe, since I'm just a student after all, I don't get an absolute grasp on the complexities and scope of what he's done, but almost every aspect of it just seems, to me, sloppy. He's well able to talk the talk, anyone who's read/seen/listened to any of the UCD adverts will know that, he presents a facade of perfection but breaks so many promises.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that, right now, I wouldn't give him an extra cent. I do believe there is hope though. The problems I've listed, and the countless I've forgotten, could easily be solved with some proper planning and foresight, which Hugh is surely capable of. Fair enough they've asked for extra money, so maybe they should be set some objective goals to complete to justify their raise. If this salary assessment board do their jobs right, they will thoroughly review the grounds specified in this report and monitor the progress and success of the Uni heads in implementing their promises, and if successful, fair enough, give them what they want.

(Disclaimer in case that made no sense: All of the above is just the opinion of a student, who is hardly objective)

Chakar

abelard wrote:

and if successful, fair enough, give them what they want.

Well if that happens then Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach will be getting a big pay raise and he will be the most well paid political leader in the European Union. At the moment Bertie is the second most well paid political leader with Tony Blair of Britain at number one.

Blush_01

I think there's a number of things that are disgraceful about this thread, but having a problem with a demand for a 55% increase in wages is not one of them. dajaffa just made a really good point that I'm too tired to type, but basically, you can't have your cake and eat it too, regardless of how hard you try.

dajaffa

Blush_01 wrote:

I think there's a number of things that are disgraceful about this thread, but having a problem with a demand for a 55% increase in wages is not one of them. dajaffa just made a really good point that I'm too tired to type, but basically, you can't have your cake and eat it too, regardless of how hard you try.

It was along the lines of you can't demand private sector pay with public sector benefits and how UCD are actively trying to make cutbacks by taking on new staff on fixed term contracts rather than permanently to save money (essentially public sector pay without the benefits of working in the public sector), yet somehow Hugo is above this + somehow is entitled to an exorbitant pay rise.

Blush_01

Yeah, that was it. It's a bit shít really.

Sangre

griffdaddy wrote:

Even in Ireland's ridiculously expensive housing market you don't need an annual wage of €320,000 to sustain a mortgage. Sangre's post made him sound like some kinda pauper struggling to get by on 200 grand, hence i thought he was joking.

Obviously not but the fact he lives on campus doesn't mean he has no mortgage expenditure which is what the article and some have suggested.

cast_iron

Blush_01 wrote:

Yeah, that was it. It's a bit shít really.

I really don't think so.
Quite the opposite, I would think.

It's the very point that dajaffa makes that goes some way to justify his wage increase demand. The idea of fixed term contracts is surely a good thing for UCD - it saves money in the long run. And that is something that I think few people here, or the authors of the article have in mind.

As for not applying fixed term contracts to himself, I asked earlier - is he not on a fixed contract already?

(Someone there tried to blame the exam seating thing on Hugh Brady!)

Chakar

Blush_01 wrote:

Yeah, that was it. It's a bit shít really.

The point dajaffa made or the situation in UCD?

dajaffa

cast_iron wrote:

As for not applying fixed term contracts to himself, I asked earlier - is he not on a fixed contract already?

Yes but it's a ten year one which is far longer than the other staff would have and he's entitled to a pension when it runs out. Other workers on 1-3 year contracts who say keep getting it renewed, could end up doing a long stint of service without being entitled to a pension. As a result UCD will attract fewer high quality staff. There has to be a trade off between pay and benefits, ie if workers benefits are being reduced there needs to be some sort of trade-off of better pay otherwise our staff are going to be sub-standard.

Hugh on the other hand wants to get closer to private sector pay whilst retaining his benefits.

hullaballoo

What's with the repeated emphasis on Hugh Brady? Have you forgotten that this will give some of the lecturers some of the benefits that they have been without? That they have been looking for since Brady started getting on their bad sides.

He's hitting one for the team this time. It's not just about him this time. So why must you people continually give him flak over this?

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that I think Brady has had a flawless record. Far from it. Personally, I think Horizons was introduced far too quickly and far too broadly - to the extent that it's put a major spanner in the works for many people, from freshers to final years. Further, his recruitment methods have sat uneasily with me in the past. However, credit where it's due at the same time.

I think the teaching staff deserve a pay increase. Of course, it won't be anything like 55%. Anyone involved in wage negotiation will tell you that the parties involved will each have their limits and will try to reach agreement within those. I think 20% might be more realistic (just to elaborate - that's an increase of about 5% plus 15% to cover the lag in wages that lecturers are insulted by every month as a result of falling behind other professions when their work was undervalued and de-prioritised by a slumping economy). If Brady gets a windfall as a result, fair play to him - the rest of the college will be better for it.

It's not like he's getting a 55% increase all to himself whereupon he'll divy up a 5% increase for the lecturing staff. Or at least, that's what one would hope.

Crash

Essentially, my problem with this is the push to be recognised as on par with the private sector. I know from my experience in trinity that were John Hegarty CEO of a large company, he'd be gone by now - a number of issues over funding would have led to him gone IMO.

so they trade off job security (a nice ten years) versus private sector. there's their pay increase right there.

cast_iron

I'm not convinced that job security is such a big issue. These are very highly qualified people, who are very employable. I doubt they will struggle too much to find a job when their term ends.

ferdi

ah hugh is great, lets all chip in and by him a new hat.

Stabshauptmann

cast_iron wrote:

I'm not convinced that job security is such a big issue. These are very highly qualified people, who are very employable. I doubt they will struggle too much to find a job when their term ends.

I had a lecturer last year who often admited that he is lecturing (incompetently) because he didnt make it in the "real world".

dajaffa

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

I had a lecturer last year who often admited that he is lecturing (incompetently) because he didnt make it in the "real world".

I think he was referring to the presidents who *should be* very well qualified.

Lecturers are safe for life basically if they get tenure, but depending on what department they're in etc it can take years.

poobum

dajaffa wrote:

I think he was referring to the presidents who *should be* very well qualified.

Lecturers are safe for life basically if they get tenure, but depending on what department they're in etc it can take years.

what exactly in tenure?

dajaffa

poobum wrote:

what exactly in tenure?

Well basically when a lecturer/professor type gets made permanent.

poobum

oh id heard it in friends, but hadnt a clue what it ment! :P it hought it was when they published a paper...then realised they have to do dem anyway...and so was lost! thanks!

Sangre

Its not that they're just permanent, they basically can't be fired. Its a job for life.

Hulla, what are you talking about teaching staff? Doesn't this only affect the university presidents?

BKtje

Thats what i was thinking as well. Just the seven uni presidents.