We Won!!! 12 day for Xmas Deal is Off!!!!

CityCentreMan

We Won!!! 12 day for Xmas Deal is Off!!!!

Power to the people!!!

murphaph

CityCentreMan wrote: »

We Won!!! 12 day for Xmas Deal is Off!!!!

Power to the people!!!

Where'd you hear this? It's not really about winning for me, it's about the reality that Ireland can't afford the public sector at it's current rates.

ei.sdraob

what exactly did you win?

CityCentreMan

Just turn on your radio!

This is the first time in a very long time that our government have stood up to the unions.

The only reason they did is because they were frightened by the alternative as voiced by the people. WE WON!!!

seangal

CityCentreMan wrote: »

We Won!!! 12 day for Xmas Deal is Off!!!!

Power to the people!!!

This just show the problem facing ireland
There are no winners in any of this

CityCentreMan

Yes there are winners. The ordinary people of Ireland are the winners!!

The people of Ireland voiced their opinions by email, by phone to their TD's and ministers, thru the media and thru channels such as this.

This is the first time that our government have stood up to the public Sector Unions and have listened to what the ordinary people want.

We have shown clearly that we will not stand to be bullied by by the PS Unions who have never been stood up to before. This is a turning point!

The worm turns - Power to the people!

We need some proper government and hopefully the guys in Leinster House will now be emboldened to stand up against vested interests and to govern as they are supposed to do.

westtip

CityCentreMan wrote: »

We Won!!! 12 day for Xmas Deal is Off!!!!

Power to the people!!!

+1 spot on OP although there is still a lot of hard work to do and we now need a Government to make radical changes.

Yes it is a victory of sorts but a lot to do now.

Darragh29

The game is up thankfully!

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/orourke-unpaid-leave-proposal-parked-436812.html

Rb

I'd call that a win.

It's a bad time and essentially there are no real winners, but this is really good news for non-public sector workers.

dan_d

Take it easy guys. It ain't over til the fat lady sings!!!!(though it's looking hopeful!)

Josey Wales

CityCentreMan wrote: »

Yes there are winners. The ordinary people of Ireland are the winners!!

You know that people who work in the public service are as you put it also 'the ordinary people of Ireland'.

Figerty

A great Irish Sean Nos singer once said of an unappreciative audience..
' The fools the fools they have left us the fools...'

You have now become the stooge of the government who set up the public vs private worker, and now you claim a victory over the supposed failure of a pay deal when you should be looking at how they got us into a position of financial weakness from a position of strength.

Boy have you fallen for the months of PR spin.

Sand

Excellent result. This is very important.

First, the unions only offered a "do less for less" deal when we need to at the least maintain necessary services.

Second, it was utterly regressive: The lowest paid Public Sector workers would take the exact same % hit as the upper civil servants. Given the hamfisted way the pension levy was implemented, it might actually end up that the higher paid take a relatively less hit.

Third, public sector pensions are inexplicably linked to current pay. This is why the unions are fighting so furiously to prevent any hit to the top level pay: they want their pensions untouched.

But I would be cautious - I always knew the "nurses/gardai/firefighters" trotted out to justify 200K Euro salaries for bureacrats were just puppets, but I found it hard to credit they could actually believe this regressive deal was going to be fair.

Public anger did catch Cowen off guard; as someone pointed out, its rare to see a government make a mistake like this and to see such a collective reaction of incredulity and anger to it: Even NAMA has its defenders, though they will vanish as the true scale of the losses becomes clear.

Cowen's love of making a "deal" maybe blinded him. But I was surprised the FF backbenchers suddenly sprang to life to represent the people - Id think that some of those Frontline alliance dudes might have felt they were getting marginalised/screwed and started dialing up FF TDs to outflank the bigger unions?

Dannyboy83

Figerty wrote: »

A great Irish Sean Nos singer once said of an unappreciative audience..
' The fools the fools they have left us the fools...'

You have now become the stooge of the government who set up the public vs private worker, and now you claim a victory over the supposed failure of a pay deal when you should be looking at how they got us into a position of financial weakness from a position of strength.

Boy have you fallen for the months of PR spin.

No, people can worry about blame after.
First, we have to make a collective effort to save the country.

Hootanany

dan_d wrote: »

Take it easy guys. It ain't over til the fat lady sings!!!!(though it's looking hopeful!)

Will Harney be singing

am i bovvered

Josey Wales wrote: »

You know that people who work in the public service are as you put it also 'the ordinary people of Ireland'.

Not all the people, and you know that !! There is a significant amount of lower paid workers but hiding behind them is the vast majority who have to face up to the reality of what is needed and required.

Flamed Diving

Josey Wales wrote: »

You know that people who work in the public service are as you put it also 'the ordinary people of Ireland'.

A type of privileged ordinary, it would seem.

Scofflaw

Threats to hit them in the pocket may have helped:

Small business representatives today issued an angry response to indications that the Government was considering a plan to enforce unpaid leave in the public sector, instead of direct pay cuts, as a means of achieving €1.3bn in savings.

The Irish Small & Medium Enterprises association (ISME) said many members had said that they feel they have no option but to withhold taxes in a form of protest.

Read more: http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/small-businesses-in-threat-to-withhold-taxes-436815.html#ixzz0YfLTRfaC

Civil disobedience by taxpaying small businesses is a pretty serious indicator.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Rb

Scofflaw wrote: »

Threats to hit them in the pocket may have helped:



Civil disobedience by taxpaying small businesses is a pretty serious indicator.

cordially,
Scofflaw

That's actually pretty impressive.

The_Honeybadger

Scofflaw wrote: »

Threats to hit them in the pocket may have helped:



Civil disobedience by taxpaying small businesses is a pretty serious indicator.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Fair play to them, wonder if they would go through with it, it's all getting very interesting.

funnyname

We need the Goverment to do something radical but it ain't gonna happen.

Scofflaw

mickeyk wrote: »

Fair play to them, wonder if they would go through with it, it's all getting very interesting.

If ISME were able to show me that it would be a general campaign, I'd have done it. Admittedly I'd go for plámássing my delay rather than just outright saying it was a protest (Revenue penalties aren't to be taken lightly), but it comes to the same thing in the end.

cordially,
Scofflaw

pawrick

this is a joke on everyone, it actually sickens me to hear people congratulating the backbenchers who have sat around through out the life of this government and past ones looking out for only them selves - now that FF are unpopular and they are asked for some reform them selves they rush out to be the champions of the people - yes some joke on us all - keep voting them in

reform is needed all round - Fianna Fail has proven it can not govern wisely and can not make decisions which it stands by. Nothing has changed in it's populist agenda.

FGR

...Source/Link to prove this?

pawrick

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/angry-tds-say-they-wont-clock-in-like-factory-staff-1817213.html


"Angry TDs say they won't clock in like factory staff"

Kristopherus

I think the OP has been reading too much Indo and Sindo :D:D:D:D

Sleepy

Why not implement this where possible in addition to a tiered paycut?

Even if it were done on an entirely voluntary basis, there'd be scope for pretty hefty savings.

Every bit of fat that can be trimmed must be and if there are departments or quangos that can do without some of their staff for a few days out of the year, and those staff are happy to take the extra days off, they should be encouraged to do so.

kippy

Sleepy wrote: »

Why not implement this where possible in addition to a tiered paycut?

Even if it were done on an entirely voluntary basis, there'd be scope for pretty hefty savings.

Every bit of fat that can be trimmed must be and if there are departments or quangos that can do without some of their staff for a few days out of the year, and those staff are happy to take the extra days off, they should be encouraged to do so.

Indeed,
It should be offered as well the tiered paycut you speak about and may yet be so.


On a separate point:
People talking about victory and speaking about the "ordinary man" are starting to sound like the very union heads they detest.

parsi

Scofflaw wrote: »

Threats to hit them in the pocket may have helped:



Civil disobedience by taxpaying small businesses is a pretty serious indicator.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Haven't ISME and IBEC members being doing this for years ?

kippy

parsi wrote: »

Haven't ISME and IBEC members being doing this for years ?

Thats a tad unfair and complete impossible to back up now, isnt it?

parsi

kippy wrote: »

Thats a tad unfair and complete impossible to back up now, isnt it?

As jimmmy would say - I heard it in the pub: one of my buddies is a leading member of ISME and he showed me the tax that he wasn't paying etc etc etc

However the Revenue kindly publish lists of defaulters:

http://www.revenue.ie/en/press/defaulters/index.html

kippy

parsi wrote: »

As jimmmy would say - I heard it in the pub: one of my buddies is a leading member of ISME and he showed me the tax that he wasn't paying etc etc etc

However the Revenue kindly publish lists of defaulters:

http://www.revenue.ie/en/press/defaulters/index.html

I dont understand what its got to do with the current debate........
Are all on that list members of said groups?

Who is jimmy btw? Jimmy Magee?

Dammo

Everyone knows that the PS workers will just do less work now. Productivity will suffer and in the long run we'll be no better off. Govt's handling of this whole affair is a joke. Spin and fudge from start to finish.
Anyone who thinks the public v private "debate" hasn't been engineered by them is deluded. Talk of a victory sounds very hollow.

parsi

kippy wrote: »

I dont understand what its got to do with the current debate........
Are all on that list members of said groups?

Who is jimmy btw? Jimmy Magee?

:rolleyes:

seangal

CityCentreMan wrote: »

Yes there are winners. The ordinary people of Ireland are the winners!!

The people of Ireland voiced their opinions by email, by phone to their TD's and ministers, thru the media and thru channels such as this.

This is the first time that our government have stood up to the public Sector Unions and have listened to what the ordinary people want.

We have shown clearly that we will not stand to be bullied by by the PS Unions who have never been stood up to before. This is a turning point!

The worm turns - Power to the people!

We need some proper government and hopefully the guys in Leinster House will now be emboldened to stand up against vested interests and to govern as they are supposed to do.

Tell that to the people who are being turned away from Mullingar A&E
The unions offered to put all public sector employees on a 4 day week for 3 week and you think that by refusing it that is a win
The government will proceed with a pay cut now with no agreement and this will lead to an all out strike and you see that as a win
There are people on here who say they should let 30000 PS staff go but now we are told the PS can't cope with the staff taking 12 day unpaid

seangal

going by the people that call this a win it looks like they will be voting FF back in to power
Well done lads

Nody

seangal wrote: »

going by the people that call this a win it looks like they will be voting FF back in to power
Well done lads

Considering the poison pills they have spread through out the budgets etc. I could seriously consider to vote for FF the first time simply to let them deal with the mess they created.

BlackNinja

Practically all the Public Sector workers here in my office(including me) would rather a pay cut than that 12 days bull. The Unions are making it worse for us all.

kippy

BlackNinja wrote: »

Practically all the Public Sector workers here in my office(including me) would rather a pay cut than that 12 days bull. The Unions are making it worse for us all.

Why so,
This is intriguing me........

BlackNinja

kippy wrote: »

Why so,
This is intriguing me........

Well, at least a pay cut is not going to affect services, it will be tiered to match payscales (so ideally higher paid pay more) and people won't hate us as much.

I'm on €28k after 4 years service, husband out of work and work as frontline staff in a busy section. I want people to stop taking it out on me so if a pay cut helps, then wonderful!

Dirk Gently

I really hope people can see the differance between making neccessary hard decisions and scapegoating easy targets to blame for the eonomic reality we find ourselves in.

It sadden me to see people talk of victory. ok cuts are neccessary but by focusing your energy on public service workers you're playing straight into the governments hands. They'll be sitting back enjoying how workers are blaming other workers for all the countrys problems. standard divide and rule and people fall for it every time.

For those of you on a witch hunt against public pay don't lose sight of the fact that government, lack of regulation, greed in the banking and building sectors and an unsustinable credit economy caused this mess. I'd hate to see people lose sight of who is responsible for all this in their drunken persuit of scapegoats.

by the way I'm a private sector worker with a bigger more stressful workload and a much smaller pay slip at the end of very week. (a lot of it opportunistist I have to say from my employer). I direct no blame at the average public worker for this though. I direct all my blame at government, their credit economy and unregulated lenders and speculators.

The impression I get from a lot of people though is that in their mind public workers are the cause of all our problems. Thats not the case, they are simply another symptom, not the cause. Have a little dignity and stop talking of victory like we just fixed the cause, we're only relieving symptoms.

Cuchulain

CityCentreMan wrote: »

We Won!!! 12 day for Xmas Deal is Off!!!!

Power to the people!!!

Please ban this troll. Look at all the hate threads this complete moron has started. We need more mods on here.

BlackNinja

clown bag wrote: »

. ok cuts are neccessary but by focusing your energy on public service workers you're playing straight into the governments hands. They'll be sitting back enjoying how workers are blaming other workers for all the countrys problems. standard divide and rule and people fall for it every time.

Well said

I direct no blame at the average public worker for this though. I direct all my blame at government, their credit economy and unregulated lenders and speculators.

Thank you:)

Flamed Diving

Guess who works for the PS?

Deadalus

BlackNinja wrote: »

Well, at least a pay cut is not going to affect services, it will be tiered to match payscales (so ideally higher paid pay more) and people won't hate us as much.

I'm on €28k after 4 years service, husband out of work and work as frontline staff in a busy section. I want people to stop taking it out on me so if a pay cut helps, then wonderful!

+1

I am a public sectore worker on 25300 and a pay cut would be better than 12 days unpaid leave. They need to look at the top end and work down from there. General across the Board cut is crazy considering the differences in pay scales in the PS.

I voted against the strike but appartently just because my job happens to be in the public service I have been villified. I havn't quite figured out why that specifically is or what it is I have done but I guess I must deserve it. I think it would be prudent for public servants to start wearing some sort of arm band so that we are more easily identifyable on the street. That way the enraged private sector workers can shout abuse at us on the street instead of just posting it on Boards.

BlackNinja

Deadalus wrote: »

+1

I am a public sectore worker on 25300 and a pay cut would be better than 12 days unpaid leave. They need to look at the top end and work down from there. General across the Board cut is crazy considering the differences in pay scales in the PS.

I voted against the strike but appartently just because my job happens to be in the public service I have been villified. I havn't quite figured out why that specifically is or what it is I have done but I guess I must deserve it. I think it would be prudent for public servants to start wearing some sort of arm band so that we are more easily identifyable on the street. That way the enraged private sector workers can shout abuse at us on the street instead of just posting it on Boards.

It does feel like severe segregation alright. I voted against strike too as it was absolutely pointless, except for stirring up more crap.

Dont be at yourself

I really hope people can see the differance between making neccessary hard decisions and scapegoating easy targets to blame for the eonomic reality we find ourselves in.

It sadden me to see people talk of victory. ok cuts are neccessary but by focusing your energy on public service workers you're playing straight into the governments hands. They'll be sitting back enjoying how workers are blaming other workers for all the countrys problems. standard divide and rule and people fall for it every time.

It's not about blame. It's about making necessary cuts, and it looks like the government might actually have the backbone to do it. That would be a victory.

Scofflaw

Cuchulain wrote: »

Please ban this troll. Look at all the hate threads this complete moron has started. We need more mods on here.

Let me make it clear that the mods are not here to dictate how people ought to feel about the public sector - or the private sector. If there is anger against the public sector, or the government, or property developers, or banks, or the Greens, it is not the mods' role to prevent that anger being expressed by those who feel it - our job is to keep that expression from spilling over into personal attacks on other posters. After that, it's up to yourselves.

Specifically, the post above is such an attack on another poster. If you think someone is trolling, report it. If you attack another poster, you will be infracted, no matter how justified you feel you are in doing so.

moderately,
Scofflaw

herya

seangal wrote: »

There are people on here who say they should let 30000 PS staff go but now we are told the PS can't cope with the staff taking 12 day unpaid

Don't you see the difference?

If people are let go it's because their work is not needed. With job security policy in place there are thousands of such people PS has amassed over the years.

If everybody get a compulsory leave it affects both a car tax office penpusher and an overworked Garda or a busy nurse.

CityCentreMan

Thanks Scofflaw!

With regard to the posts by Blackninja and Deadalus, I am delighted to see your contribution. I have no beef with individual members of the PS but rather with the Unions who purport to represent them and , in that regard, my real beef is with our spineless government who have been outclassed by them. Our lacklustre government have simply allowed the unions to walk all over them.

On this occasion, the government have simply been faced with an alternative force to back down to - joe public. For this government it is a first and it gives me hope that they will continue to listen to the public and not back down to pressure from vested interests as they have always done in the past . .

Our government does'nt really lead, it just decides who to back down to on the day.

If we are to see reform in the Public Service, I would like the reform and the cuts to start with Brian Cowan & Brian Lenihan themselves and work it down. They should :

a) Cut the salaries at ministerial level by at least 30%;
(Maybe benchmark themselves against the pay levels applied in the Scottish Parliament!)
b) Limit the number of pensions to 1 per politician;
c) Outlaw all "unvouched" expenses
d) Place limits on the levels of expenses that can be claimed.

Within the overall civil service, I think that it is appropriate at the cuts be tiered so that the people at the bottom pay vert little indeed.

I honestly believe that it is only when ordinary people (Public & Private Sectors) see that the guys at the top are sharing the pain that it will be (more readily ) accepted.

On this occasion, the "WIN" that I refer to was the government following the wishes of the ordinary people.

The next win will be when they lose the "Charvez Shirts" and apply the cuts to themselves that they are forcing the rest of us to accept!

Deadalus

CityCentreMan wrote: »

Thanks Scofflaw!

With regard to the posts by Blackninja and Deadalus, I am delighted to see your contribution. I have no beef with individual members of the PS but rather with the Unions who purport to represent them and , in that regard, my real beef is with our spineless government who have been outclassed by them. Our lacklustre government have simply allowed the unions to walk all over them.

On this occasion, the government have simply been faced with an alternative force to back down to - joe public. For this government it is a first and it gives me hope that they will continue to listen to the public and not back down to pressure from vested interests as they have always done in the past . .

Our government does'nt really lead, it just decides who to back down to on the day.

If we are to see reform in the Public Service, I would like the reform and the cuts to start with Brian Cowan & Brian Lenihan themselves and work it down. They should :

a) Cut the salaries at ministerial level by at least 30%;
(Maybe benchmark themselves against the pay levels applied in the Scottish Parliament!)
b) Limit the number of pensions to 1 per politician;
c) Outlaw all "unvouched" expenses
d) Place limits on the levels of expenses that can be claimed.

Within the overall civil service, I think that it is appropriate at the cuts be tiered so that the people at the bottom pay vert little indeed.

I honestly believe that it is only when ordinary people (Public & Private Sectors) see that the guys at the top are sharing the pain that it will be (more readily ) accepted.

On this occasion, the "WIN" that I refer to was the government following the wishes of the ordinary people.

The next win will be when they lose the "Charvez Shirts" and apply the cuts to themselves that they are forcing the rest of us to accept!

Excellent post. I agree with everything said there. I too would like to see the government face down the unions as they don't accurately represent the feelings of all public sectore workers.

During a pre strike union meeting I asked my union rep to discuss ways of reducing an individuals expenses such as commuting by lettnig PS workers transfer to departments in there local area. This way they could take a pay hit as there outgoings would be less. The idea was quickly pushed aside so the union rep could continue with his own agenda.