I will would support the Unions and Public servants If . .

Drumpot

l would support the Unions and Public servants if :

• they really do want fairness and accountability in public and private sector employment.

• they want to work with the government to reduce overheads and costs to the taxpayer in a sector they themselves admit is inefficient and actually able to take more days off in a year and still function at current service standards!

• they just want to protect lower paid employee's

• their intentions were for the greater good of the country

But I fear that the above ideals are really just a smokescreen for the unions true mandate:

• To do whatever they can to justify their existence (many of their members don't seem to realize that they may end up paying more then they bargain for it they got their current demands met)

• To get whatever they can for their members. This involves doing a labour party on it, by not only agreeing with any demands their members want (no matter how out of touch they are with economic reality of Ireland), but by fanning them into militant mood so nothing rational can be discussed.

• Their final mandate is to confuse and misinform their members , so they can appear to be acting in their best interests. Hoping that they confuse a few average Joe punters into believing that they are somehow doing it for the "little man" or that somehow they are trying to help Ireland overall (!!! ).

I support fairness, but dont believe that the intentions or motivation of any of the followers of the public service unions has any interest in anything other then their salary . . Fairness is simply a word used publicly to avoid the real issue at hand which is "what can I get for myself".

I think any of us would want to protect our salaries were we in the same situation . . I also think we would find it unfair if we were constantly told how lucky we were for having a much better standard of job security then others. However, none of this disguises the fact that a large portion of the union staunch supporters appear to have lost track of the harsh reality that faces our country and just DONT want to understand why cuts had to be made and why more cuts will be required . . They are simply not interested in understanding the dynamics or economics involved. They throw up the odd statistic, but completely ignore the fact that we were at one stage considered next to greece as far as economic basket cases go. since the cuts and things the government has done, we are actually considered the best bet of all the PIIGS, which is remarkable. But I wont continue, because they dont want to hear that . .

To say that "we didnt cause this mess" is like being the grumpy neighbour on the road who wont help up clean the estate after a tornado hits. 99% of this country didnt cause this mess, but most of us cannot and will not hold the country for ransom, solely for our own self interests.

To be honest, most of the public servants I know actually understand what has happened and what needs to happen, but they don't support the unions negative militant approach or the view it gives public servants. They hate the thought of more paycuts, but accept that there is no way of avoiding the simply truth that the country is just about surviving.

Some people have talked about the importance of unions in getting better employment conditions for their members. . We need only look at a majority of the unions for Aer Lingus to see how a union can work hard for its members while also accepting the harsh realities of Ireland 2010.

I want to finish by saying that I will support the unions and Public servants if they want fairness . . But that's just not what they are looking for at the moment and it shocks me to say I am with the government until Mr "Real world" is introduced to these people in the clowds. . . .

Until then I will have to put my head down, work harder and just scratch my head listening to union bosses cry foul for their members who think 30k is low income (never earned that much in my life), don't consider job security as something with any value and who think they are being "attacked" . . Dont think my wife thought she was attacked when she lost her job last month! !

Tim Robbins

Drumpot wrote: »

l would support the Unions and Public servants if :

. . last month! !

Did this really need its own thread?

McCruiskeen

Dream on drumpot.

It's never gonna happen.

The Government has tried the carrott, now for the stick!