More private-sector cuts on the way

Lu Tze

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

This forum is almost unique in that nearly all the views put forward are extreme on one side or the other.

The cuts needed to happen, there maybe more needed. And fairplay to Lenihan for actually bringing it this far.

But it is not enough, this is one of the few opportunities that the superfluous staff could be cut. I have no problem paying competent teachers/administrators/gardai/health workers/insert job title here a good wage, with the increments each year genuinely being based on performance.

The unions are the problem with this. Murf 313, you are a competent employee (i have no reason to doubt this), you should be enraged at the unions, as your pay is being cut to keep surplus staff in a job.

And before ye jump on me looking for statistics on these surpluses (i think there was a report on HSE about this, but i wold imagine this is probably worse than the majority of the rest of the public sector), i don't have them. I did work in the public sector as a student for 3 months, and subsequently as a professional for a year and a half and it was an eye opening experience.

I'll finish with a Q.

Are any of the public sector angry at the unions for pushing this protect everybody policy regardless of performance, when this will be directly affecting the size of wage cuts you are taking?

murf313

ntlbell wrote: »

What has it got to do with your employer tho, we can't base wages on peoples level of personal debt, a mortgage is a risky buisness.

There's very few lines of work that can be moitored one way or another, maybe if you give us an indication of what you did we could give you an idea to pass on to your employer

I don't have an option to reject extra pay.

When *I* preform above and BEYOND my contract obligatations, I'm rewarded.

Now that my employer can't afford to do that anymore I continue to do more than I'm expected for the same pay because it's in my interest and the countires interest that we have a work force willing to do a bit more to get us out of this mess.

I don't have that much of a problem with you accepting extra pay for nothing, I do have a problem with you whining about having your pay reduced when it's obvious your employer cant afford it anymore

you obviously have not read all my posts. i wasnt saying i should be exempt pay cuts because i have a mortgage.

im in the ambulance service. i suppose paramedics dont work hard enough now as well?

if you had read my other post you would have saw that i stated i would be more than willing to take on extra responsibility/training for nothing. especially if it will benefit my patients.

not once have i whinged about paycuts.... however i do object to more paycuts. especially when a hospital porter earn more than me.

murf313

Lu Tze wrote: »

This forum is almost unique in that nearly all the views put forward are extreme on one side or the other.

The cuts needed to happen, there maybe more needed. And fairplay to Lenihan for actually bringing it this far.

But it is not enough, this is one of the few opportunities that the superfluous staff could be cut. I have no problem paying competent teachers/administrators/gardai/health workers/insert job title here a good wage, with the increments each year genuinely being based on performance.

The unions are the problem with this. Murf 313, you are a competent employee (i have no reason to doubt this), you should be enraged at the unions, as your pay is being cut to keep surplus staff in a job.

And before ye jump on me looking for statistics on these surpluses (i think there was a report on HSE about this, but i wold imagine this is probably worse than the majority of the rest of the public sector), i don't have them. I did work in the public sector as a student for 3 months, and subsequently as a professional for a year and a half and it was an eye opening experience.

I'll finish with a Q.

Are any of the public sector angry at the unions for pushing this protect everybody policy regardless of performance, when this will be directly affecting the size of wage cuts you are taking?

i actually agree with most of what you say. there are far too many middle management and pen pusher types. as i have already stated i would agree with performance related type "audits" it would get rid of the dead wood who pull the rest of us down.
another point is there is so much waste goes on but people are only interested in seeing pay cuts.
again i will say i dont agree with most of the union crap

Psychedelic

Kristopherus wrote: »

Boy, there sure are some PS haters on this thread. No doubt happy to have yet another go at Public Servants, now that they have come home from a hard day's woork in the Private Sector:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

I'm just back from my job in the private sector where 2 of our staff have been made redundant and the remaining 4 of us have taken a pay cut, and our employer's pension contribution has been cancelled. Last year and this year we also took 5 days unpaid leave. And we have already lost 4 other employees since 2008. And we're still struggling. This is also the case with many private sector companies I deal with.

So, when we see that the public sector with their secure jobs giving out about any pay cuts it's annoying, really ****ing annoying. I'm not happy to have a go at them for the sake of it, why would I sure I have nothing against them. But when they don't even agree to the proposed pay deal where they are guaranteed job security and possibly no further cuts you can't help but be pissed off with them.

murphaph

DidierMc wrote: »

It was the low wages in Ireland that brought in US FDI. But yes the fact that Ireland was piss poor had alot to do with good old Charlie.

Then why didn't Ireland experience the boom of the early to mid 1980's that was experienced in the US (after Reagan got elected) and in the UK and elsewehere. Wages in the private sectior in Ireland were even lower in the 80's than in the early 90's. Ireland was an exception in the 80's being in recession, most other countries were booming, so your "they came because of low wages" arguement is blown out of the water.

wicorthered

I'm a public servant and in the last few months we've lost quite a few temporary staff. The most maddening thing is that the staff we lost were good, clever hard working people who cared about their job. What we have been left with is lazy, under motivated and for the performance they put in over paid wasters!!!

We're getting hard time lately most of it unfairly but there is a massive problem in the PS with staff who are either not needed or couldn't give a hoot about their jobs. These guys then have permanent jobs while my contract ends in August:mad:

The sickening thing is that it is these wasters the unions back up for the hard working temps. Unions cant do a thing for me in August but if someone asks one of our THREE receptionists to work harder there's murder.

Ben_Dover

murphaph wrote: »

Oh I nearly split my sides laughing at that, nice one DF.

Here's more for you to laugh at-

State borrowing for bailing out Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide is not included in the calculation of the General Government Defecit (GGD). However, the interest paid on the debt is included. The interest cost of this extra borrowing increases the government debt by €4 billion, the ESRI said.

Well done private sector.

Spudmonkey

murf313 wrote: »

more high horse crap.

no-one here really cares about balancing books....

deep down your all pissed off because someone has something thats better than you and you want it taken off them. when you strip away all the figure quoting and rhetoric, its just plain jealousy. its human nature

Nothing high horse about it! It's simple maths really, what comes in must equal what goes out.

A person's wages can't be determined by their outgoings, they have to live their lives according to their income, try future-proof it and plan for the worst. It's the very reason some people take out income protection.

ei.sdraob

Ben_Dover wrote: »

Here's more for you to laugh at-

State borrowing for bailing out Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide is not included in the calculation of the GGD. However, the interest paid on the debt is included. The interest cost of this extra borrowing increases the government debt by €4 billion, the ESRI said.

Well done private sector.

yes because it was only people from private sector who loaded up on mortgages and participated in bubble

yes because it was the "private" regulator which did not do its job

yes because it was a certain razor-deficient David Begg who sat on the Central Bank while all of this was happening and didnt do anything

yes because the government are part of the "private" sector

:rolleyes:

Riskymove

oh come on, its the same old stuff all the time

ei.sdraob wrote: »

yes because it was only people from private sector who loaded up on mortgages and participated in bubble

how many regular workers (public or private) have mortgages from anglo for a house

anglo's particvular problems are clearly down to massive amounts of money for investment in development

yes because it was the "private" regulator which did not do its job

same old stuff here.....its the fault of the regulator for not catching me, nothing to do with my own decisiosn to do reckless things

yes because it was a certain razor-deficient David Begg who sat on the Central Bank while all of this was happening and didnt do anything

how many private sector people on the same board?

did the sytem allow for the Central Bank Board to investigate actions of Banks? is that its function?


The regulatory system should have done much better, that much is clear, but to continue to suggest that that means it is all the fault of the 'public sector' is ridiculous.

out of interest, did anyone see the letter from Noel Ahern in yesterday's times or the comments by John Fitzgerald at the weekend?

murphaph

murf313 wrote: »

i actually agree with most of what you say. there are far too many middle management and pen pusher types. as i have already stated i would agree with performance related type "audits" it would get rid of the dead wood who pull the rest of us down.
another point is there is so much waste goes on but people are only interested in seeing pay cuts.
again i will say i dont agree with most of the union crap

We want pay cuts because we don't trust the public sector to eliminate waste murf. We have had a decade+ of excellent pay and conditions in the public sector and yet our taxes have been wasted to an extraordinary level. If well paid state employees couldn't be motivated to be careful with our money, perhaps less paid ones will be.

Spudmonkey

Riskymove wrote: »

oh come on, its the same old stuff all the time

To be fair, I think a lot of that was sarcasm in response to the previous post.

ardmacha

If well paid state employees couldn't be motivated to be careful with our money, perhaps less paid ones will be.

I am not familiar with benchmark world class organisations that motivate people by imposing uniform pay cuts on people without reference to their individual or even department/sector performance.

bryaner

ei.sdraob wrote: »

yes because it was only people from private sector who loaded up on mortgages and participated in bubble

yes because it was the "private" regulator which did not do its job

yes because it was a certain razor-deficient David Begg who sat on the Central Bank while all of this was happening and didnt do anything

yes because the government are part of the "private" sector

:rolleyes:

Ahh I see, shoot everyone that topped up on their mortgage!!

ei.sdraob

ardmacha wrote: »

I am not familiar with benchmark world class organisations that motivate people by imposing uniform pay cuts on people without reference to their individual or even department/sector performance.

but you are familiar with benchmarking upward based on no reference to their individual or even department/sector performance :rolleyes:

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

but you are familiar with benchmarking upward based on no reference to their individual or even department/sector performance :rolleyes:

actually benchmarking did carry out an exercise on that level, awards were not across the board like the cuts were, which i think is the point being made

SeanW

bryaner wrote: »

Ahh I see, shoot everyone that topped up on their mortgage!!

Yes. Mortgages taken out on the basis of bubble time prices are what Austrian economists would call "Malinvestment." A refinance to 100% of bubble time value, or a new 100% mortage taken out in 2005-2007 is malinvestment and the correction of the economy now demands that they be dealt with. If the person or family wants to stay in their home and maintain their credit rating, they must try to meet that repayment requirement with a post-crash income, (paying down the mortgage until they return to positive equity), or if they cannot, must now default, if they are too far in negative equity or can't afford the repayments.

bryaner

SeanW wrote: »

Yes. Mortgages taken out on the basis of bubble time prices are what Austrian economists would call "Malinvestment." A refinance to 100% of bubble time value, or a new 100% mortage taken out in 2005-2007 is malinvestment and the correction of the economy now demands that they be dealt with. If the person or family wants to stay in their home and maintain their credit rating, they must try to meet that repayment requirement with a post-crash income, (paying down the mortgage until they return to positive equity), or if they cannot, must now default, if they are too far in negative equity or can't afford the repayments.

Bizzz

paraletic

Quote:
MORE pay cuts, wage freezes and reduced working hours are predicted among private sector firms this year as the recession continues to bite.

Over four in 10 businesses are planning further cuts to their wage bill in 2010 through either pay freezes, cuts or reduced hours.

The figures, revealed in a North/South survey, show that pessimism in the Republic about jobs and wages is far greater than in the North, with more than twice the number of firms in some cases predicting wage cuts or reduced working hours for their staff.

A total of 1,000 private sector firms (500 on each side of the Border) were surveyed by Millward Brown as part of an ongoing monitor of business by InterTradeIreland.

While its latest figures for the last quarter of 2009 show that 51pc of companies surveyed said they had already cut their wage bill last year, 44pc of businesses were planning further cuts this year.

donegalfella wrote: »

So more cuts are imminent for the private-sector worker, even as the militants in the unions continue to "protect" overpaid workers by turning down guarantees of no more wage cuts until 2014..

of course companies will let people go and reduce their wages:
That is and always has been (and probably always will be) how private industry works.

ie: business is good = good pay
but if business is bad = no job.

you don't need a degree in economy to know that

and we don't need another anti-public sector thread,

;)lucky for me the public SERVICE is not a business, and should not be compared to one,

(i'm not having a go at anybody, and i have friends and family who have lost jobs)

ixoy

paraletic wrote: »

;)lucky for me the public SERVICE is not a business, and should not be compared to one,

Unlucklily for you, the public service still requires money to finance it and there is no longer enough of it. So there's cuts that need to be put in place. The PS may not need to make a profit, but it does still need, alongside the other government departments, to try and break even in the end.

ei.sdraob

Riskymove wrote: »

actually benchmarking did carry out an exercise on that level, awards were not across the board like the cuts were, which i think is the point being made

so will the unions and.or you step up and tell us how much each dept needs to be cut by?

will yee reform yourselves as was promised so long ago, and yet again this year

yeh thought so

cut it all back to 2003 level fast

paraletic

ixoy wrote: »

Unlucklily for you, the public service still requires money to finance it and there is no longer enough of it. So there's cuts that need to be put in place. The PS may not need to make a profit, but it does still need, alongside the other government departments, to try and break even in the end.

yeah cut away, but from the top!!
reform, reorganize etc, i'm in favour of saving money and providing a better service, i'm a tax payer too.

but just like the private workers, the lowest paid are the easiest to target. so
i have a problem if they try cutting at the bottom again.

i hope the governement (and boards posters;)) leave the pub sect WORKER alone,

OMD

paraletic wrote: »

yeah cut away, but from the top!!
reform, reorganize etc, i'm in favour of saving money and providing a better service, i'm a tax payer too.

,

Why do PS workers always assume the problem is at the top and those at the top always assume the problem is at the bottom. In most areas of the public sector the problem is at the top and the bottom

danman

paraletic wrote: »

yeah cut away, but from the top!!
reform, reorganize etc, i'm in favour of saving money and providing a better service, i'm a tax payer too.

but just like the private workers, the lowest paid are the easiest to target. so
i have a problem if they try cutting at the bottom again.

i hope the governement (and boards posters;)) leave the pub sect WORKER alone,

That translates to reform.

Is that what everyone wants? But the unions seem to put roadblocks at every corner.

If the unions continue to put up roadblocks, then more cuts accross the board. That means The lower paid too.

It's in the unions hands.

paraletic

ei.sdraob wrote: »

cut it all back to 2003 level fast

the ambulance service has been reforming for years - i'd rather call an ambulance in 2010, now when you call, a paramedic or advanced paramedic can treat you properly, because they upskilled. FOR THEIR BENCHMARKING WHICH HAS NOW BEEN CUT.

it is cheaper to let untrained unskilled people drive inapropriate vehicles, so yeah, cut it back:rolleyes:

its even cheaper to let people die at home, so: get rid of the health service;)



imo The problems in public sector is at the top, there are too many managers.
(not in all departments)

ixoy

paraletic wrote: »

yeah cut away, but from the top!!
reform, reorganize etc, i'm in favour of saving money and providing a better service, i'm a tax payer too.

I've advocated this for ages but the problem is you need to reform throughout and not just the top - there's room for pruning in the middle and in the lower tiers. Surely you too have seen over supplies in the bottom rungs, rooms for improvements? I know I have!

but just like the private workers, the lowest paid are the easiest to target. so
i have a problem if they try cutting at the bottom again.

Well the targetting is everywhere I think - not just lower-paid (and, let's be fair, many of those on the lower pay are not lowly paid for their jobs).

i hope the governement (and boards posters;)) leave the pub sect WORKER alone,

Not a chance I would hope though that it's realised that the PS wage bill is far from the only area we need to tackle! We could pay them all nothing and still be in trouble.

murf313

ixoy wrote: »

I've advocated this for ages but the problem is you need to reform throughout and not just the top - there's room for pruning in the middle and in the lower tiers. Surely you too have seen over supplies in the bottom rungs, rooms for improvements? I know I have!


Well the targetting is everywhere I think - not just lower-paid (and, let's be fair, many of those on the lower pay are not lowly paid for their jobs).


Not a chance I would hope though that it's realised that the PS wage bill is far from the only area we need to tackle! We could pay them all nothing and still be in trouble.

as paraletic has said the ambulance service has been reforming for years. its light years from where it was ten years ago.

no room for letting anyone go in the bottom im afraid, abulance service is understaffed as it is.

most people here will only be happy when we are getting paid nothing!

OMD

ixoy wrote: »

Well the targetting is everywhere I think - not just lower-paid (and, let's be fair, many of those on the lower pay are not lowly paid for their jobs).

.

It is the opposite. The highest paid have been targeted the most. Some low paid workers have had no actual cut in take home pay in last 2 years when increments are taken into account. Some of highest paid have taken 40% cuts in takehome pay with no increments to offset against it. Also no reduction in hours.

It is total nonsense to say low paid are being targeted. They are not

paraletic

danman wrote: »

That translates to reform.

Is that what everyone wants? But the unions seem to put roadblocks at every corner.

If the unions continue to put up roadblocks, then more cuts accross the board. That means The lower paid too.

It's in the unions hands.

i speak for me,
The goverment and union has let us down and i don't trust them
some reform is needed, it has been needed for decades,
however all workers rights should be protected, during these reforms,

ardmacha

It is the opposite. The highest paid have been targeted the most. Some low paid workers have had no actual cut in take home pay in last 2 years when increments are taken into account. Some of highest paid have taken 40% cuts in takehome pay with no increments to offset against it. Also no reduction in hours.

It is total nonsense to say low paid are being targeted. They are not

True. Those that had the smallest premium in pay over the private sector have had bigger cuts.