Council in UK sack workers then rehire at 5% less pay

WalterMitty

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-15115538

Imagine Jack O'Connor and co if this happened in Ireland. Thats what tories in power means in our nearest neighbour.

vellocet

WalterMitty wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-15115538

Imagine Jack O'Connor and co if this happened in Ireland. Thats what tories in power means in our nearest neighbour.

Thankfully it won't happen in Ireland

How come the Tories haven't sacked all the workers in nationalised banks and rehired them on less money? They made the mess after all...

Fratton Fred

vellocet wrote: »

Thankfully it won't happen in Ireland

How come the Tories haven't sacked all the workers in nationalised banks and rehired them on less money? They made the mess after all...

Irish ferries did it a few years ago, but they replaces all their Irish workers with eastern european ones on half the money.

vellocet

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Irish ferries did it a few years ago, but they replaces all their Irish workers with eastern european ones on half the money.

Private company and still haven't gotten their market share back in the wave of anger.

dsmythy

vellocet wrote: »

Thankfully it won't happen in Ireland

How come the Tories haven't sacked all the workers in nationalised banks and rehired them on less money? They made the mess after all...

I'm not sure that's in the remit of a local council. The union seem pretty happy with what's going on.

mikemac

I was expecting strong words from the union
But they seem satisfied with the result and acting like it's a partnership with the council

Why bother paying union subs, UNITE just do what they are told

Sand

Maybe UNITE recognise that 5% less pay is better than no pay?

vellocet

Sand wrote: »

Maybe UNITE recognise that 5% less pay is better than no pay?

Yeah, because the council can fire everyone and just not collect bins etc.

Sand

Or fire everyone and hire someone else to collect the bins for less.

vellocet

Sand wrote: »

Or fire everyone and hire someone else to collect the bins for less.

Have you gone into your bosses office and offered to work for a pay cut?

Sleepy

vellocet wrote: »

Yeah, because the council can fire everyone and just not collect bins etc.

Wouldn't be the first council to out-source the job to the productive sector tbh.

avalon68

vellocet wrote: »

Have you gone into your bosses office and offered to work for a pay cut?

But if your boss called you into his office and said - I simply do not have enough money to retain you on your current salary - I am willing to keep you on at this reduced salary, but of course you are free to seek employment elsewhere.......what would you do then? Would you leave, or be happy to still have a job? I know Id be staying put!

thebman

avalon68 wrote: »

But if your boss called you into his office and said - I simply do not have enough money to retain you on your current salary - I am willing to keep you on at this reduced salary, but of course you are free to seek employment elsewhere.......what would you do then? Would you leave, or be happy to still have a job? I know Id be staying put!

Unfortunately it seems to be an Irish attitude to stop listening at reduced salary in that statement and go out and find a picket and put a rude message on it and demand everything go back to normal.

However, I do think if a company is in such trouble, it shouldn't be beyond the workers ability to ask the employer to demonstrate it is the case that he no longer fulfill the original employment contract if it is in dispute.

In most companies that are in trouble, workers can see it for themselves, a little harder if your working for a council in Ireland where much of the funding comes from central government so one could legitimately say if you can't pay my wages, your not doing your job of getting enough funding from central government to run this council.

Which maybe true or untrue. I doubt all councils funding is being cut equally. You can be reasonably sure, FG/Labour councils are finding this recession less painful than FF run ones I imagine (I have no evidence, it is an opinion).

I think our councils are simply over dependent on centralised funding and it is too hard to make a case for cutting wages when someone else could take the hit instead of you if you make enough fuss which is largely how it is seen here IMO.

I've also seen the same attitude in large private companies, don't think it happens in the smaller ones as much.

avalon68

thebman wrote: »

Unfortunately it seems to be an Irish attitude to stop listening at reduced salary in that statement and go out and find a picket and put a rude message on it and demand everything go back to normal.

However, I do think if a company is in such trouble, it shouldn't be beyond the workers ability to ask the employer to demonstrate it is the case that he no longer fulfill the original employment contract if it is in dispute.

In Ireland, however, the dog on the street knows we are borrowing money to pay for everything. Cuts need to be made, and unfortunately, having unions argue against small paycuts for all means that there will be less jobs available. We really need to get back to basic economics - if a private company can provide a service for less than the council can provide it, then obviously something is very wrong with the system.......the council should be able to provide the best value for people residing in the area......not rip them off to keep paying high wages.

Victor

thebman wrote: »

Which maybe true or untrue. I doubt all councils funding is being cut equally. You can be reasonably sure, FG/Labour councils are finding this recession less painful than FF run ones I imagine (I have no evidence, it is an opinion).

How many FF-run coucnils are there, if any?

Note that the 2011 council budgets were set last year, when FF were in power.

cyclopath2001

avalon68 wrote: »

But if your boss called you into his office and said - I simply do not have enough money to retain you on your current salary - I am willing to keep you on at this reduced salary,.....

...."while I and my mates in accounts, who are much more important than you, will keep our pay and annual 'performance related' bonus"?

montreal2011

I'm sure that this happened a lot in Ireland, in the private sector. The sacking and re-hiring is nothing more than paper-work. Where I worked in Ireland we were told that all employees must agree to a cut in pay, larger than 5%, or else the cuts would be taken through lay-offs. The management took double the cuts.

It was not nice to hear but it was the reality of the situation at the time. The company went through the tough period and now I'm glad to say that they have been able to restore salaries and even hire more workers.

I guess it is different being in the private sector in that we could see that if we worked hard and management improved how things were done, we had hope of wages being restored once profit margins were restored. In the public sector they are assigned a budget so I guess a cut is more difficult to take, it's not like they have as much hope of wages being restored since there is no profit margin per-say to restore.

MagicMarker

I'm confused, is this supposed to be a good thing or bad thing?

I wouldn't complain if the same was done here for our public servants.

bobbysands81

MagicMarker wrote: »

I'm confused, is this supposed to be a good thing or bad thing?

I wouldn't complain if the same was done here for our public servants.

Our public servants took a much larger cut than that... twice.

Maura74

The Leaders, CEO's, Directors as well as some manager should show an example by taking half of their salaries as the earn 50 times more than a bin collectors.

None of the top people are will to put up their hands and say that they will take pay cuts on their over inflated salaries.:mad:

montreal2011

Maura74 wrote: »

The Leaders, CEO's, Directors as well as some manager should show an example by taking half of their salaries as the earn 50 times more than a bin collectors.

None of the top people are will to put up their hands and say that they will take pay cuts on their over inflated salaries.:mad:

The leaders / management should really say that they are going to look for ways to improve efficiency and other such ideas with the aim of being able to restore wages asap.

I would think that when public sector wages get cut that it's the lack of a light at the end of the tunnel that is hardest to take. Inflation will make the (over 5% over 2 years) reduction in this example even greater in real terms. The lack of hope of wages being restored and close to zero chance of an increase means inflation will give them a new pay cut for years to come.

T runner

thebman wrote: »

Unfortunately it seems to be an Irish attitude to stop listening at reduced salary in that statement and go out and find a picket and put a rude message on it and demand everything go back to normal.
.

The Germans, French, Spanish etc have no problem protesting in sinilar circunstances..they arent Irish. If people have such a neagtive attitude to Irishness and being Irish why dont theys eek a different nationality?

It is usually within a workers right to strike if he/she disagrees with his employer as a last resort? If upholding workers rights is an "Irish" attitude then im a proud irishman. There are about 60 million proud Irishmen and women across in France too BTW.

dev100

T runner wrote: »

The Germans, French, Spanish etc have no problem protesting in sinilar circunstances..they arent Irish. If people have such a neagtive attitude to Irishness and being Irish why dont theys eek a different nationality?

It is usually within a workers right to strike if he/she disagrees with his employer as a last resort? If upholding workers rights is an "Irish" attitude then im a proud irishman. There are about 60 million proud Irishmen and women across in France too BTW.

Have a look at the greeks where is the protesting getting them? Further into debt!!!. Yes it makes sense to protest if a private company is trying to cut wages and making a sustainable profit at the same time. The government is the biggest employer in the country and making a loss and is borrowing money to pay everyone theres no logic in that . If any private company was to do this they would be taken to court and made insolvent and shut down or rethink its way of doing business. At the end of the day its a choice of every public sector gets a haircut of wage decrease and the scrappage of the cosy pensions going forward or mass layoffs.

Riskymove

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Our public servants took a much larger cut than that... twice.

indeed, and they did not need to be fired and re-hired either

simply a stroke of a pen

cyclopath2001

Riskymove wrote: »

simply a stroke of a pen

It's easier to default, or renege on contracts with staff than with powerful creditors.

avalon68

bobbysands81 wrote: »

Our public servants took a much larger cut than that... twice.

While that may be true, it doesnt change the fact that we still cannot afford to continue paying the public sector wage bill. Tax in < money out..... It has to come down - either through layoffs or paycuts. I would hope that by the time the country bounces back that we would have a system in place that rewards competence and performance rather than yearly increments for showing up, a system that adheres to payscales rather than starting people way higher than the bottom step, a system where who you know is no longer the determining factor to your success (I can hope cant I! ). People who work hard and perform deserve to be well paid - however right now the country needs to step back and get its books in order or everyone will lose.

bobbysands81

avalon68 wrote: »

While that may be true, it doesnt change the fact that we still cannot afford to continue paying the public sector wage bill. Tax in < money out..... It has to come down - either through layoffs or paycuts.

I'm amazed at times when I read comment about the public service in forums such as this.Two paycuts and tens of thousands less working in the public service and STILL people seem to think that nothing's happening to public servants.

avalon68

bobbysands81 wrote: »

I'm amazed at times when I read comment about the public service in forums such as this.Two paycuts and tens of thousands less working in the public service and STILL people seem to think that nothing's happening to public servants.

Im fully aware of that bobbysands, but, either we take in more money or spend less. Denying we have a problem solves nothing - social services and public sector pay are the two big expenses we have. Yes they can increase taxes, and I believe everyone should pay tax - right now the cut off seems far too high. Once our balance sheet is in order we can rebuild, but right now we have had to hand over control of the countries finances. Thats downright disgraceful imo. I dont want to see people lose jobs or have paycuts, but I do want the country to live within its means....you say yourself we have tens of thousands less people working in the public sector......has the level of service declined to match? If not we had surplus people to start with!

bobbysands81

avalon68 wrote: »

Im fully aware of that bobbysands, but, either we take in more money or spend less. Denying we have a problem solves nothing - social services and public sector pay are the two big expenses we have. Yes they can increase taxes, and I believe everyone should pay tax - right now the cut off seems far too high. Once our balance sheet is in order we can rebuild, but right now we have had to hand over control of the countries finances. Thats downright disgraceful imo. I dont want to see people lose jobs or have paycuts, but I do want the country to live within its means....you say yourself we have tens of thousands less people working in the public sector......has the level of service declined to match? If not we had surplus people to start with!

Very valid points mate.

The level of service has definitely not improved and the days of the cushy numbers in the Civil Service are LONG gone and of course I agree that this is a good thing too.