What will it take to get you out on the street protesting?

MagicSean

HellFireClub wrote: »

Sounds like you are talking out of your arséhole to be honest.

Sounds like you know very few people in the private sector to be honest.

HellFireClub

2ndcoming wrote: »

And here in lies the major flaw in your arguments. How many people do you know that work for IBM, Google, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Facebook, IFS Statestreet, Accenture, Pfizer, Ebay, FBD, BOI the list goes on and on and on. The private sector by its nature is impossible to quantify so you can only go off the people who you KNOW how much they earn, which as far as I can tell could only really be yourself.

However the Indo and the Daily Mail are waiting there to skew publicly available figures, usually old ones at that, to their own agenda and make the villain "the public sector".

The grades you've spoken about on 50 or 60k a year haven't striked at all as far as I know, and it wouldn't make much of a difference if they did. It's the grades on 20-30k that could if they are cut, and would cause chaos by doing so, as they're the ones who keep the country ticking over as it is, just like the Passport office staff a couple of years ago. Throw in the Social Welfare staff and An Post and it would cause chaos in under a week.

The card the government would be hoping for is that these people can't actually afford to go on strike, which would basically make them glorified slaves, which is a pretty shocking state of affairs in what is still actually one of the 20 richest countries in the world.

As it happens, I spent 6 years working in one US multinational that you have mentioned above, and despite being classified as a "skilled worker", I never grossed more than 40K in a tax year. Promotional opportunities were very few and far between and it was damn hard work. Things that are taken for granted in the public sector, for example, a pay rise immediately upon promotion, there was no such thing as that where I worked. If you got "promoted", you had to wait until your next review period to fight for a pay rise to follow the promotion, and you had to make the case that you were doing the new job successfully before you could be expecting to see a pay increase. If you were sick, even if it was certified, you could be looking at no pay increase at all for that year, it was common practice for a pay increase to be withheld if there was any sign of a problem with absence, nothing was automatic, you had to fight with your manager for everything and this was while working with one of the "leading US multinationals in Ireland" in the boom time!!!

Yes, there were managers there on more money than those of us in the majority who worked on the technical side of things, but getting promoted into such a job was nearly impossible as it was all done behind closed doors, promotional vacancies were not even advertised, and typically the ratio of subordinate staff to a manager was 22:1.

So I don't accept this bullshít that it is common practice to find people working in US Multinational's on 60K plus salaries. The only people I know in the private sector who are on that kind of money are people working in the ESB, which is a semi-state that we all know has a problem with it's wage bill, only the government hasn't the balls to go in and sort that problem out.

tayto lover

HellFireClub wrote: »

As it happens, I spent 6 years working in one US multinational that you have mentioned above, and despite being classified as a "skilled worker", I never grossed more than 40K in a tax year. Promotional opportunities were very few and far between and it was damn hard work. Things that are taken for granted in the public sector, for example, a pay rise immediately upon promotion, there was no such thing as that where I worked. If you got "promoted", you had to wait until your next review period to fight for a pay rise to follow the promotion, and you had to make the case that you were doing the new job successfully before you could be expecting to see a pay increase. If you were sick, even if it was certified, you could be looking at no pay increase at all for that year, it was common practice for a pay increase to be withheld if there was any sign of a problem with absence, nothing was automatic, you had to fight with your manager for everything and this was while working with one of the "leading US multinationals in Ireland" in the boom time!!!

Yes, there were managers there on more money than those of us in the majority who worked on the technical side of things, but getting promoted into such a job was nearly impossible as it was all done behind closed doors, promotional vacancies were not even advertised, and typically the ratio of subordinate staff to a manager was 22:1.

So I don't accept this bullshít that it is common practice to find people working in US Multinational's on 60K plus salaries. The only people I know in the private sector who are on that kind of money are people working in the ESB, which is a semi-state that we all know has a problem with it's wage bill, only the government hasn't the balls to go in and sort that problem out.

Had you no Union?

2ndcoming

HellFireClub wrote: »

As it happens, I spent 6 years working in one US multinational that you have mentioned above, and despite being classified as a "skilled worker", I never grossed more than 40K in a tax year. Promotional opportunities were very few and far between and it was damn hard work. Things that are taken for granted in the public sector, for example, a pay rise immediately upon promotion, there was no such thing as that where I worked. If you got "promoted", you had to wait until your next review period to fight for a pay rise to follow the promotion, and you had to make the case that you were doing the new job successfully before you could be expecting to see a pay increase. If you were sick, even if it was certified, you could be looking at no pay increase at all for that year, it was common practice for a pay increase to be withheld if there was any sign of a problem with absence, nothing was automatic, you had to fight with your manager for everything and this was while working with one of the "leading US multinationals in Ireland" in the boom time!!!

Yes, there were managers there on more money than those of us in the majority who worked on the technical side of things, but getting promoted into such a job was nearly impossible as it was all done behind closed doors, promotional vacancies were not even advertised, and typically the ratio of subordinate staff to a manager was 22:1.

So I don't accept this bullshít that it is common practice to find people working in US Multinational's on 60K plus salaries. The only people I know in the private sector who are on that kind of money are people working in the ESB, which is a semi-state that we all know has a problem with it's wage bill, only the government hasn't the balls to go in and sort that problem out.

There you go, the subordinate staff in the majority of the public service don't earn 40k or anything like it, the exception being guards and nurses who I think even the most biased agenda driven posters find it hard to argue with.

That is of course unless, as an office worker on the technical side in a US multinational you think you deserve to be paid more than a nurse or guard?

HellFireClub

tayto lover wrote: »

Had you no Union?

Nope, US multinational's in this country "don't do" unions.

tayto lover

HellFireClub wrote: »

Nope, US multinational's in this country "don't do" unions.

That explains why then. You always need a good strong Union to get anywhere.

HellFireClub

2ndcoming wrote: »

There you go, the subordinate staff in the majority of the public service don't earn 40k or anything like it, the exception being guards and nurses who I think even the most biased agenda driven posters find it hard to argue with.

That is of course unless, as an office worker on the technical side in a US multinational you think you deserve to be paid more than a nurse or guard?

Approximately 35% of that salary was a shift allowance, another 2K on a good year would have been a bonus scheme and around 15%-20% of it would have been overtime. So my core "salary" would have been around 25K maximum I imagine, and this was the same generally for others that I worked with on the floor.

All in all, I felt like I was on good money with the way it worked out that when it was all added up, I had a 40K a year salary. But I got a shift allowance because I worked a shift structure. I got overtime because I did overtime. It was damn hard work, and often due to the shift nature of the job, it cut completely across weekends, Christmas, Bank Holidays, etc.

So a "40K" a year gross salary, was really a 25K basic salary with bells & whistles bolted onto it...

But I never felt after getting a P60 for the year saying that I earned 40K for the previous year, that I was on shít money, as our cossetted PS workers seem to think when they hear of 40K a year incomes...

MagicSean

HellFireClub wrote: »

So a "40K" a year gross salary, was really a 25K basic salary with bells & whistles bolted onto it...

Same as a Garda so.

2ndcoming

HellFireClub wrote: »

Approximately 35% of that salary was a shift allowance, another 2K on a good year would have been a bonus scheme and around 15%-20% of it would have been overtime. So my core "salary" would have been around 25K maximum I imagine, and this was the same generally for others that I worked with on the floor.

All in all, I felt like I was on good money with the way it worked out that when it was all added up, I had a 40K a year salary. But I got a shift allowance because I worked a shift structure. I got overtime because I did overtime. It was damn hard work, and often due to the shift nature of the job, it cut completely across weekends, Christmas, Bank Holidays, etc.

So a "40K" a year gross salary, was really a 25K basic salary with bells & whistles bolted onto it...

But I never felt after getting a P60 for the year saying that I earned 40K for the previous year, that I was on shít money, as our cossetted PS workers seem to think when they hear of 40K a year incomes...

Congratulations, but bear in mind there are no bonuses in the public service, and overtime for the vast majority is a thing of the past. So that 25k with bells and whistles as you say, for them is 25k.

What's your stance on cutting pay for people on 25-30k out of interest, seeing as you can't seem to get this idea of everyone in the public service being some sort of pet millionaire we're paying for the craic out of your head?

cosbloodymick

HellFireClub wrote: »

Approximately 35% of that salary was a shift allowance, another 2K on a good year would have been a bonus scheme and around 15%-20% of it would have been overtime. So my core "salary" would have been around 25K maximum I imagine, and this was the same generally for others that I worked with on the floor.

All in all, I felt like I was on good money with the way it worked out that when it was all added up, I had a 40K a year salary. But I got a shift allowance because I worked a shift structure. I got overtime because I did overtime. It was damn hard work, and often due to the shift nature of the job, it cut completely across weekends, Christmas, Bank Holidays, etc.

So a "40K" a year gross salary, was really a 25K basic salary with bells & whistles bolted onto it...




But I never felt after getting a P60 for the year saying that I earned 40K for the previous year, that I was on shít money, as our cossetted PS workers seem to think when they hear of 40K a year incomes...

I am sorry to hear you were treated so badly.
Why would you want similar treatment for other workers?
Let the race to the bottom continue!

HellFireClub

2ndcoming wrote: »

Congratulations, but bear in mind there are no bonuses in the public service, and overtime for the vast majority is a thing of the past. So that 25k with bells and whistles as you say, for them is 25k.

What's your stance on cutting pay for people on 25-30k out of interest, seeing as you can't seem to get this idea of everyone in the public service being some sort of pet millionaire we're paying for the craic out of your head?

I don't agree at all with people on 25-30K a year being cut. But I don't think its right that teachers, Gardai, Civil Serpents, who are on 45/50/60/70K plus salaries, have any business whatsoever giving out! I also have a huge issue with increments being automatic, it doesn't incentivise improvement in performance, rather it removes any incentive to outperform as an employee.

Sick pay, how come the absentee level in the public sector is twice that of the private sector? Redundancies, why are public servants completely immune from dismissal or redundancy?

Also, my biggest bug bear of all, is this subtle, union led policy of refusing to cooperate with any change in work practices, unless more money is put on the table for an employee or more specifically, a group of employees. The reason we have a public sector that isn't fit for purpose in 2012, is because of this, because a situation has been allowed emerge, where change gets completely opposed for the sole purpose of adopting an entrenched negotiating position. The outcome is that we have the highest paid public servants on earth who have it in their heads that they can begrudgingly cooperate with a bit of the total change that is being sought, only after they have managed to negotiate for themselves, a sizable slice of the budget for the change that was sought.

You want to know why the Revenue computer system won't talk to the Social Welfare computer system, it is because of this kind of, "well we won't be cooperating with that", mentality that has been allowed to fester in our public sector. I saw it with my own eyes in college, a lab full of brand new PC's & IT equipment for students was locked and put out of use for a whole year because one of the departmental technicians got it in his head that he hadn't been properly consulted about this decision that had been made by the head of his department, who thought that us students needed our own computer lab for research purposes, as we had previously been sharing a lab of computers with another department. So what was the outcome? Tens of thousands of Euro of tax payers money, is left sitting idle in a room that cannot be used, because one jumped up little príck, who ought to have fúck all to do with the decision, starts making a song and a dance about it and through the threat of industrial action in association with his union, gets the lab put beyond use of students who badly needed the facility, for a whole college year!

The only good thing that has come out of this Croke Park Deal is that this belligerence and intransigence that has been around for years, is finally being red carded and shown the fúcking door.

Markcheese

pmcmahon wrote: »

Student regestration fees increasing this year will cause a big uproar.Students don't have as many distractions as employed people,like pensioners they're the biggest group capable of large scale protest.

Unlike pensioners students don't vote... Protest yes, vote no... So where are politicians going take notice ... Protesting pensioners... Which is why pensions and perks haven't been touched

HellFireClub

I personally do think that people are starting to wake up and react to the destruction of our country as a matter of public policy.