Government to reverse some Public Secor Pay cuts

kippy

Godge wrote: »

Yes, I have always said that the pay cuts were legally sound because of their temporary nature in response to the financial emergency.

The implication of that is that once the financial emergency has passed (budget deficit under 3%) and money is available, they are not legally sound. It doesn't matter whether our situation is merely serious rather than an emergency, if there is money available, public servants will come looking for it.



Well, give me an example, any example of where legislation has disimproved the existing terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employees as set out in a contract. other than the financial emergency acts, there are none because of the contractual and constitutional legal implications.

Ok. So our debt situation is not a financial emergency.

ardmacha

kippy wrote: »

Ok. So our debt situation is not a financial emergency.

Well if it is an emergency, then I would suppose that it would be a case of all hands to the tiller, and not just public servants. How about everyone's pay restorations and increases going to the government until the "emergency" is over. With laws able to do anything, then this should be possible.

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

Well if it is an emergency, then I would suppose that it would be a case of all hands to the tiller, and not just public servants. How about everyone's pay restorations and increases going to the government until the "emergency" is over. With laws able to do anything, then this should be possible.

Why do that though? It wouldnt make any sense?

ardmacha

kippy wrote: »

Why do that though? It wouldnt make any sense?

Of course it makes sense, why should one citizen be more responsible for the debt than another, or at least another of similar means?

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

Of course it makes sense, why should one citizen be more responsible for the debt than another, or at least another of similar means?

Increase taxes then.....
Point is the environment is not anywhere close to allowing an increase in spendin on PS wages.

ardmacha

kippy wrote: »

Increase taxes then.....
Point is the environment is not anywhere close to allowing an increase in spendin on PS wages.

How different is the present situation? Compared to say 1993, debt is a bit higher, but interest is lower so spending on debt is 1% less as a percentage of GDP. Unemployment is probably lower now.

sarumite

ardmacha wrote: »

Well if it is an emergency, then I would suppose that it would be a case of all hands to the tiller, and not just public servants. How about everyone's pay restorations and increases going to the government until the "emergency" is over. With laws able to do anything, then this should be possible.

Impossible to implement both practically and politically. Private sector employers would just not bother with any pay increases and their employees wouldn't care since they would not have benefited from it anyway. Meanwhile the government would be under siege from PS unions demanding their increments be reinstated.

noodler

Godge wrote: »

Yes, I have always said that the pay cuts were legally sound because of their temporary nature in response to the financial emergency.

The implication of that is that once the financial emergency has passed (budget deficit under 3%) and money is available, they are not legally sound. It doesn't matter whether our situation is merely serious rather than an emergency, if there is money available, public servants will come looking for it.



Well, give me an example, any example of where legislation has disimproved the existing terms and conditions of employment between an employer and employees as set out in a contract. other than the financial emergency acts, there are none because of the contractual and constitutional legal implications.

During the CP2 negotiations this was not your position at all.

Ralphdejones

Watch them give the lower paid public servants a pittance of a raise, and the fat cat managers a fat bigger than ever raise.

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

How different is the present situation? Compared to say 1993, debt is a bit higher, but interest is lower so spending on debt is 1% less as a percentage of GDP. Unemployment is probably lower now.

How different is the present situation?
Oh its exactly the same as 1993 - why wouldn't it be..........

(outside of a few fundamental factors that we no longer control)

Godge

noodler wrote: »

During the CP2 negotiations this was not your position at all.

There is a difference between saying they are legal and saying they are fair.

I always said they were legal, I disputed their fairness.

Godge

Ralphdejones wrote: »

Watch them give the lower paid public servants a pittance of a raise, and the fat cat managers a fat bigger than ever raise.

the HRA cuts are promised back by specific dates, that means higher paid get their money back, which increases the pressure to do something for those lower-paid before then.

Godge

sarumite wrote: »

Now you are just shifting the goal post. Either a contract can be changed without agreement through acts of legislation or it cannot despite acts of legislation. There are no contractual legal implications if a contract is altered through an act of legislation. IF the legislation in question is constitutional then there are no constitutional legal implications either. This is not my opinion it is a fact.

A contract can be improved through acts of legislation e.g. improving the minimum wage. That is well established.

A contract cannot be disimproved through acts of legislation except in the case of a temporary financial emergency. This is not fully tested by Irish law but the unions haven't challenged it.

jank

So does anyone have a concrete logical argument that this makes economic sense in the macro scheme of things? If the government wants to increase wages, the fairest and most equitable way would be to reduce the tax burden on ALL taxpayers. The Trade Union movement should be calling for low taxes in theory but we all know the reasons why they won't. They haven't gone away you know..

ems_medic

hmmm wrote: »

The health service is barely functioning, and instead of saying that any extra revenue will go towards increased services instead it's going to be diverted into the pockets of the public service workers.

Hah, completely fails to see the contradiction in his public services bashing

ardmacha

sarumite wrote: »

Impossible to implement both practically and politically. Private sector employers would just not bother with any pay increases and their employees wouldn't care since they would not have benefited from it anyway. Meanwhile the government would be under siege from PS unions demanding their increments be reinstated.

We are not talking about increments, but about pay rises.

jank wrote:

] does anyone have a concrete logical argument that this makes economic sense in the macro scheme of things? If the government wants to increase wages, the fairest and most equitable way would be to reduce the tax burden on ALL taxpayers.

In the bust the government imposed temporary measures on one group of people, the PS, to a much greater extent than other citizens. If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

ems_medic

ardmacha wrote: »

If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

100% agree with this for record Im a public servant currently on career break from PS.

Why am I on career break? Strangely enough in the private sector I earn what the normal rate for my work was in the boom.

So I earn more in private than I do in public so wont be returning to public sector. Funny really as people on this thread was services increased without putting monry into workers pockets.

Sillyness of these threads

kippy

Looks like the USC is the preferred tool to give something back however the minister looks to move tax bands instead:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/irish-tax-institute-usc-cut-would-benefit-more-people-640072.html

jank

ardmacha wrote: »

In the bust the government imposed temporary measures on one group of people, the PS, to a much greater extent than other citizens. If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless. How many full time PS workers were let go? It is clear there was an agreement here. Take the hit to the PS but no one will lose their jobs. Now, the unions want to be relevant again but most of the public are used to their tricks at this stage.

Is it 'moral' for someone on minimum wage to pay more tax to service those in a privilege position with a pay rise? Are you serious?
The USC is meant to be a temporary tax. Why not get rid of this instead of giving PS workers a pay rise?

hmmm

ems_medic wrote: »

100% agree with this for record Im a public servant currently on career break from PS.

A career break where you can take up employment with a different employer? It's perks like this that really get up the nose of the private sector, I don't think many would argue against an equivalent wage if only the conditions of employment were also equivalent.

ardmacha

jank wrote: »

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless. How many full time PS workers were let go? It is clear there was an agreement here. Take the hit to the PS but no one will lose their jobs.

Horsecack, for the most part the public didn't wish to do without the services so had no intention of letting go of staff, so that their litte Johnny couldt go to school or their Granny could go to hospital. Public servants do not enjoy stability of employment because of some "priviledge", they do so because there is continuing demand for their services.

jank wrote: »

Is it 'moral' for someone on minimum wage to pay more tax to service those in a privilege position with a pay rise? Are you serious?

This is one of the great fallacies which underlies a lot of the nonsense here and in the media, that a brain surgeon or forensic auditor cannot get paid more because some untrained citizen somewhere is paid less. Employees should be paid the going rate, issues of equity should be matters for tax and welfare policy. If the country is to be run on the basis you and other irresponsible commentators suggest, then I any rational person should emigrate.

ems_medic

jank wrote: »

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless. How many full time PS workers were let go?

Thousands actually as none of the contracted staff had their contracts renewed and were let go, whats the point your trying to make?

ems_medic

hmmm wrote: »

A career break where you can take up employment with a different employer? It's perks like this that really get up the nose of the private sector, I don't think many would argue against an equivalent wage if only the conditions of employment were also equivalent.

Career breaks are hardly a new perk now are they? If Public Sector has such great perks then why did I return to the Private Sector?. It's a simple enough trade off as well work on your career break you get 3 years, don't work and you get 5.

Whether you choose to believe it or not the simple fact is PS workers are payed less than their private sector equivalents but the perks make up for this, what Haddington Road essentially did was introduce "private sector" conditions into the public sector for less pay and no more flexibility with hours, holidays etc.

The end result is a VERY significant amount of people like me have opted for the career break and gone back to the private sector, leading to a decrease of PS headcount / wage bills on paper only.

In my case (and I'm sure I'm not alone) the real irony of course is that I am working for a public sector body now but as a private sector employee with the exact same hours / conditions as ex colleagues with significant increase in pay, so there is no net gain from my career break (which was the reason they introduced the working career break in first place). So in my case they are actually paying MORE for my services now than before they cut my wages.

That's the problem when a Government listen to the baying masses and take action without fully thinking them through.

Gumbo

jank wrote: »

The bust also made the guts of half a million jobless

I think your figures are way off the mark there tbh.
There may have been 440k on the live register at the peak of the recession, but how many of these were on it at the height of the boom too?

kippy

kceire wrote: »

I think your figures are way off the mark there tbh.
There may have been 440k on the live register at the peak of the recession, but how many of these were on it at the height of the boom too?

Roughly 110K

antoobrien

Has anybody got a summary timeline of when the various cuts and levies were applied to the PS pay structures?

Can't find any offhand, but I don't think that PS pay was cut in either the budget delivered in 2008 (for 2009) or the supplemental budget in 2009.

Can anyone clarify this for me?

antoobrien

ardmacha wrote: »

We are not talking about increments, but about pay rises.

Increment: An increase or addition, especially one of a series on a fixed scale

Increment = pay increase, regardless of whether or not the pay scale changes.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

A contract can be improved through acts of legislation e.g. improving the minimum wage. That is well established.

A contract cannot be disimproved through acts of legislation except in the case of a temporary financial emergency.

Whether a contract has been improved or deteriorated depends on the perspective of the different parties involved in the contract. The fact is a contract can be changed through an act of legislation and depending on your perspective this could improve or deteriorate the value of the contract (this is not limited to employment law either). Your obstinate refusal to acknowledge this fact is becoming ridiculous.

This is not fully tested by Irish law but the unions haven't challenged it.

The reason deterioration of working conditions hasn't been implemented before has nothing to do with legal or constitutional issues, its purely political concern. No politician in their right mind would pass a law that reduced the working conditions of workers in favour of an employer outside of an absolute economic emergency.

Sheldons Brain

antoobrien wrote: »

Increment: An increase or addition, especially one of a series on a fixed scale

Increment = pay increase, regardless of whether or not the pay scale changes.

I don't think anyone disputes that an increment represents a pay increase for an individual. What this thread is about is whether there should be aggregate increase to a body of employees. Yet many people here, for reasons of obstruction, go on and on about increments. It is a bit like someone ranting about the movement of individual raindrops in a thread about how much rainfall there is.

barneystinson

Has the t in sector been missing from the thread title since the start?!