Public Pay Talks - see mod warning post 4293

I think the skips only apply to direct entry grades. HEO is not a direct entry grade

Well not really its just HEO, that grade is promotion only there hasn't been an open HEO in years

AOs are included in the EO/HEO claim. See the last paragraph here,

As far as I know there's an ongoing discussion of the future of the AO grade. Essentially that it's a cheap alternative to HEO considering in a lot of departments and organisations they're carrying out the same work. They've long since been labelled equivalent grades but the AO starts on a much lower salary, eventually finishing on par with the HEO final point on the scale.

Any update on this at all? It’s mid July already!

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The parties will re-convene on 27th August, so slow. Will be months late again before anything is implemented, September 1st was never going to happen.

What's to be backdated? Going by the various union pitches it looks like it's going to be changes to pay scales to the value of 1% of payroll costs rather than a % pay increase for various grades.

If it is implemented your new pay scale will be back dated to September 1st resulting in back money. If this wasn't the case it would be in the government's interest to stall things if monies were not backdated. Agreements if not delivered on time are always backdated.

Is that your best advice on performance management? Pay people off.

Certainly that wouldn't be accepted as anything near good HR policy in any public service organisation.

Which public services areas have too many staff?

I worked in the Irish public services for 25 years in local authorities and central government. I went through benchmarking and the horribleness of the crash. About 10% of the work force (I remember workforce planning and Personnel pre HR) are quite frankly coasting/underperforming (0r as a former colleague diplomatically put it “work shy”), and a whole lot of others are not paid well enough. If you are the 90% I want you to get a pay rise. If you are that 10% then I would give you a proportionate and generous package. If you want to continue to protect the 10% then fine.

So please convince me that in the last 5 years, that 10% is gone and I am completely wrong.

Public services should be well funded but those who fund those public services are entitled to an opinion.

I am getting a bit tired of this "union" bs - I've seen some very poor performance by paid staff of unions (across two seperate PS/CS unions) and this "pay claim" for septemer (and negition of same) has been part of a long list of reasons why I have withdrawn my sub.

In my organisation I've seen the Union get involved in employee/employer issues and on every occassion I've seen the union supported employee lose out, having to leave the organisation in question.
Seperately I've seem advice from unions to employees to "keep the head down" even when wronged in a previous process (for a job or otherwise) rather than rock the boat or indeed face up to the practices of the employer and get some change for fairness for members.

The behaviour and outcomes on the ground have been nothing sort of shocking.

The two are directly linked - Public Pay Talks - Effectiveness of Unions in the Civil/Public Service.

You've got to see that some unions behaviour and that of their paid officials leaves a lot to be desired from an ethics standpoint - outside of the issues I have seen on the ground with (I will narrow down to two particilar Union as opposed to tarring all with the same brush). For example I have seen former heads of this particular Union end up in plum jobs on the employers side which surely could be construed as a potential ethical issue, especially when you look at performance in pay talks or in general representation of their members in years prior to that.

Also sat in a Union meeting where the members that were there were pretty much told to go off an make whatever individual side deal you could make, while ignoring the lower paid members of the union whose workload had increased also but who were not in the same position to make any individual deals - obviously losing the meaning of the word Union.

I had been a member over the course of 2 decades of Unions but the past few years have opened my eyes to the behaviour of the Union I was in and another large Union that I had direct involvement with.

I only wonder how capable their top brass are in pay and conditions talks when I see what is going on.

Yes, they are linked but this thread isn't about the merits of unions. It's about the pay talks.

Ive said already I don't think this is the appropriate thread. If you wish to setup a separate thread on it, i can engage there.

In many other areas of work in the real world, income is linked to productivity : the more you work the more you get paid, and if you are a dosser you get let go or your business goes bankrupt.

In Ireland, the public service employs nearly 370,000 people. None of those are chronically lazy, none have serious gambling or addiction issues that heavily interfere with their work, none double or even triple job….or are on social media much of the day? If there are pay rises, they get the same pay and pension rise as their colleagues?

It is known in some schools in the past that some teachers - a small minority but still some - simply do not teach. They could not be sacked. What else goes on, especially in some offices behind closed doors but more so some of those WFH?