Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

Thinking outside the box, non pay related things...

  • 11-09-2010 12:21PM
    #1
    MrDarcy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭


    Ok, we are all caught up on 3 day weeks, the national minimum wage, the Croke Park Deal, more work for less pay, pay, bonuses and expenses being cut, etc...

    Is now not a great time to start looking at the whole "work-life balance" thing and maybe coming up with something like:

    Reducing the working week from 5.0 days/39 hour week to a 4.5 day 35/36 hour week, not just for the nurses or those in a union, but for everyone, so basically a full day on a Friday is reduced to a half day on a Friday.

    As everyone's pay is being cut, why not hand back something in return, sure many people knock off early on a Friday now anyway...


Comments

  • #2
    Tora Bora
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,258 ✭✭✭Tora Bora


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Ok, we are all caught up on 3 day weeks, the national minimum wage, the Croke Park Deal, more work for less pay, pay, bonuses and expenses being cut, etc...

    Is now not a great time to start looking at the whole "work-life balance" thing and maybe coming up with something like:

    Reducing the working week from 5.0 days/39 hour week to a 4.5 day 35/36 hour week, not just for the nurses or those in a union, but for everyone, so basically a full day on a Friday is reduced to a half day on a Friday.

    As everyone's pay is being cut, why not hand back something in return, sure many people knock off early on a Friday now anyway...

    FFS, you have been drinking again. What we need to do, is drop the stupid 39 hour week, and get back to some reality. We gave ourselves pay increases equivalent to multiple times our competitors over the past decade. Then we decided to knock off early on Friday. Fckun madness.
    Get back to a proper work week, for same weekly pay. Take pay freeze for five years. Reduce pay of that is required in you particular employment or sector.
    Back to the future and we might just save this country.


  • #3
    MrDarcy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 585 ✭✭✭MrDarcy


    Tora Bora wrote: »
    FFS, you have been drinking again. What we need to do, is drop the stupid 39 hour week, and get back to some reality. We gave ourselves pay increases equivalent to multiple times our competitors over the past decade. Then we decided to knock off early on Friday. Fckun madness.
    Get back to a proper work week, for same weekly pay. Take pay freeze for five years. Reduce pay of that is required in you particular employment or sector.
    Back to the future and we might just save this country.

    Yeah but think about this for a moment. How many people are taking work home from the office and working on stuff for work while watching the TV at 8PM in the evening??? How many people come home and get the dinner on, then sit down and catch up on a few e-mails for work that they didn't get time to do in work???

    Imagine you take that goodwill, and that is what it is, goodwill, out of the equation. You leave the laptop at home, you turn up at 9AM and you come home at 6PM, you are actually a lot less productive.


  • #4
    johnnyskeleton
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 14,566 Mod ✭✭✭✭johnnyskeleton


    MrDarcy wrote: »
    Ok, we are all caught up on 3 day weeks, the national minimum wage, the Croke Park Deal, more work for less pay, pay, bonuses and expenses being cut, etc...

    Is now not a great time to start looking at the whole "work-life balance" thing and maybe coming up with something like:

    Reducing the working week from 5.0 days/39 hour week to a 4.5 day 35/36 hour week, not just for the nurses or those in a union, but for everyone, so basically a full day on a Friday is reduced to a half day on a Friday.

    As everyone's pay is being cut, why not hand back something in return, sure many people knock off early on a Friday now anyway...

    That would be great, on an individual level, and people who are put on 3 days weeks should try to look at it from that point of view.

    However, there is still the problem that we are uncompetitive, and reducing hours for the same pay (if that is part of what you are suggesting, I'm not sure that it is) will make matters worse.


  • #5
    thebman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,001 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    TBH our biggest problem is our lack of infrastructure still.

    Broadband in the pits and how exactly does one get goods out of BallyNoWhere to Dublin?

    Even from Dublin, we are at a disadvantage to mainland Europe for distribution of goods and must offset this disadvantage using something else.

    I would suggest the first place to focus is making it cheaper for manufacturers to get their goods out of the country.

    We also desparately need to increase our broadband speeds/penetration. It is a pain trying to work on some of the remote clients servers from where I work at the moment and it costs time which is money.


Advertisement
Advertisement