Croke Park II preliminary Talks started today

sharper wrote: »

Which hasn't actually happened. The public sector unions are permitted to retain protections which will expire anyway as a bargaining chip, which is very much in their favour.

.

Throughout this thread you seem unwilling to accept any point made by any poster that disagrees with you.

These protections were not due to expire until next year. They were not to be retained past July due to a unilateral reneging on them by the government. Any amount of government ministers are on record as stating this. Minister Howlin has stated only today that legislation is prepared and waiting to do this.

If you can't accept this evidence well then there is no point trying to discuss it further with you

Godge wrote: »

As I have pointed out again and again, the Government has blatantly reneged on the deal

State how they have reneged on the deal.

Godge wrote: »

That is not what I have said.

That is exactly what you have said. You've repeatedly tried to argue that:

1. Pfizer workers should have known their jobs were in jeopardy because of patents.

2. The public sector pay cuts and the pension levy were just like being called into a morning meeting and learning your terms and conditions had just suddenly changed.

employers following a recession and high unemployment offer top wages for new jobs

I have repeatedly stated that is not my position and explained why. This discussion is at an end.

sharper wrote: »

I find it fascinating that you simply will not concede even a simple and obvious distinction, do you really think you can convince anyone of equivalency in this matter?

concede what? what am I trying to convince people of?

What is your point anyway? private sector people sometimes lose their jobs....well yes they do and its pretty awful for them

What I find fascinating is the like of your implication that somehow PS exist in some other world. Do you not think we have friends or family in financial trouble? that we dont have spouses and kids losing jobs? or have loved ones emigrating? Do you not think there are PS in financial trouble themselves?

You don't simply seem to be able to look past your own prejudices when it comes to the PS

Riskymove wrote: »

What is your point anyway? private sector people sometimes lose their jobs....well yes they do and its pretty awful for them

The point is in relation to the preceding pages of discussion about how well the private sector is doing and that public sector workers should not asked to take more cuts than private sector workers.

Godge wrote: »

OK, take Belgium who all pay their taxes.

You obviously haven't read the report.

http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2011/12/28122011-ecb-new-evidence-on-public.html

Even Constantin, the arch public-sector-hater acknowledges that "our results, referring to the period 2004-2007, point to a conditional pay differential in favour of the public sector that is generally higher for women, for workers at the bottom of the wage distribution, in the Education and the Public administration sectors rather than in the Health sector." which is support for my point on gender.

Also worthy of notice is that the study uses data from 2004-2007, ancient times by reference to what has happened public service pay in Ireland. Here is the paper itself, if you want to get into more detail:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1965450

Like I said, reading a newspaper on a DART doesn't lend itself to reading additional reports.

However, the point about gender equality is that it is a very specific characteristic of Nordic countries and is a result of governmental policies. Taking maternity leave as an example, in Ireland the government has legislated for 3 months however gives its own workers an additional premium of an extra 3 months. In Sweden maternity leave is legislated for everyone (regardless of private or pubic sector) to about 1 year. Furthermore in Ireland we do not have dedicated "parent days" that parents can use if their child is ill, whereas in Sweden they are present for anyone regardless of whether they are public or private sector. In Ireland we do not provide access to state funded childcare, whereas in Sweden it is there. As a result of this, Irish government policy makes it advantageous for woman to work in public sector, whereas in Sweden it doesn't matter as they have the same rights. This creates an equality in Sweden which is absent in Ireland.

on edit: Havent got time to read the links, will get to it later though.

sarumite wrote: »

However, the point about gender equality is that it is a very specific characteristic of Nordic countries and is a result of governmental policies. Taking maternity leave as an example, in Ireland the government has legislated for 3 months however gives its own workers an additional premium of an extra 3 months. In Sweden maternity leave is legislated for everyone (regardless of private or pubic sector) to about 1 year. Furthermore in Ireland we do not have dedicated "parent days" that parents can use if their child is ill, whereas in Sweden they are present for anyone regardless of whether they are public or private sector. In Ireland we do not provide access to state funded childcare, whereas in Sweden it is there. As a result of this, Irish government policy makes it advantageous for woman to work in public sector, whereas in Sweden it doesn't matter as they have the same rights. This creates an equality in Sweden which is absent in Ireland.

What point are you trying to make here though .. is it that it is understandable that PS pay would be higher than private sector pay as there is less equality in the private sector, particularly for women? If so wold you not be accepting one reason why we might expect to find a premium in PS wages in Ireland that you wouldn't find in other northern European States, particularly the Nordic States?

noodler wrote: »

Also the pay cuts were introduced in January 2010 makes perfect sense ot me that the first Croke Park Deal would run from January 1st 2010 - January 1st 2014.

I think the highlighted text is important here and indeed youare entitled to your opinion. Most reasonable people would have no difficulty understanding that a deal agreed in June 2010 was effective from that date. There was never any issue about it being back dated to the 1st January 2010. Even if there was, the paycuts are being scheduled for 1st July 2013, six months ahead of when CP would be set to expire.

This is an argument about nothing and is being pursued purely for the purposes of being argumentative .. if people can't even agree that a 4 year deal commencing in June 2010 ends in June 2014 then there is simply no point in continuing.

ardmacha wrote: »

I accept that they have not done anything to actually violate the agreement.

Well finally someone is able to accept that.

Now consider the following:

1. The agreement has only a few months left to run before its protections can be said to have expired naturally anyway.

2. The government is negotiating with the protections still in place and permitting those protections to be used as a bargaining chip i.e. "You lose your protections unless X".

3. That assigns value to those protections despite them being not actually worth anything because they're expiring soon anyway.

4. The government could just wait 6 months and implement measures far more severe than anything being discussed now.

Given the above and given that we live in a world where the country has a significant deficit funded by others (i.e. "do nothing" is simply not an available option) how is it anything but to the public sector's benefit?

Waiting longer both weakens the union position (no CP protections to bargain with) and increases the severity of the needed cuts.

creedp wrote: »

Out there in the real world where you operate would you agree a further deal with an employer/anyone who reneged on the terms of the previous deal?

Out there in the real world contracts are not met all the time. People pay later than they agreed, suppliers deliver less than was agreed, later than agreed, lower quality than was agreed.

If someone is maliciously failing to deliver on their agreements you pursue them because you know they can deliver, they just choose not to.

If someone fails to meet the agreement but for reasonable reasons that's different.

Do you cancel your TV subscription when the electricity goes out? Do you ring An Post to complain about your mail being late when there's a few feet of snow on the ground?

The reality is the current so called watered down deal will not go with a arses roar of saving €300m a year .. they have given most of it away to save face . that is all this is about now .. PR and spin. Of course you could argue that it is a successful strategy given the amount of people who are frothing at the mouth for it to be implemented.

Don't look at me, I consider everyone sitting at that negotiating table to be self interested and incompetent.

sharper wrote: »

And rather than wait for the agreement to expire before discussing the next one the negotiations began as the old one drew to a close, it's perfectly sensible.

The deal also protects public sector workers from compulsory redundancy. The end date for it is 2014 so the government could just as easily have interpreted that as Jan 1 2014 and let go the number of staff needed to meet its targets on Jan 2 2014.

Instead it took a far more reasonable (from a public sector worker benefit perspective) and negotiated for the next deal while workers still retained the protections of the old one.

Negotiated??

With a gun in the shape of threatened legislation to the heads of the PS negotiators??

sharper wrote: »

Out there in the real world contracts are not met all the time. People pay later than they agreed, suppliers deliver less than was agreed, later than agreed, lower quality than was agreed.

If someone is maliciously failing to deliver on their agreements you pursue them because you know they can deliver, they just choose not to.

If someone fails to meet the agreement but for reasonable reasons that's different.

Do you cancel your TV subscription when the electricity goes out? Do you ring An Post to complain about your mail being late when there's a few feet of snow on the ground?

So to summarise .. contracts are routinely reneged upon in the private sector and sure if the guilty party can spin a story that he really wanted to deliver on his commitments but just couldn't like .. then he' really a good guy. Must remember that the next time I want to walk away from a commitment.

Don't look at me, I consider everyone sitting at that negotiating table to be self interested and incompetent.

It must be difficult to be such a morally perfect creature ... difficult to put up with the incompetence of others but a rewarding all the same

sharper wrote: »

The government is clear the cuts will happen,

But only because they don't have the balls to stand up to the Trioka, or the wit to find the money elsewhere.

Real negotiation would involve asking their employees for their suggestions as to where money could be saved.

For example, having the government parties keep their pre election promises; and capping salaries as promises.