ISME warns: Public Sector Overpaid- diasaster in offing

[anewbeginning]

Rubbish.....you really are smarting over all this arent you, where you rejected for the civil service or something?

Those STILL IN EMPLOYMENT must carry the burden FAIRLY, making more people unemployed is not spreading the pain, it is self defeating self satisfying begrudgery on your part.

You are a totally dishonest spiv.

And you are braindead like most public sector workers, we can keep this up all day...

now your turn...

I have news for you, I and hundreds of thosuands other private sector workers won't be bearing the pain so idiots like you can continue to live the high life....We have had enough of spongers in the PS who get bigger wages for the same jobs in the private sector and gold plated pensions all kindly donated by private sector workers.

Oh I get it, I'm private sector, so I should just shut up and keep the cash coming, right?

Great to be paying someones wages and be insulted for doing so...great country altogether...no wonder we're broke...

[anewbeginning]

Rubbish.....you really are smarting over all this arent you, where you rejected for the civil service or something?

Working with boring farts like you in the PS? no thank you!

[wexfordman]

Your problem is that you want to blame the crisis on public sector workers. That is dishonest. Filleting the public sector will not solve the probelm but will only add to the massive numbers on the dole and leave us unable to respond to social difficulties and hardships in any way shape or form. The numbers employed by the state will decline in line with general activity. Embargos have been in palce for over a year now and many many workers employed by the state have lost their jobs.
Again you would have us believe that all workers not emloyed by the state are presently taking a hit, that is untrue so if you want workers to take a 20% reduction in pay, than that should apply across the board and the best way to achieve that equity is to apply increases in taxation on all, repeat all incomes.

oh ffs, how do you beleive that all workers not emplyed by the state are taking a hit ?
The majority of workers working for companies that have seen severe declines in revenue are I would say taking a hit. Any company that has seen its incommings fall below its outogings has geneally either cut staff or wages. The PS employer (the state) is in this postion, and must cut staff and/or wages. Simple fact, and it goes beyond a simple embargo or head freeze, it must be actual pay cuts and redundancies.

[hopi watcher]

And you are braindead like most public sector workers, we can keep this up all day...

now your turn...

I have news for you, I and hundreds of thosuands other private sector workers won't be bearing the pain so idiots like you can continue to live the high life....We have had enough of spongers in the PS who get bigger wages for the same jobs in the private sector and gold plated pensions all kindly donated by private sector workers.

Oh I get it, I'm private sector, so I should just shut up and keep the cash coming, right?

Great to be paying someones wages and be insulted for doing so...great country altogether...no wonder we're broke...

Why don't you direct some of your ire at those wealthy spongers who, over this past 10 years have accummulated pension funds up to a €1 million to which you and I contributed nearly half.

[patslatt]

The average public sector worker is better-educated and more highly-skilled than the average private-sector worker - just because of what the public sector does (medicine, teaching, administration etc).
Also, most public sector workers are represented by unions whereas most private-sector workers are not, and collective bargaining puts workers in a stronger position. All public-sector workers get the national pay agreement increases for example, and many private-sector workers do not. It's more a case of private-sector workers being underpaid than public-sector workers being overpaid.

Qualifications in the public sector are inflated unnecessarily (eg the four year degree in nursing,a profession largely taught on the job previously),so this is not necessarily a good argument for higher pay than in the private sector. Given the near impossibility of sacking PS workers protected by the jobs for life culture and given the gold plated pensions worth up to 30% of pay in the highest paid categories,an argument could be made that PS pay should be lower than the private sector's.

Private sector pay is largely determined by the marketplace. If unionisation determined pay,poor countries like India could solve their economic problems overnight by legislating all workers into unions.

[hopi watcher]

oh ffs, how do you beleive that all workers not emplyed by the state are taking a hit ?
The majority of workers working for companies that have seen severe declines in revenue are I would say taking a hit. Any company that has seen its incommings fall below its outogings has geneally either cut staff or wages. The PS employer (the state) is in this postion, and must cut staff and/or wages. Simple fact, and it goes beyond a simple embargo or head freeze, it must be actual pay freezes and redundancies.

The majority of workers are not taking any hit at all, this is just spin. The public sector has shed workers and will shed workers. We are in a recession caused by laisse-fare reagonomnics, not by workers in the public sector and what has to be pointed put to you is that when the celtic tiger was roaring and workers in private companies where sharing large bonus's etc, the workers in the public sector were not posting here crying about it.

[wexfordman]

The majority of workers are not taking any hit at all, this is just spin. The public sector has shed workers and will shed workers. We are in a recession caused by laisse-fare reagonomnics, not by workers in the public sector and what has to be pointed put to you is that when the celtic tiger was roaring and workers in private companies where sharing large bonus's etc, the workers in the public sector were not posting here crying about it.

Ah come on Hopi, do you seriously not see what your saying here ?

Generalisation 1:- The majority of workers are not taking any hit at all, this is just spin
Generaliation 2:- When the celtic tiger was roaring, and workers in private companies were sharing large bonus's etc worker

You have an uncanny knack of spinning your way dont you

[hopi watcher]

Ah come on Hopi, do you seriously not see what your saying here ?

Generalisation 1:- The majority of workers are not taking any hit at all, this is just spin
Generaliation 2:- When the celtic tiger was roaring, and workers in private companies were sharing large bonus's etc worker

You have an uncanny knack of spinning your way dont you

It is you that constantly uses the 'public sector' generalisation. I repeat, the majority of workers are not taking any hit at all at present and the only fair way to ensure that the burden is shared equally is through taxation on all income.

[patslatt]

Some good points. The intention of this line of argument from those on the right is not to lift everyone up to an acceptable wage but to engage in divide and conquer between the public and the private. Slamming wages down across the board. Put simply it is an anti-solidarity strategy. And this at a time of record profits for business and where business unions are gouging their employees pensions and benefits!

I have to laugh at ISME berating us about charges and stealth taxes tho'. If we were to have provision of public services through the private system then both public and private workers (and small business) would end up paying more through charges (which are precursor to privatisation in any case)

How can there be solidarity with the public sector pigs at the pay trough,starting at the top with Cowen being paid more than Obama and the head of our tiny Central Bank being paid more than Trichet,head of the European Central Bank? There needs to be an angry backlash against public sector and politicians' pay merely to ensure that they won't keep screwing us,let alone take well deserved pay cuts of up to a third.

No political party represents the public interest on this issue,so we can only hope that constant media exposure of pay excesses and economic necessity in the recession/depression will keep pay restraint.

[bormotello]

Your problem is that you want to blame the crisis on public sector workers. That is dishonest.

Why?

Filleting the public sector will not solve the probelm but will only add to the massive numbers on the dole and leave us unable to respond to social difficulties and hardships in any way shape or form.

It will solve the problem
1) It will be no reason to increase taxes again. People will spend more. Money, what they will spend will give job for another people. Less people will be on dole. Less taxes increases will be needed. Economy will start to recover.
2) A lot of public workers are doing stupid procedures prepared by their managers. Lets make those procedures available for public. Everybody will see haw taxpayers money spent. Everybody can criticize and make suggestions. Each public manager will get those suggestions for free as last chance. If after public brainstorm, he will not manage to improve performance of his department – he must be fired without pension.
3) Financial regulator and central bank are directly responsible for this mess on the property market. If they warn people that there is a bubble, then people could stop buying homes. Developers would be forced to reduce supply. Prices would go down. If somebody wanted to take a risk – it would be his own problem. At least he has be warned.
Financial authorities didn’t do it. It means that they are not capable of doing job and must be fired immediately without any pension. Only cleaners and office admins can stay.

Again you would have us believe that all workers not emloyed by the state are presently taking a hit, that is untrue so if you want workers to take a 20% reduction in pay, than that should apply across the board and the best way to achieve that equity is to apply increases in taxation on all, repeat all incomes.

I don’t think that it is good idea to demand 20% cut on public workers wages.
Ireland has a chance to get rid off ballast in public sector and must use it for own good.
Next generation of public workers will remember what happen with their predecessors, which didn’t work hard and will take a lesson.
New benchmarking is urgently required.
If public is not happy by job of some public workers – they must be replaced by better ones. But if somebody is performing very well – he even can get of pay increase.
Advantage of great purge is that lot of people, which now simply are waiting for pension and doing practically nothing (mostly relates to management) will be replaced by more energetic and smart.
If somebody in public services is smart and has a stupid boss, which will occupy his position for another 20 years, proposed purge will give chance to get what he deserved.