Unions- Turkeys voting for Christmas?

[Conor]

Todays situation is very different from before.

Was it not the case before that "private sectors workers are net contributors to the government coffers whereas public sector workers make no net contribution to government finances"?

[JollyRedGiant]

Ah come on now, bleeding the country dry? Its not like they came and pillaged our natural resources or stole our best ideas.

Shell - Corrib Gas Field - Ray Burke - need I say more. No multi-national came here for anything other than to make as much profit as possible and the government facilitated that by slashing Corpo Tax - giving huge grants and ensuring that workers were getting a smaller and smaller slice of the national pie.

For the most part, the underlying intellectual property was created a priori in Redmond or Santa Clara or where-ever the heck the Pfizer HQ is. They then set up a facade operation here, adding little value to overall product, but over-stated their profits so as to minimize the tax payable back home in the US.

Its sneaky all right, but hey we gave them the idea! And we encouraged its execution.

Certainly happened - with a nod and a wink from our backwoodsmen politicians - and remember Beverly and Northern Bank.

It is, but with little justification in my view.

I had my head chewed off on another thread for praising the quality of Polish graduates, seems I was being racialist or summat.

The Irish Education system has many faults (underfunding being a major one) but overall it is significantly better than many of the Eurpoean counterparts. As for the Polish system - a throw back to the planned economy - despite the wreckage caused by Stalinists - and it is deteriorating fast.

But that doesn't change the fact that in my experience Irish grads are more limited than their European counterparts. I put it down the leaving cert myself, which is way too broad & shallow, and so predicatable that it incentivizes only a single strategy: learning by rote so as to regurgitate on exam day. Any creative problem-solving or lateral thinking skills have been coached out of them before they even get to Uni.

Yes the leaving cert is certainly a problem - but remember the capitalist system requires a production line of workers - it is not interested in developing the talents of students - merely slotting them into what is required for the production of profits.

But you'd never hear any teachers saying that publicly, coz its just way easy to coach for the exam as opposed to really inspiring and educating the kids.

Actually - I say it all the time - as do many others in the teaching profession.

So we get the "best educated work-force in the world" mantra, but I doubt if anyone on the inside working in education really believes that.

Despite all the guff - the vast majority of teachers work their rear ends off - often after hours and without pay - and many burn-out as a result. Try teaching in a class of 30 kids.

There's some truth in what you say here all right. And I think a lot of the bullying you mention goes on becuase those bosses know that their underlings are effectively stuck. They can't leave as they couldn't match their current package in the private sector. So they've no choice but to grin and bear it.

Believe it or not - large numbers have left the public sector over the past 15 years. I left work my workplace 6 years ago and there was over 200 staff in the place - these days I would know no more then 15 or 20 (and they left - not re-deployed - and often because of the carry on of management).

A much bigger pie being sliced up now than in '87.

True - and it just goes to show how much profit has been raked off the top - a 20% swing of a much bigger pie shows how much workers have been fleeced by these national programmes. Remember over the past twenty years the only sector of the economy that has had they income restricted has been PAYE workers - as a result of national wage agreements. Profits have soared - management salaries have soared - bonuses have soared - dividends have soared - all without the restriction inposed on workers by national wage agreements. If profits and executive salaries and house prices were restricted like worekrs wages - we wouldn't be in the mess we are in. And who is going to pay with job losses and wage cuts - the same PAYE workers who ahve been screwed for the last 20 years.

[darkhorse]

Was it not the case before that "private sectors workers are net contributors to the government coffers whereas public sector workers make no net contribution to government finances"?

And your point is...

[jpc]

But the rich created the crisis - and the 13-15billion you talk about is less than the wealth of the top ten richest of the rich - as I said - give them 100million to live on and take the rest - I am sure that 100million would be enough for anyone and we have wiped the deficit this year with about 7billion left over.

Instead of talking about ordinary workers having to take pay cuts and accept job losses - let just 10 (obscenely wealthy) people suffer (a little) to solve the deficit.

It doesn't solve the deficit going into the future though.
We as a nation are spending beyond our means.

[sparkey321]

No, its a defined benefit pension. That doesn't by definition make it "gold-plated". Presumably you also favour restricting the amount of tax relief people can claim on private pension contributions? After all, that's a serious tax shelter for the better off.

No its not..

A Defined benifit pension is linked to your final sallary.

A PS pension is index linked to future pay raises at the position you were at when you retired.


Thats pretty gold plated.

[Conor]

And your point is...

That this:

There is no equivalence between public and private sector workers in the present situation. In any business, where redundancies have to be made, the revenue earners are the last to go and administration/overhead staff are first. If you let go the fee earners then your business has no chance of recovery. This is common sense in any business. In the present situation, private sectors workers are net contributors to the government coffers whereas public sector workers make no net contribution to government finances. This is the reality so lets face it.

is pointless.

[darkhorse]

That this:

is pointless.

it isnt - and its a point that is conveniently overlooked by many who seek to penalise those of us working in the private sector for the mistakes made by Government in recruiting vast numbers of public servants over the past number of years - and whom they now cant afford to pay.

[Pax]

History actually shows plenty of examples of exactly the opposite.

In the US, the Irish immigrants in particular used restrictive union membership to exclude blacks, Italians, Poles etc. from jobs on the docks.

Also the unions were not quick to pick up the cause of equal pay for women, have a look at this excerpt for example.

Groan. Of course you have individual cases of discrimination. I never said you didn't. However, just to take the US as an example, all long term statistics and studies show an overall decrease in discrimination and improvements in pay and conditions with membership of trade unions.

It is in the employer's interest to break solidarity in the workforce. If discrimination can do this then so be it.

An employer who is more moral, will, before too long, be out-competed in the market place by less moral employers.
Unions have acted as break on this activity preventing discrimination based upon race, sex etc.

Unions have also been critical in reducing exploitation by reducing the working week to the 8 hour day,

Eight-hour day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

also, ending child labour practices, improving worker health and safety, increase wages for union workers, raising the entire society's standard of living, providing public education for children, amongst many other benefits.

[Odyessus]

it isnt - and its a point that is conveniently overlooked by many who seek to penalise those of us working in the private sector for the mistakes made by Government in recruiting vast numbers of public servants over the past number of years - and whom they now cant afford to pay.

Correction: We cannot afford to pay.

[JollyRedGiant]

OK, I forgot about Shell, but I think they're the exception that proves the rule.

Actually they have all stolen the best resource we have - the labour of the people who work for them - netting them obscene profits over the past 20 years - How much did Dell make from their Irish operations last year - while paying their workers close to the minimum wage.

Sure, but that's their whole raison d'etre. They simply wouldn't have come here if there wasn't a profit opportunity.

so we welcome them with open arms so they can make huge profits and then clap them on the back and say thanks very much when they shut down and move plant to a country with even greater levels of exploitation - not likely - let them go themselves - but they shouldn't be allowed take a biro with them - never mind shifting their entire production plant several thousand miles.

So I'm getting confused, the Stalinists are the baddies now? So who're the goodies, the Maoists? Oh dear god, save us from a "great leap forward".

No real difference between Stalinists and Maoists - the Polish education system benefitted from the planned economy that existed - despite the role of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

A PS pension is index linked to future pay raises at the position you were at when you retired.

Thats pretty gold plated.

what - a 3% on €220 a week - seriously gold-plated - and if their was a 10% pay cut then we would ahve a 10% cut in the pension as well. Public sector unions should seriously consider the impact of pay cuts on pensioners.

Correction: We cannot afford to pay.

of course we can provided we stop the government handing billions over to their property, banking and speculating pals.