Unions 10 point plan

[smitchy2]

Notes on the Unions 10 point plan
http://www.ictu.ie/download/doc/ther...fairer_way.doc

1.Switch capital projects into retraining. The big question is to retrain into what? And how much of the €8bn capital programme?

2.Some good ideas here. The banks should be bought up to 51% control (€500m for the 2 big banks). They are not working and they need to be led. FF is still in soft touch territory.

3.Wage rates are much higher here then other EU countries particularly the UK even before sterling is taken into account. Energy prices do have to be reduced. Our cost of living will be coming down against the European average with a couple of years of deflation here and with increased energy reductions.

4.Remuneration in the banks should have a US type limit, this must also apply to politicians and senior public employees. (20-30% cut). There can be no question that wages must not be increased- deflation will cause a real increase in these incomes anyway. Any wage increases will cause redundancies (well in the private sector anyway!).

5.The €2bn needs to be cut from public expenditure. Taxes will be increased too and need to be straight away to try and get back another €2bn.

6.National Pay Agreement- wondering how many more times this will be mentioned. Just a note here over 30% of public pay will come from expensive bond borrowings this year. (If we are able to borrow the €20bn this year!!!!)

7.I think the pension levy was actually very fair for those on over €30k plus, those under this are unfairly affected. I think an actually wage decrease is needed on a declining scale (20% to 5%) but not effecting those under 30k.

8.Looks like a pension protection fund is going to happen anyway.

9.Protectionism??

10.Interesting idea but I cannot see people subscribing to this with FF in power. This could be the only option if the bond markets desert us ala Latin America in the late 90’s. This could be used in an attempt to prevent the IMF coming in.


Overall some interesting ideas but there is a continued focus to try and go back to the Pay deal. Deflation knocks the socks off any argument for this now.

What this does show up is that there is no FF plan whatsoever to deal with this economic crisis. At least the unions are attempting a stab at it and it is not their jobs to do it!!!!
One thing that is notably is the lack of allowance for current waste in public expenditure budgets and no real figures to beef up how we can bridge the €20bn deficit.

[Leftfemme22]

Overall some interesting ideas but there is a continued focus to try and go back to the Pay deal. Deflation knocks the socks off any argument for this now.

Actually it doesn't. Deflation hasn't occurred in the staples.

If a real deflation of 10-15% across the board occurs then your argument holds up.

Let’s get real here and let’s be honest, marginal price cuts mean nothing. They have to be substantial, open and competently verified.

I think the CSO's credibility is in tatters at this stage.

[Leftfemme22]

Well if this plan is anything like the full-page ICTU advert in yesterday's broadsheets, might as well consign it to the bin.

To paraphrase its line on competitiveness:

"Its not high wages that caused our loss of competitiveness, its the weakness of sterling"

Right, so we only trade with good old Blighty then?

How utterly utterly predictable.

Like I said, your obsessional hatred with Unions is pathological. You cannot post on this forum without attacking them or spinning what ever point is being made into a rant against them.

Its actually good to see the Unions being pro-active on this front. A welcome move recognised by everyone apart from IBEC wing nuts such as your self.

Its becoming dull now, Never mind. You're going on ignore. You have absolutely nothing of value to contribute.

[smitchy2]

Actually it doesn't. Deflation hasn't occurred in the staples.

If a real deflation of 10-15% across the board occurs then your argument holds up.

Let’s get real here and let’s be honest, marginal price cuts mean nothing. They have to be substantial, open and competently verified.

I think the CSO's credibility is in tatters at this stage.

The CSO use the same sample of goods so this is a real trend of where prices are going in both good and bad times.
Did the unions wait for prices to increase by 10-15% before asking for similar pay increases?
No need saying the CSO is a bad thing now after using it in pay agreements in the past.
Disposable income will stretch a lot further this year once you still have a job.

I appreciate that the unions have at least made an effort in producing a plan something the current government are incapable of.

[Munion]

Two things that jumped out at me.

ICTU officially defines high earners as those on €100k+. Useful for future debates.

The National Recovery Bond is not a bad idea. However, trust in the public sector is very low and we would need anal degrees of transparency in how this money was spent. I mean every single receipt, even if it's for teabags, should be scanned onto a computer and made available online for painstaking scrutiny.

I'd disagree that sterling is the single biggest cause, it's certainly a major cause but it wouldn't account for everything on it's own. The UK is our third largest export market behind the US and most importantly the EU.

Economist.com | Country Briefings: Ireland

[Leftfemme22]

Did the unions wait for prices to increase by 10-15% before asking for similar pay increases?
No need saying the CSO is a bad thing now after using it in pay agreements in the past.

I presume you where refering to Benchmarking which was to address historical low pay.

It really had nothing to do with cost of living despite it being 20% higher then the EU average.

[Gimpanzee]

Notes on the Unions 10 point plan
http://www.ictu.ie/download/doc/ther...fairer_way.doc

1.Protecting Jobs & Tackling Unemployment.

a) "unemployed workers are guaranteed incomes of 80 percent of salary for two years" - where will this money come from? Complete fantasy. Not a good start.

b) Flexible working arrangements - good idea,.

c) Retraining - as mentioned above sounds great, but retraining to do what? Unskilled construction workers cannot be turned into electronic engineers en mass.

2.The Banking System & the Public Interest

Agree with virtually everything


3. More fantasy - big bad private energy companies are the reason we are uncompetitive. More p!ssing to mark their territory form the unions.

4. Arguing that pay restraint is somehow unrelated to the current economic situation is unsurprising, but frightening.


5. Big on taxes, and that's fair enough, but not big enough to suggest that the property tax should apply to all private residences, not just second homes.


6.Restoring Consumer Confidence - more horsesh!t. The easiest way that the government and unions could stimulate consumer confidence is to get real and stop trying to protect their own backsides. Home truths need to be told by the unions to their members, and by the government to the electorate. People are still living in a fantasy that somehwere there is money that can be used to prop them up.


7. The levy. "Workers did not create the problem" - Neither did the 'workers' who you expect to pay for the public service pensions. The likes of SIPTU spend their time and money protecting and pandering to their core constituency, the public service, at the expense of private sector workers.

8. Pensions. If the unions were what they pretend to be they would be advocating a single pension system across the private and public service - real equality. Pensions are in crisis and a revolution in this area is required.

9. Employment Rights Legislation - Mom's Apple Pie.

10. National Recovery Bond - has merit, but would need a lot more fleshing out. Who would control the purse strings? There is virtually no one left who the public trust.


All in all this proposal offers very, very little to the discussion that the country needs to have. Its the SIPTU version of the Knowledge Economy proposals, purely designed to fend off accusations of a dearth of vision.

[smitchy2]

I presume you where refering to Benchmarking which was to address historical low pay.

It really had nothing to do with cost of living despite it being 20% higher then the EU average.

No I mean the fact that pay increments in national pay agreements were awarded based on inflation.
Benchmarking is an entirely separate piece which I do not want to touch here.

As I said though at least they are putting down some sort of a proposal that has some merits such as the recovery bond, property taxes (that will happen) and ideas for the banking system.

A lot of the rest is directed at their members rather than the overall state of the nation but this is what they are paid for.

[Clanrickard]

I presume you where refering to Benchmarking which was to address historical low pay.

It really had nothing to do with cost of living despite it being 20% higher then the EU average.

Public sector pay surpassed the private sector in 2001 and has stayed ahead since.

[Dios]

Might be a rhetorical question here, but how is it that everyone seems to have a recovery plan except the government and opposition? Too busy wondering how many dodgy deals will be uprooted before the end?