Public sector unions' impact on government services

[St Disibod]

Difficult to see what the State could have done about this outrageous claim on the part of the CPSU, given that an independent body ruled on it. Thankfully, the Labour Court saw sense, but it demonstrates the recklessness and pure brass neck of some unions, which I don't believe is in their brief.

The state could have drawn up better rules and laws during the negotiating stages of the relevant social partnership rounds. Take benchmarking for instance- it seems to me utterly misplaced to blame the public sector unions for the benchmarking fiasco which saw wage hikes that were way out of kilter with private sector wage increases and were issued with few or no conditions such as reform and improvement of operations. The government was simply out buying an election, and then sat out when spats broke out over how disproportional the public sector increases were with many commentators turning on the unions, which were meant to look after their members' interests, rather than the government, which was meant to look after the public's interest.

In the strictest sense the CPSU was correct in stating that the government had breached rules it itself had negotiated in appointing clerical staff at lower pay grades to positions formerly manned by gardaí. It was only by virtue of a looser interpretation of the rules that CPSU claims were rejected. I am quite a fan of the social partnership model in general, but the process seems to be providing way too many benefits to public sector workers, and not enough to private sector workers and the public in general. Pension reform and an expansion in training and skills-development programmes would benefit everyone. Benchmarking just benefits the public sector worker, and asks for very little in return (except maybe a vote at the general election).

[FutureTaoiseach]

No doubt about it the public-sector unions are the biggest culprits when it comes to inefficiency and by extension to some degree higher charges in the public-sector. The absence of competition is also largely due to resistance from the unions and that too contributes to the aforementioned problems.

[Ronanr]

public sector workers' pay and gold plated,diamond studded pensions financed out of private sector workers' taxes,

You keep coming out with this line, patslatt, but you obviously do not know enough about the issue to discuss the degree to which post 1995 government employees will be paying for their own pensions.

I have asked you about it on two other threads now but you keep ignoring it!

[patslatt]

public sector workers' pay and gold plated,diamond studded pensions financed out of private sector workers' taxes,

You keep coming out with this line, patslatt, but you obviously do not know enough about the issue to discuss the degree to which post 1995 government employees will be paying for their own pensions.

I have asked you about it on two other threads now but you keep ignoring it!

The whole issue of state sector pensions is opaque to all but the actuaries who specialise in that. Look at the the opaque rules on the contributory old age state pension.

[Tintern1]

"The Teachers Union of Ireland is one of the best unions in the country in my view. Rather than carp on about pay, they focus the bulk of their attention on resources, training, and making sure that the government provides the means to enforce its own regulations"

Training? You mean those wonderful Teacher training days. What a joke! You know I know few people who have gone through the Irish education system who haven't had some absolutely dire teachers! Why is it so difficult to fire them? Why can't teachers be judged on performance instead of the crap teachers and good teachers all lumped together in terms of
pay, when some simply outperform others?

"Dublin Bus refuses to allow any meaningful competition on bus routes. By contrast,London has an excellent bus service run by private bus fleet operators."

I noticed the EU Commission is investigating them. I'd say as with so many issues and areas the EU is going to come in and force change in the bus market. Way to go EU! Will def be voting Yes to the proposed Reform Treaty.

[patslatt]

Difficult to see what the State could have done about this outrageous claim on the part of the CPSU, given that an independent body ruled on it. Thankfully, the Labour Court saw sense, but it demonstrates the recklessness and pure brass neck of some unions, which I don't believe is in their brief.

The state could have drawn up better rules and laws during the negotiating stages of the relevant social partnership rounds. Take benchmarking for instance- it seems to me utterly misplaced to blame the public sector unions for the benchmarking fiasco which saw wage hikes that were way out of kilter with private sector wage increases and were issued with few or no conditions such as reform and improvement of operations. .

The state could have done something about the outrageous claim-abolish the Equality Tribunal, many of whose judgements are a flight from common sense. Its agenda includes promotion of that completely illogical feminist concept of equal pay for work of equal value. This is not the same as equal pay for equal work,which nobody should question.

In the feminist concept, the workplace is presumed to favour men over women,a presumed bias that forces women into low paid professions like nursing and teaching. THe Tribunal sees a role as righting that wrong by making economic judgements about the value of work women do. It looks at "comparator's" job characteristics, so a nurse whose job involves dealing with people and a high level of stress in areas like intensive care could be compared to a
policeman and awarded the same pay.

For anyone who knows Economics 100, this feminist concept is a joke. So why is the false equality cottage industry allowed to continue? It suits politicians to pander to the sense of victimhood of a minority of women and of ethnic minorities.

As for Benchmarking, I've heard that it removes the jobs for life benefit. This job security resulted in the phenomenon of some career civil servants coasting uselessly from their early 50s until retirement at 65, according to a civil servant friend who had a 70 hours a week job in the private sector. But there is no news of sackings,probably due to institutional lethargy.

A possible silver lining in Benchmarking pay and benefits excesses is that if a recession should occur, a lot of austerity could be imposed relatively painlessly by freezing public sector pay for two or three years.

Next time the Benchmarking authority convenes,in the words of The Who's
rock hit "Don't get fooled again"!

[smiffy]

The whole issue of state sector pensions is opaque to all but the actuaries who specialise in that. Look at the the opaque rules on the contributory old age state pension.

If you don't understand the system, how come you keep making assertions about it?

[wombat]

As for Benchmarking, I've heard that it removes the jobs for life benefit. This job security resulted in the phenomenon of some career civil servants coasting uselessly from their early 50s until retirement at 65, according to a civil servant friend who had a 70 hours a week job in the private sector. But there is no news of sackings,probably due to institutional lethargy.

The problem with the civil service is not that people don't work hard - you can find that anywhere - its that many jobs do not need to be done. A scheme is introduced by govt. to solve a problem, say tax breaks for rental accomodation. After a few years, the shortage is resolved but another problem, say shortage of nursing home beds arises so we get a new scheme. Obviously civil servants working on the rental scheme get moved to the nursing home scheme - wrong, the builders lobby wants the 1st scheme to continue so we need more civil servants to administer the nursing home scheme my father worked in the Dept. of Agriculture all his working life - TB has still not been eradicated, I'm sure there are people still working on administering it.

[adamirer]

To much confusion between civil servants and public servants. There's not that many civil servants, it's about 1/10th of the overall number. And when was the last time the CS was on strike...

[patslatt]

The whole issue of state sector pensions is opaque to all but the actuaries who specialise in that. Look at the the opaque rules on the contributory old age state pension.

If you don't understand the system, how come you keep making assertions about it?

It's called joining the dots! The blog http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=25392 began quoting facts and estimates from the UK state pensions funding situation which looks dire. The UK government is a democratic,overcentralised dictatorship of the UK prime minister. If the UK can't get a grip on runaway pension costs, how can our extreme version of proportioonal representation government do so? Our government is so close to the people, it runs scared of any vocal organised group down to the village pump level.