Public versus Private Sector (5 Viewers)

[hugh]

Unions represent public servants not the public service. Their remit is terms and conditions of employees and the employment contract they have - they are not and should not be responsible for reforming the public service - that's the role of public service management, who never leave their hidey holes to comment.

True, but reforms are carried out (in theory) in co-operation/consulation with the unions so they have a role (in theory) in the process.

 

[MDR]

Agreed. But when it comes to accountability for how well things work and how they should be improved, then the management have to take their share of responsibility and have to be the ones coming up with ideas. They can't just sit back and throw the ball into the unions' court.

 

[broken arm]

ah c'mere, are you drunk?

simple answer;no. it really doesn't merit more than that

not drunk, just trying to make the seperation between the civil service/public sector/executive etc. a little bit more clear. for the purposes of accountability and transparency of course.

 

[Cormcolash]

Ah now, it's way more complicated than that.
The first round of the boom was kick started by that section xx relief which was aimed at regenerating run down areas. This was a really good thing even though at the time I would have been against it. The intentions were good but it set the scene for what was to come. This would have been 1992-1996 from my own memory of things and involved people snapping up these apartments to live in and to rent out. The developers copped on to the potential after the success of the first wave of builds like Gardiner St and around Cornmarket and realised there was money to be made.
The second round was 1996-2000 and here everyone wanted in on the action. This was when the greed set in on all sides. Banks were behaving reasonably professionally with the public during this period and probably with developers too cos the money was rolling in. This is when people started snapping up multiple investment properties and things started getting rough.
Around 2000 the average house had passed the stamp duty threshold and the government were getting flack from young families. In 2001 they brought in anti speculative stamp duty and when the property market ground to a halt they were forced to repeal it by a lobby of private sector interests (banks, builders etc) and by the older sections of the voting public who were pissed off their nest eggs had stopped rising in value. This is the first time they were really at fault and yes they did continue to ignore the mess but by this stage there were 100+% mortgages and cash rolling in and the whole thing was completely out of control and not just in Ireland.

It wasn't the government that caused the boom initially, it was greed (or you could call it demand) on the publics side. I remember seeing it happen to people I knew (and I say knew for good reason) around 97/98. Meeting one couple who were raving about the property ladder and how they were just about to buy their second house and how much money they had made on their first. It spread like wildfire.

Like I said it's way more complicated than "it's the governments fault" and the above is my own personal experience and recollection of events.
And don't forget, people were a lot happier with the boom than they are with the bust. Even when it was completely out of control a huge section of the public were still quietly feeling smug about the whole thing. Not so smug anymore.

Class post. It's pretty simple really:
Nobody should be allowed to own more than one house. Although I wouldn't be too bothered about people owning one holiday place in Donegal or whatever, for their own use.
Any extra housing should pass to the government, and be administrated by a body set up specifically to deal with rent and upkeep of these properties, with employees being paid accordingly.
Greedy landowners should be told to fuck off.

 

[broken arm]

Class post. It's pretty simple really:
Nobody should be allowed to own more than one house. Although I wouldn't be too bothered about people owning one holiday place in Donegal or whatever, for their own use.
Any extra housing should pass to the government, and be administrated by a body set up specifically to deal with rent and upkeep of these properties, with employees being paid accordingly.
Greedy landowners should be told to fuck off.

that's just a council housing scheme. fuck that, with respect.

maybe there is a need for a spread between private cohousing schemes and community supported cohousing for those of us (i.e. me) that can't afford to own property.

the role of the government would be to correct systems/market failure (moral hazards and whatnot)

 

[ann post]

Although I wouldn't be too bothered about people owning one holiday place in Donegal or whatever, for their own use.

nah, were all full up with holiday homes here.

 

[egg_]

Nobody should be allowed to own more than one house.

I kinda agree with you. Making money by virtue of simply owning something seems kinda mental to me.

But hear ye - if you think this is going to change within our lifetimes in Ireland then you are wrong

 

[egg_]

Agreed. But when it comes to accountability for how well things work and how they should be improved, then the management have to take their share of responsibility and have to be the ones coming up with ideas. They can't just sit back and throw the ball into the unions' court.

I agree!
But aren't you "the management"?

 

[pete]

from an ICTU press release issued on friday:

the deal between unions and government officials – now rejected by the Taoiseach – would have seen:

• No reduction in any services as a result of the temporary unpaid leave measure
• A guarantee of “no impact on the length and structure of the school year or class contact” and an additional working hour by every teacher each week
• Explicit agreement on the redeployment of civil and public servants within and between organisations to ensure better delivery of priority services as budgets and staffing declined
• A process to deliver an extended 8-8 working day in the health services, leading to longer opening hours
• The introduction of new rosters in health - including the introduction of new nursing rosters by January 2011 – leading to more flexible services and a further reduced overtime budget
• Ongoing reductions in the number of in-patient beds and increases in day care, outpatient and diagnostic capacity, in order to provide faster access to services at lower cost
• A greater range of health services in community settings so that more patients could receive treatment at home
• Reviews of health service staffing ratios and skills mixes to help improve patient care at minimal cost
• New value-for money and waste elimination programmes
• The introduction of shared services in health, local authorities, education and the civil services – in areas like finance, procurement, human resources and payroll.
• The introduction of evidence-based performance measurement in health
• The extension of competitive and merit-based promotions at all levels throughout the public services
• Multi-disciplinary working and reporting arrangements in health
• The supervision and substitution scheme for post primary teacher to be made more flexible
• New procedures for redeploying surplus teachers
• A review of the teaching contract to remove impediments to teaching and learning
• A comprehensive review and revision of special needs assistant employment terms and conditions to identify and remove any impediments to efficient and effective support for students with special care needs
• Cooperation with the restructuring and rationalisation of the VEC sector
• Cooperation with rationalisation of state agencies in the local government sector
• Better management and standardisation of annual and sick leave arrangements
• Changes to civil service opening and closing times and attendance arrangements
• The further development of on-line and e-services.

 

[hugh]

from an ICTU press release issued on friday:
[/LIST]

The problem is .. most of that is still really really vague. For example. it baffles me as to how an across the board reduction in time worked (12 days unpaid leave thing) cannot imply a reduction in services. How can this possibly be the case? How can I work 12 days less per year without doing 12 days less work?

There are very few concrete proposals there that are not open to interpretation and negotiation - review this, co-operate with that, etc etc. They may well have had long-term positive results that would have reduced costs but there's no way the details of this could be agreed within a few days a week before the budget and no way this could be sold to a public baying for their pound of flesh off the public service.

For example: "a review of the teaching contract to remove impediments to teaching and learning" - what in the name of fuck is that supposed to mean?

I don't know who I'm more annoyed with at this point - the government, the unions, the media, the general public. I hate everyone now.

 

[egg_]

Oh, on the subject of the unions - why in the name of fuck can they not hire proper spokespeople to go on the radio and tv? Bright, media-savvy, articulate people old enough to be taken seriously and young enough to be pretty, with proper preparation before each appearance. If you don't care about public opinion then keep away from the radio, if you do then do it properly, like your opponents do

 

[pete]

it baffles me as to how an across the board reduction in time worked (12 days unpaid leave thing) cannot imply a reduction in services. How can this possibly be the case? How can I work 12 days less per year without doing 12 days less work?

Paid annual leave and voluntary unpaid leave / term time are already available with no loss of service. The work still gets done because people are generally smart enough to organise their own time & get colleagues to cover, where necessary. Obviously if you're talking about teachers or lecturers and reducing the number of days they can stand in front of their students then that's a different story, but this had been at least partially addressed by making them take the 12 days spread over a number of years.

Two of those days could have been achieved simply by getting rid of the privilege days. Another half day clawed back from the idiotic "shopping" leave (and one less stick for the clowns at the Irish Daily Mail to beat us with - that was today's most important story? Really?). How many days does "bank time" add up to? I'm sure there's plenty more where that came from.

They may well have had long-term positive results that would have reduced costs but there's no way the details of this could be agreed within a few days a week before the budget

I don't think that was ever the plan though - the unpaid leave was a 1 year once off to reduce costs while the rest of the stuff was worked out. It should NEVER have been referred to as 'unpaid leave' - this feeds into egg_'s point about being media savvy. It was short time, exactly the same as what happens in the private sector.

 

[hugh]

Paid annual leave and voluntary unpaid leave / term time are already available with no loss of service. The work still gets done because people are generally smart enough to organise their own time & get colleagues to cover, where necessary. Obviously if you're talking about teachers or lecturers and reducing the number of days they can stand in front of their students then that's a different story, but this had been at least partially addressed by making them take the 12 days spread over a number of years.

Two of those days could have been achieved simply by getting rid of the privilege days. Another half day clawed back from the idiotic "shopping" leave (and one less stick for the clowns at the Irish Daily Mail to beat us with - that was today's most important story? Really?). How many days does "bank time" add up to? I'm sure there's plenty more where that came from.

I think there is plenty more all right. But, what you're saying here then is this. Public servants generally have a whole bunch of time off that they get paid for e.g. privilege days. Let's suppose in some sector they can be made add up to 12. They certainly could in mine. Said public servants would no longer be paid for those days, their salary reduced accordingly, and this achieves the savings that the government are looking for without reducing service in any way. Correct?

If so, what's really the difference between this and a straight pay cut? I'm still doing the same amount of work, I'm still getting the same amount of time off, I'm getting paid less. I suppose there are pension implications ....

 

[aoboa]

I think there is plenty more all right. But, what you're saying here then is this. Public servants generally have a whole bunch of time off that they get paid for e.g. privilege days. Let's suppose in some sector they can be made add up to 12. They certainly could in mine. Said public servants would no longer be paid for those days, their salary reduced accordingly, and this achieves the savings that the government are looking for without reducing service in any way. Correct?

If so, what's really the difference between this and a straight pay cut? I'm still doing the same amount of work, I'm still getting the same amount of time off, I'm getting paid less. I suppose there are pension implications ....

Yeah pensions and other things like loan and mortgage applications.
A union will always try to preserve your basic salary and t's & c's and exhaust all other options before redundancies, pay cuts and things like increased hours are talked about.
To put it another way - if a pay cut is the only option a union should try to fight for it to be for a period of time, say for 5 years. Better that it's termporary than permanent.

 

[Pantone247]

To put it another way - if a pay cut is the only option a union should try to fight for it to be for a period of time, say for 5 years. Better that it's termporary than permanent.

another thing about the 12 days leave was that it only covered 2010, so if things had stabilised somewhat over 2010 things could be reset back to how they are now, no pay cut, same hours... no doubt some smart arse will point out how unlikely a recovery in 2010 is going to be, but it was imho a important safety net and a good insurance policy for the unions

if cuts are made now how long and how much 'recovery' will have to occur before the state look at bringing the pay back to anywhere close to where it was in 2007?

 

[hugh]

another thing about the 12 days leave was that it only covered 2010 ..

I know, and I think this is one of the things that killed it. The clamour was for a permanent solution and not for something that would have to be renegotiated again next year, and the year after that. When you combine this with the notion that, for example, teachers might spread this 12 days over six years, I'm not really surprised that many baulked at the notion.

Also, I'm not sure whether Pete's interpretation (if I have it right) of how the 12 days thing would work, was the one that either the union leadership or the members on the ground actually had in mind. By this I mean the idea that rather than it meaning "reduced salary + more time off" it would mean "reduced salary + same amount of days: with days leave that used to be paid now becoming unpaid i.e. the clawing back thing".

I spoke to quite a few of my colleagues on Tuesday/Wednesday and the general consensus was that the 12-day thing was fair enough. People would say things like "well, it will be tough having my wages reduced again but at least there will be some compensation in that I'll have a bit more time off". When I pointed out that it might not necessarily mean that, and that it might simply mean that time-off you already have now becomes unpaid, the general reaction was "no fucking way, that's not fair". So, in other words, even if that is what the leaderships were willing to concede, I think it would have met with massive resistance on the ground.

if cuts are made now how long and how much 'recovery' will have to occur before the state look at bringing the pay back to anywhere close to where it was in 2007?

Yeah, I know, it's a good question. If the whole social partnership thing collapses, as seems likely now, it could be a long time.

 

[pete]

When the dust settles, it will emerge that the Government has turned its back on a deal that would have delivered a massive transformation in the delivery of public services far beyond anything previously contemplated - let alone achieved - in this state. And it would have met the Taoiseach’s and Minister for Finance’s stated aim of reducing payroll costs by €1.3 billion in 2010 without any disruption in services.

It sounds like a no-brainer. But it would also have avoided a second public service pay cut in less than a year. The Government was not prepared to go there because, like the employers’ organisation Ibec, it believes that slashing public service pay is an essential precondition to driving down incomes across the economy. The next target will be the minimum wage.
Given the enormity of this decision, it’s conceivable that the Government deliberately chose not to explain what was on offer to its backbenchers, whose ill-informed - but understandable - fears seemed, on the face of it, to have scuppered the deal.

They were left believing that the temporary measure of unpaid leave, which was effectively a lay-off constructed to avoid disruption to services, would have closed schools and hospital wards.

Yet Ministers knew well that the proposal on offer contained a guarantee that unpaid leave would have no impact on services – including the school year and classroom contact with teachers. Managers would have had control over the timing of the leave and, in cases where it might otherwise have been disruptive, could have spread it over six years while accruing all the savings in 2010.

But the emphasis on this temporary tool – necessary because medium-term savings would not accrue in 2010 – has been allowed to obscure the real prize of a public service transformation that would have saved billions while protecting, and in some cases extending, public services as resources and staff numbers declined over four years.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1208/1224260297379.html

 

[pete]

Also, I'm not sure whether Pete's interpretation (if I have it right) of how the 12 days thing would work, was the one that either the union leadership or the members on the ground actually had in mind.

It was to be 12 extra days of unpaid leave. A reduction of hours / short time / temporary lay off in other words. NOT holidays - . Teachers etc would take the hit (e.g. reduced pay) in 2010 but could take the days between 2010-2015.

Re: the priv days etc I was just pointing out that there's another way of (partially) achieving non-pay related savings just by giving up some of the anachronistic practices.

 

[hugh]

It was to be 12 extra days of unpaid leave. A reduction of hours / short time / temporary lay off in other words. NOT holidays - . Teachers etc would take the hit (e.g. reduced pay) in 2010 but could take the days between 2010-2015.

Okay, well in that case, I still don't get how taking an extra 12 days of leave (the fact it is unpaid is not relevant) does not result in the person concerned doing 12 days less work, and there being a consequent reduction in services. Suggesting that we'll work a bit harder to make up the difference so there's no reduction in services just doesn't sound credible to me. At the very least it amounts to a tacit admission that public servants could work harder than they do at present, which surely plays into the hands of those in this country who are continually seeking to portray public servants as a bunch of layabouts who do fuck all?

I really want to believe that the deal offered by the unions was a good one, and the fact that they came so close to an agreement would indicate that it was, but there are still major question marks about this in my mind - a lot of it just does not add up. And I'm not willing to simply take McLoone's word for it.

Re: the priv days etc I was just pointing out that there's another way of (partially) achieving non-pay related savings just by giving up some of the anachronistic practices.

I totally agree.

 

[SONYMEGADRIVE]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1208/1224260297379.html

"....writes PETER McLOONE "

just sayin (for the benefit of anyone who might not click through)