Public versus Private Sector (7 Viewers)

[Squiggle]

I think the unpaid leave days are likely to cost more than they save in some sectors, like education. If a teacher is on leave someone has to supervise their class, which could mean having to hire a sub.

Edit: I wish I was a teacher. If you organised it properly you could arrange to sub somewhere on your days off.

 

[egg_]

daydream_nation, don't you like time off?

The more I think about this the odder it is. It's much preferable to a straight paycut on a personal level, and more easily reversible, but it makes managing the public service even more complicated and bizarre than it already is. Hey government, why not do a proper reform of the public service? There's loads of chatter about people skiving and unjustifiable allowances and job duplication and outrageous salaries for the top guys - why not make your savings by sorting that shit out? No one would be able to moan then. What's wrong with actually doing things right for a change? Well?

 

[daydream_nation]

really?! that's gas

I think it's a perfectly workable scheme so as long it's monitored properly, obviously if every gardai takes the first two weeks in July off, it's bollox, but with a bit of organising it's workable



I'd be fairly sure it's not going to go through, which will Cowen pandering to the FF faithful, any outcome from this isn't going to inspire great leadership... not from this crowd...

I'd argue that the economy isn't going recover any time soon, and as things get worse if the easy solution is to keep hacking away at public services wages, year after year, just because it can be spun to your average Joe Voter as a win for him, is going to do more damage, young talent leaving, worker apathy, no one going for jobs, an aging work force hanging in for their pension, in the long run then 12 days off...

PANTONE247 FOR TAOISEACH!!!!!1

 

[egg_]

Oh and you know all this shit about "reform has to be seen to be fair" and "the burden of cuts has to be seen to be borne fairly" etc?

Why not make it so that reforms and cuts are actually fair? Never mind this "seen to be fair".

 

[Thebeard]

I'm voting for egg_.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

WHAT ABOUT ME??? WHERE IS MY FAIRNESS???

 

[tripoli]

I'm voting for egg_.

When you vote, can you vote for me too?

egg_ please.

 

[broken arm]

but the concept of public vs. private is basically fantasy. they are co-dependent, i think.

hmmm. personally, i don't think they are, either in theory, perception or practice.

yes, they are both part of a system (innovation system etc) but their functions in that system are very different. There are times when the public sector has to intervene in the private sector (market failure, system failure, provision of public goods etc) but other than that they are very different and have different roles.

I work across the public and private sectors (including the 3rd and 4th sectors) and I see the differences clearly every day.

 

[ratmonkey]

I'm not sure the concept of a private sector is even valid, other than as group of entities whose only real connection is that they aren't run by the government.

 

[daydream_nation]

daydream_nation, don't you like time off?

course i do! just thinking about the impact in my service alone, if the 12 staff members who work there are off for 12 days each, that means potentially 144 working days lost. considering the waiting list for the service can be up to 21 months on the routine waiting list its not going to be helpful for anyone. different people have different circumstances and im sure itll be great for people with kids to have time off in the summer etc, if they can afford it.

The more I think about this the odder it is. It's much preferable to a straight paycut on a personal level, and more easily reversible, but it makes managing the public service even more complicated and bizarre than it already is. Hey government, why not do a proper reform of the public service? There's loads of chatter about people skiving and unjustifiable allowances and job duplication and outrageous salaries for the top guys - why not make your savings by sorting that shit out? No one would be able to moan then. What's wrong with actually doing things right for a change? Well?

Oh and you know all this shit about "reform has to be seen to be fair" and "the burden of cuts has to be seen to be borne fairly" etc?

Why not make it so that reforms and cuts are actually fair? Never mind this "seen to be fair".

yeah

 

[hugh]

daydream_nation, don't you like time off?

The more I think about this the odder it is. It's much preferable to a straight paycut on a personal level, and more easily reversible, but it makes managing the public service even more complicated and bizarre than it already is. Hey government, why not do a proper reform of the public service? There's loads of chatter about people skiving and unjustifiable allowances and job duplication and outrageous salaries for the top guys - why not make your savings by sorting that shit out? No one would be able to moan then. What's wrong with actually doing things right for a change? Well?

Probably because it's complicated and difficult, and would take time and effort, and long-term thinking, and so on. Much easier to just cut everyone's wages - and obviously this yields immediate results.

I dunno about this leave thing. I agree it could turn into an administrative nightmare and I can't really see how it can be done without cutting services in one way or another. As Squiggle pointed out, it's hard to see how this would work for teachers for example, unless you are going to shorten the school term, and that's hardly going to happen. I suspect that what might be done is that teachers will be told that some of the annual holidays they currently get, they are no longer going to get. Or at least, they will still get the holiday, but 12 days of it will be unpaid. And I can't see the unions not going ballistic at that .....

 

[broken arm]

I'm not sure the concept of a private sector is even valid, other than as group of entities whose only real connection is that they aren't run by the government.

what makes it unvalid?

 

[MDR]

The whole thing is such a phoney exercise. The deficit will be over €22bn. A €1.3bn pay cut will yield at best €600-€700m, as they would have got at least half the money back anyway in income tax, PRSI, health levy, income levy, pension levy and pension contributions. The net public service pay cut will only cover 2.7% of the deficit. To hear people talking about the IMF coming in if there's no cut is a joke. (Actually if you read the IMF website it almost never insists on public service pay cuts because of the deflationary effect - see bulgaria, iceland, ukraine, south korea.)

They need cuts of the same order next year and the same again the year after that - where are they to come from? After that the first tranche of borrowed money has to be repaid as bonds mature in 2014 - who is to pay for that?

In terms of the effect on services, the Govt has already said that it plans to shrink the size of the public service by about 27,000 over the next few years, so I'm afraid we're all going to have to get used to gaps around the place. The unpaid leave is just a taster. The gaps will be random, lumpy and almost impossible to cover by replacement contract staff.

Re public service reform - really, really needed. But remember - this is the Govt that introduced decentralisation, has carved up Govt Depts at a whim and established the HSE monster. These people know nothing about the public service. They don't even know how to log onto their own PC.

 

[Froog]

yes but who's gonna empty mah bins?

 

[pete]

The whole thing is such a phoney exercise. The deficit will be over €22bn. A €1.3bn pay cut will yield at best €600-€700m, as they would have got at least half the money back anyway in income tax, PRSI, health levy, income levy, pension levy and pension contributions. The net public service pay cut will only cover 2.7% of the deficit. To hear people talking about the IMF coming in if there's no cut is a joke. (Actually if you read the IMF website it almost never insists on public service pay cuts because of the deflationary effect - see bulgaria, iceland, ukraine, south korea.)

They need cuts of the same order next year and the same again the year after that - where are they to come from? After that the first tranche of borrowed money has to be repaid as bonds mature in 2014 - who is to pay for that?

In terms of the effect on services, the Govt has already said that it plans to shrink the size of the public service by about 27,000 over the next few years, so I'm afraid we're all going to have to get used to gaps around the place. The unpaid leave is just a taster. The gaps will be random, lumpy and almost impossible to cover by replacement contract staff.

Re public service reform - really, really needed. But remember - this is the Govt that introduced decentralisation, has carved up Govt Depts at a whim and established the HSE monster. These people know nothing about the public service. They don't even know how to log onto their own PC.

frame this post

 

[washingcattle]

Yeah stop talking sense MDR. We only come here to grumble incomprehensible nonsense about boogeymen and shitehawks.

 

[broken arm]

Re public service reform - really, really needed. .

what should those reforms be?

 

[GO]

The whole thing is such a phoney exercise. The deficit will be over €22bn. A €1.3bn pay cut will yield at best €600-€700m, as they would have got at least half the money back anyway in income tax, PRSI, health levy, income levy, pension levy and pension contributions. The net public service pay cut will only cover 2.7% of the deficit. To hear people talking about the IMF coming in if there's no cut is a joke. (Actually if you read the IMF website it almost never insists on public service pay cuts because of the deflationary effect - see bulgaria, iceland, ukraine, south korea.)

They need cuts of the same order next year and the same again the year after that - where are they to come from? After that the first tranche of borrowed money has to be repaid as bonds mature in 2014 - who is to pay for that?

In terms of the effect on services, the Govt has already said that it plans to shrink the size of the public service by about 27,000 over the next few years, so I'm afraid we're all going to have to get used to gaps around the place. The unpaid leave is just a taster. The gaps will be random, lumpy and almost impossible to cover by replacement contract staff.

Re public service reform - really, really needed. But remember - this is the Govt that introduced decentralisation, has carved up Govt Depts at a whim and established the HSE monster. These people know nothing about the public service. They don't even know how to log onto their own PC.

But on the upside,some stuff will become cool again as a result..

like having all night bonfire hoolys in suburban backyards!

 

[Lepra]

But on the upside,some stuff will become cool again as a result..

like having all night bonfire hoolys in suburban backyards!

does this mean the moratoriam on burning car tyres is over? i'm itchy.

 

[washingcattle]

Get your matches, petrol, car jack and bus fair to Blackrock ready it's flaming tyre race month. Last one in jail is a knob.