Trade Unions announce 3rd of December date of Christmas Shopping
Read more about: Democracy, Labour Party, Northern Ireland 
The role of a Trade Union is to look after its workers interests to make their lives better. One of the biggest worries for alot of people (public sector workers anyway who don’t have to worry about if next months pay cheque is coming) this time of year is when to get the christmas shopping done. No one wants to be stuck in the mad rush that is Christmas shopping. People want to take time to compose themselves and find that great Christmas gift. With that in mind the Unions have decided that December 3rd would be a great day for a shopping trip and have code named this Operation National Strike. A great day for workers to take their money and shift it to another jurisdiction boosting it while simultaneously deflating ours.
Now whether or not the tailbacks into Newry were public sector workers not on the picket line matters little. The fact of the matter is this is how the strike is going to be remember and the next one is going to be portrayed in many peoples eyes. This is not a right wing media conspiracy, it is not going to be pundits shaping the public’s views. The picture of the Tailback is all that was needed.
It has been a P.R nightmare for the Trade Unions and if the same thing happens December 3rd. The publics opinion will shift even further away from the trade unions. The recent opinion poll in the Sunday Business post showed that
Almost half of people (47 per cent) say that the first thing they would do would be to bring in higher taxes for middle or high income earners who had more than €100,000 in combined household income.
Basically the Unions view of the situation. While
The next most popular option is to bring in cuts to public sector pay, with 29 per cent surveyed saying this would be the first thing they would implement.
Basically not the Unions view of the situation. So while they are winning the argument on high earners taxation they are not capitalising on it. Instead they are focusing on the issue that the many don’t agree with them on. They are allowing the story of public sector workers vs private sector workers to be the story much to Fianna Fails glee. Rather then focusing on the top earners where they would damage Fianna Fail and gain support.
Indeed looking at Labour dropping support and still being less popular than Fianna Fail, the left in Ireland really has to sort out its message. At a time when it should be gaining massive ground it is stagnating and indeed alienating itself further. It needs a serious overhaul.
Simon: I am surprised that anyone would be taken in by the public service union-bashing propaganda on the airwaves recently. I never heard such ham-fisted attempts to discredit the public service than on RTE yesterday, the news at one, Joe duffy, even on one news item news a Northern trader was asked how many of the Southern shoppers were public servants. And this what we are being bullied into paying 150 euro a year for! I couldn’t get into the Pavillions in Swords yesterday.
How many people can you fool all the time?
From what I have heard recently the unions want fairness i.e. tax the rich first – those who tell us the we would be ruined were it not for their enourmous tax-free salaries.
So, about 250,000 people were on strike yesterday. Say about half of these are union members and half of these again actually picketed (could or would). That’s about 60,000 picketing.
Were there 125,000 additional people in Newry yesterday doing their shopping? Do those who disagree with the strike (incl. those who voted against it as a union member) but were on strike anyway not need to do something other than sit on their hands?
lazy journalism goes like this: I know, let’s take a vox pop and ask people if that person standing over there is a southern public servant. While we’re at it, let’s open up their wallets and ask them to prove that this is ‘their’ money and not someone else’s. Madness.
On the substantive side, the supposed compromise between the unions & government as outlined in the Irish Times this morning is revealing. It shows the lengths to which the unions will go to avoid any cuts in the basic pay scales — they’d rather cut the size of the public sector than take any pay cut, meaning higher unemployment. And they’re willing to take cuts in overtime. Remember that a lot of overtime goes to those “frontline” workers that the unions say they are trying to protect.
As for Newry, I think it’s relevant as the final hole in the 2009 revenue forecasts. The Christmas VAT surge is going to be a lot smaller than usual.
Simon,
I think the unions’ initial view of the ‘pot of gold’ out there was based on a misinterpretation of official statisics. They appeared to think that that income earnings above €100k referred to individual earnings rather than household earnings; i.e. the combined gross pay of a Garda married to a schooolteacher or an IT engineer married to public health nurse, or whatever mix you like, where the pay of each person may be in a modest 50-60k bracket but when combined pushes the household into the 100k category.
Apart from mountains of personal indebtedness to cope with, many of these income earners/households are finding themselves hit by the marginal tax rate of 54% anyway; so actually there’s not much more than can be milked off them in increases in direct taxation. The unions’ simplistic take on tax does not square with the facts, but has arguably misled a lot of the general public too, and in a way that the trade union leaders can’t be too happy about either. If that’s a victory, it’s a pyrrhic one at best
Since the latest stats sugggest that the ‘top earners’ will be shouldering 7% of the income tax burden; middle income earners ponying up for most of the rest, whilst 40% of wage earners will pay no income tax at all, that legendary tax ‘pot of gold’ doesn’t appear to hold any water.
Their economic arguments against pay cuts carry no credibility with anyone with a grain of common sense either. Whether its cuts or taxes, a €4bn adjustment will have a deflationary impact on the economy. To suggest otherwise whilst claiming out of the other corner of your mouth that you accept the need for a €4bn cuts package (as the Labour Party has done) is either intellectually dishonest or economically illiterate, or both, or a blatantly populist effort to mislead the public.
I think yesterday’s strike was a PR disaster for the unions. They should have called it off in the wake of the floods crisis – a gesture that would have made them look good as responding appropriately to the grief and genuine public hardship that so many individuals and communities have had to face up to and in which the emergency services have acquitted themselves so admirably.
Instead, they left themselves wide open to media attack with their striking members portrayed as a bunch of Neros fiddling around the shopping centre forecourts of Newry and Dundrum, or partying all over Dublin the night before, whilst much of the rest of the country was counting the costs of lost homes, businesses and livelihoods in a flood disaster the likes of which we’ve never experienced previously in the history of the State.
I also think that the union leaders have to take a large share of the responsibility for fomenting public vs. private divisiveness whilst publicly claiming that’s not what they’re at at all. Certainly most of the posters on the massive debate on the subject on irisheconomy.ie over the past couple of days, who are arguing against any public service pay cuts, have been far from shy in their insistence that public sector workers are being asked to bail out the private sector and the unemployed!
And yes, I have to agree with you that this all plays into the hands of the government and makes things easier to manage with FF back benchers who might otherwise be found lurking around the picket lines and attempting to wrest placards from picketers for local photo-op purposes.
There is a huge agenda against the public sector at the moment that is as much as anything an agenda against workers rights and conditions. This agenda is in the interests of the few that promoted the agenda of the free market and financial speculation over the past few years, which in turn has led to our economic crisis. It’s this agenda that led to the focus on the Newry tailbacks.
But the media are not the public and the views on the public on the unions and the public sector and the strikes are actually very varied. 350,000 workers are public sector workers. Add in their spouses, parents, children and friends and you are talking about at least a quarter of our population connected very closely to a public sector worker. Not to mention those formerly employed by the public sector. And most people admire and respect the teacher that teaches their children, the principal that runs their local primary school, the postman that delivers the mail, the man that cleans up the litter in the village, and the home help that comes to their house etc.. No doubt the campaign on the airwaves and on the newspapers is damaging to public sector workers, in particular to their moral, but as I said the view of the public is far more varied and complex and when reading newspapers and listening to broadcasts we shouldn’t assume that those voices that dominate are speaking for the public.
Just in relation to one of the assumptions you make in your article that is widespread but inaccurate, namely that a public sector job is a job for life. This is not the situation. Several thousand public sector workers have been let go in the past year. These were on temporary contracts and for example 3600 have been let go from local authorities. Net job losses in the public sector are at least 6500 so far taking into account retirements from the public sector.
Secondly if a permanent public sector job was a job for life – why are the unions fighting against the introduction of compulsory redundancy? In the private sector many people have obtained similar “permanent status” to their public sector counterparts. By the way 60 percent of the members of unions affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions are workers in the private sector. A job in the private sector is often just secure as a permanent job in the public sector. This is after years of bargaining by unions on behalf of workers in private sector companies. Unlike temporary workers in the public or private sector those that have gained the rights of permanent workers cannot just be let go like that, hence the need for compulsory redundancies in both the private and public sector if such a worker is to be let go. In otherwords you can never guarantee that any job is a job for life or that the pay cheque will always be there, as you suggest. Also, the notion of permanancy in a job and all the rights that attach rather than something to be scorned at is a good thing. Decades in Ireland have been spent by trade unions and workers in both the public and private sector campaigning for better wages, conditions and all the rights that go with being a permanent worker rather than a temporary worker. The only interests that is served by scorning the notion of a permanent job, whether it be in the public sector or the private sector, are those vested interests that would have all workers on temporary contracts, lower pay and reduced working conditions.
Hands up those who think public servant should be so glad to have a job that they should be prepared to work for nothing. What is the end-game in trying to abolish public service wages, security, and pension.
Hands up those who want our health and education service to be owned by vulture capitalists from Australia, The Far East or some other from far-away country who no doubt will have the interests of the Irish tax-payer at heart.
When the time comes for privatisation (and it surely will) I am sure the EU will only too glad to oblige. If anyone is interested check out the history of Herman Van Rompuy. Nothing happens by chance.
Dear Simon,
Fuck you. Hugs and kisses from those who were cold and wet on a strike picket Tuesday,
EWI
@Joanna
Net job losses in the public sector are at least 6500 so far taking into account retirements from the public sector.
C’mon now Joanna, retirement on a decent pension is in no way akin to losing one’s job via redundancy.
Are you familiar at all with the accepted definitions of unemployment or the conventional approach to counting job losses?
A job in the private sector is often just secure as a permanent job in the public sector.
This is so far off the mark, you’re not even wrong.
Other than the banks perhaps, no firm in the private sector can “borrow through” technical insolvency like a sovereign can, neither have they the power to compel their customer-base to pay more for a lesser service.
@ Proposition Joe,
There have been many job losses in public sector – a significant number of temp lecturers and staff on contracts in the university sector have not had their contracts renewed in last year.
Take as an example DIT where a huge number of support staff in library, student services, sport centre etc have all been let go despite the students paying a reg fee of 1,500 for these services.
Another example- I work in a laboratory in TCD, and essentially all the staff here apart from the Principal Investigator who is on a full time lecturer salary are on either temp or 3 year contracts with no public pension entitlements. They all had to pay the pension levy but get no entitlements to a public pension. This applies to hundreds of research staff in 3rd level.
The reality is that 75% of public sector workers earn under €50,000 a year.
@Cathal
There have been many job losses in public sector
Well I don’t dispute that, though obviously the rate of attrition is much lower than in the private sector.
I was questioning Joanna’s inclusion of retirees amongst those public servants who’d lost their jobs.
They all had to pay the pension levy but get no entitlements to a public pension.
This point is often made, but the legislation explicitly excludes those without any pension entitlements. To be liable for the levy, a public servant must:
• be a member of a public service pension scheme or,
• be entitled to a benefit under such a scheme or,
• receive a payment in lieu of membership in such a scheme.
So if your part-time rate includes a payment in lieu of pension entitlement, then you pay the levy. Otherwise you don’t. Or at least you shouldn’t.
The reality is that 75% of public sector workers earn under €50,000 a year.
Sorry to be a nit-picker, but the actual proportion under €50k is apparently two thirds as opposed to three quarters. At least according to these data provided in response to a parliamentary question in February 2009. Since then, the effect of increments would have been to push this percentage down a shade further.
Proposition Joe,
I was not including retirees in category of those that loss their jobs. What I was doing was saying what net job losses are when you include retirees. Retirees, by the way, include early retirements, or those leaving due to ill health and regular retirements. Those that retire include your road sweeper, clerical officer, etc. and the pension is often modest and under a means test some of those retirees qualify for state support.
In relation to temporary jobs lossed from the civil service, hse and local authorities the numbers is 8000. As Cathal has pointed out if you were to add those temporary workers let go over the past year from other parts of the public sector the number is greater. Allowing for permanent appointments that came in before the embargo, as well as those those temporary staff that gained permanent status due to length of service as a temporary work and then adding in those that as I explain retired above the net loss of jobs in the public sector since December 2008 is 6500.
You contrast retirees from the public sector with those in the private sector on the basis that the public sector workers get a pension. Most public sector workers do although not all, and they do so having made contributions to a pension scheme and they do not then get a state pension. In the private sector many workers have campaigned for and achieved good pensions too. However many private employers make no provision for pensions for their employees and instead they must rely on the state pension which is paid for by taxpayers including those tax payers that work in the public sector.
Rather than begrudge the rights and permanent status and pension of public sectors you should be campaigning for better working rights and conditions for private workers. Or would you rather that all workers were temporary with less rights and no pension but the state pension? Because that would put you on the side of those that caused and promoted the economic crisis we are in, in the first place.
Rather than begrudge the rights and permanent status and pension of public sectors you should be campaigning for better working rights and conditions for private workers.
Joanna, I didn’t begrudge anyone’s permanency.
I did however pick you up on your assertion that private sector workers are often as secure as those in the public sector. This is simply just not the case.
Private sector firms can, and must, go bust when they are insolvent. This is required by the very basics of Irish company law (reckless trading when insolvent), EU competition law (banning most forms of state aid to prop up loss-making firms), not to mention the “law of the jungle” inherent in the capitalist system.
It would clearly be impossible to offer the same cast-iron permanency to private sector workers, without us becoming a command-economy and retreating to the levels of prosperity prevalent across the Eastern Bloc pre-1989.
Or would you rather that all workers were temporary with less rights and no pension but the state pension?
No, I’ve often argued for universal state provision on pay-related pensions. But in order for this to be affordable, it would probably require some dilution of the more gilded pension provisions in the public sector, as well as much higher income taxes. Maybe you could persuade people to pay say 15% PRSI with the carrot of a guaranteed pension, but the first issue is likely to be a show-stopper.
Because that would put you on the side of those that caused and promoted the economic crisis we are in, in the first place.
Joanna, seriously, this isn’t a football match. One doesn’t take sides.
I’ll be shouting for Ireland agin’ the Boks in Croker this coming Sunday. With 20 minutes to go, maybe in my heart of hearts I’ll realize the Boks are the better team and they’ll probably carry the day. But I’ll still shout myself hoarse ’til the last.
On questions of the economy however, one would hope for a more sober analysis based on facts and evidence. Not the blind taking of sides.
Of course I’ll be shouting in a very empty stadium if I turn up on Sunday
Well I don’t dispute that, though obviously the rate of attrition is much lower than in the private sector.
Statistics, please? I know that the unions are claiming that e300 million has been lost from the PS payroll this year (and indeed many of my own hard-working younger colleagues, still on temporary contracts, are now gone and are missed).
[...] no firm in the private sector [has] the power to compel their customer-base to pay more for a lesser service.
Clearly, you’ve had all the real-world experience of either a secondary school student or an economist. The world abounds with counter-examples to this startling suggestion that the Free Market Fairy really does exist…
Well I don’t dispute that, though obviously the rate of attrition is much lower than in the private sector.
Statistics, please?
Even using Joanna’s inflated numbers above that include retirements, the public sector attrition rate would be about 1.7%. Using the accepted concept of job loses (including temporary contracts not renewed, but excluding retirements), the rate would be closer to 1%.
In the private sector, the job losses are well documented and would translate into an attrition rate of over 10%.
Now which one of those rates is much lower than the other?
Clearly, you’ve had all the real-world experience of either a secondary school student or an economist.
Is my DNS server broken? Have I been redirected to p.ie in error?
no firm in the private sector [has] the power to compel their customer-base to pay more for a lesser service.
The world abounds with counter-examples to this startling suggestion that the Free Market Fairy really does exist…
Please enlighten me with some of those bountiful examples of Irish private sector firms with the power to compel their customers to pay more for less, in the same way the state can compel its citizens to pay more tax while reducing service levels.
@EWI
If you’re interest in more detailed stats, see Table 2 in this paper presented yesterday to the SSISI by Colm McCarthy.
He calculates the percentage losses from peak as follows:
• public (broadly defined): 0.0%
• private: -12.9%
• construction: -42.1%
Proposition Joe
You seem to hold it against the public sector that there hasn’t been huge job losses, although at least you now accept that there has been some. In fact my figures are an underestimate as they only include the figures for the civil service, HSE and local authorities.
The Government should preserve jobs wherever it can because if it does not there will be more dole to be paid out of taxpayers money. FDR in the New Deal used the public sector and public expenditure to create jobs for people because in a recession it is unrealistic to expect the private sector to do so in any significant way. At at time of significant job losses in the private sector the objective should be to preserve jobs in the public sector. Instead jobs are being cut and there is an embargo on replacing posts that become vacant thereby reducing the opportunities out there for job seekers.
Even using Joanna’s inflated numbers above that include retirements, the public sector attrition rate would be about 1.7%. Using the accepted concept of job loses (including temporary contracts not renewed, but excluding retirements), the rate would be closer to 1%.
In the private sector, the job losses are well documented and would translate into an attrition rate of over 10%.
Joanna’s figures do not, as she indeed says, take account of other parts of the PS (and those early ‘retirements’ on much less pay are clearly to be included in this payroll reduction). I suspect that those figures are due some serious revision before the end of the year – my own substantial part of the PS will have easily reached 10% by then.
Please enlighten me with some of those bountiful examples of Irish private sector firms with the power to compel their customers to pay more for less
You’ve clearly not dealt with the tech sector.
If you’re interest in more detailed stats, see Table 2 in this paper presented yesterday to the SSISI by Colm McCarthy.
I don’t know where McCarthy’s getting his figures from. (I find his ‘analysis’ in general to be a great steaming pile of dung, but maybe that’s just me.)
@Joanna
You seem to hold it against the public sector that there hasn’t been huge job losses, although at least you now accept that there has been some.
If you read back through the thread you’ll see that I never denied that some public servants have lost jobs, I just put the numbers in perspective.
Nor have I sought to blame the remaining 99% of the public sector still in employment. Rather I’ve calmly explained why the private sector will always have a fundamentally different level of security (short of us adopting a command-economic model).
FDR in the New Deal used the public sector and public expenditure to create jobs for people because in a recession it is unrealistic to expect the private sector to do so in any significant way.
FDR did indeed.
Unfortunately for us seeking to emulate his example, he had a couple of levers available to him that are firmly outside our reach. He could fire up those printing-presses in the Fed and keep them whirring for years on end. Also he could, and did, initiate a rearmament program as a precursor to America’s involvement in WWII.
Of course, we no longer issue our own currency. Nor, I hope, is their a global conflict around the corner.
@EWI
I find his ‘analysis’ in general to be a great steaming pile of dung, but maybe that’s just me.
You asked for stats. I gave you stats.
And your rebuttal? That’s just poo-poo!
My three year old daughter could construct a more coherent argument.
don’t we have the indo for headlines like that…?