Public sector pay and the Croke Park Agreement

[Baron von Biffo]

Bog standard PS bashing article in the Examiner.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland...ks-211557.html

We're cutting staff levels to below what's needed to run services and then complaining about having to pay overtime to those that remain.

[Baron von Biffo]

Having enticed people to work on islands on the condition that they would be paid an allowance, the state is now proposing to cease paying the allowance. If it was any other sort of business arrangement that would be deemed fraud.

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/...s-3271990.html

[Baron von Biffo]

"“You can’t expect any professional nowadays to be on call every night and every weekend, in addition to their normal work, for 26 days out of 28,” he [General Secretary of the IHCA] said."

So now Reilly and Howlin want hospital consultants to work under the same conditions as a Victorian scullery maid. That will certainly help attract top quality people into the health service.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking3.html

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

jesus- we might have to go back to doctors.

[DCon]

The reforms could be getting reformier

PUBLIC sector workers face a huge overhaul of how they work if they want to avoid pay cuts in any new Croke Park deal, the Irish Independent has learned.

Further difficult changes to work practices in schools and hospitals would be identified as areas where greater efficiencies can be achieved in any deal.

The Government would dangle the carrot to unions of limiting pay cuts by agreeing to genuinely radical public sector reform in any new or revised Croke Park agreement.

The prospect of the existing Croke Park deal, which runs to mid 2014, being revisited was mooted by a senior industrial relations figure at the weekend.

The unions are so desperate to avoid a third pay cut for their members that the leadership has "not baulked" at the recent round of measures put to them under the existing Croke Park Agreement.

Labour Relations Commission chief executive Kieran Mulvey has said the Croke Park Agreement may have to be revisited.

Mr Mulvey said it did not necessarily mean Croke Park would not last until June 2014.

However, he feels the initiative by the Government in the recent months and the response of the unions probably indicates that the agreement will be revisited.

Mr Mulvey said there won't be a Croke Park II but expects the existing deal to be revitalised to change it into a more deliberate agreement over the next year. The LRC chief executive said other governments like Greece, Spain and Portugal would "love to have" a Croke Park Agreement.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-3277169.html

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

It won't be a Croke Park II but it'll be a newly arranged agreement involving radical restructuring or else there will be more pay cuts- effectively it will be a Croke Park II- it is just that that terminology is banned.

Just like there will be a 'bank deal' on legacy debt in Europe but it won't be a second bailout programme- despite the fact that the committee in Germany who have the power to apply conditionality to it are saying that it would be a second bailout with IMF/ECB conditions attached to it.

Just like the IMF were not in discussion with the Irish Government until it turned out they were.

New consumer warning.

'The value of the credibility of political actors in Ireland may go down as well as up depending on the requirement for bullshyte at any given time'.

[Baron von Biffo]

The reforms could be getting reformier

The unions are so desperate to avoid a third pay cut for their members that the leadership has "not baulked" at the recent round of measures put to them under the existing Croke Park Agreement.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-3277169.html

Someone slipped up in the editors office. The Indo usually takes the line that there was only one cut but now Bosco is admitting that the so-called pension levy was just another pay cut.

Croke Park II may be a more difficult proposition for the government. Workers who are already on FIS have little to lose by standing up for themselves.

[C. Flower]

Schauble is here today, with Enda Kenny, discussing amongst other things Irish public sector pay, according to RTE. Presumably, he has brought details of the new pay rates with him.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I have a fair idea that Schauble (if he bothers) will have a report under his arm completed by the EU finance people a couple of years back examining the causes of the Irish runaway boom and explosion in running costs.

The report was presented in Committee with Brian Lenihan present and he accepted it or raised no queries or objection to the data enclosed in the report. It was pretty damning on the profligacy attached to public sector pay awards for a number of years.

Enda won't have any point to make except an appeal based on easing the domestic political environment for his Vichy government. Schauble won't give a scheisse about that because there is no prospect of Kenny being dumped out and an anti-austerity government replacing the Vichy government in Ireland.

Schauble will be explaining to Kenny that any concessions made to Ireland will be in the form of a second bailout with new conditions attached.

The second shoe will drop.

[DCon]

Reilly pre-empting a LRC judgement it seems

HEALTH Minister James Reilly has repeated his warning that hospital consultants who fail to comply with binding Labour Court recommendations face "serious consequences".

The Labour Court judgment is due shortly on a management bid to reduce rest days for consultants.

It will also deal with the proposed abolition of a "second opinion" fee for psychiatrists.

Dr Reilly said that if consultants fail to abide by the binding elements of the ruling they risk putting themselves outside of the Croke Park agreement.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-3285207.html

[Baron von Biffo]

Reilly pre-empting a LRC judgement it seems

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-3285207.html

Perhaps concerns about bankers pay could be addresses by re-designating them public servants since there doesn't seem to be any impediment to cutting pay in that sector.

[Baron von Biffo]

For years a system has operated whereby hospital consultants who worked on their days off would not be paid overtime but would get time off in lieu with the actual days off deferred until their last year of service.

The Labour Court has made an astonishing recommendation that consultants should now forego 25% of their entitlement under this arrangement.

No doubt that will please the PS bashers but if it's forced through it sends a signal that the Irish state will not honour agreements with employees. It will certainly have an impact on future flexibility from consultants.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland...0k-213220.html

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

How flexible are the consultants now? The Irish state is suffering mightly because of 'agreements' in the past that were not 'agreements' but bribes paid to public servants and civil servants.

That was not administration but corruption. And it has to be unwound. If the state doesn't do it the Troika will.

[Baron von Biffo]

Reading this article in The Examiner I was wondering how it would have been spun if the sectors had been reversed. My guess is it would have been something like, 'Public sector pay rising at twice the private sector rate'. Still, they didn't let the side down and still headlined it with a reference to PS pay even though it was the lower figure.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland...el-215118.html

There's an interesting snippet in the figures for SF and others who beat the cut the higher paid PS drum:-

"The biggest increase was in the "professional, scientific and technical" category, where average wages rose 8.4%. "

Slashing pay for these people in the PS while their private sector peers are enjoying very substantial rises is probably not the best way to retain talent in the public sector.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

What happens if you compare 'administrative' roles between the public sector and the private sector?

Biffo comparing oranges and apples again in a fresh round of hugely over-optimistic benchmarking from the public sector.