Cowen - you dirty rotten scoundrel!
The National Pay Talks started yesterday.
We need a 10% increase in our wages just to keep up with inflation.
IBEC have said NO to that 10%.
ICTU want that and more.
Never the twain shall meet if this is how it’s starting out.
Then Mr. Cowen you …. yes …. YOU …. call for restraint by the workers.
This comes from a man who stands to get a €38,000 wage increase shortly!
Hypocrite ….. lead by example …. reject your pay increase fully (don’t just defer it ….. you only deferred it until next year anyway …. you’ll probably get arrears as well).
Good old C. J. Haughey once told the country to tighten its belt ….. while he continued to buy his Charvet shirts!
Cowen’s annual pay will be €310,000 when he becomes Taoiseach.
He won’t have to worry too much about rising food prices, rising fuel prices etc.
Butt out of the National Pay Talks Cowen ….. you ain’t helping!!
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Paddy, I completely agree with you on the hypocrasy front. I have a slight bugbear though that I want (in as much as possible) to de-personalise:
1998: Tech industry getting hotter
1999: Tech industry gives frankly obscene wage increases.
1999: Public servants say “We want some o that action”
2000: Tech industry gets a bit fucked
2001: tech industry continues to get more fucked thanks to competition from India.
2002: Thrifty gets a new concept, a 10% pay CUT.
2002- 2006: Tech industry wage increases lurk consistantly below inflation while celtic tiger continues unabated elsewhere.
2004: Bye bye anything resembling a defined benefit pension anywhere in the tech industry.
2008: In order to have a future Thrifty persues high risk strategy in the hopes of a big payoff as there sure aint gonna be anyone else looking out for him.
2008: Celtic tiger fucked, public servants say “We don’t want none of that stuff thrifty had”
From a teaching principal’s angle ….. we have been screwed for every ounce of productivity that we can give. Now they want more?
The wage increase we’ve got over the last few years …. they can have the whole lot back if they reverse the ‘productivity’ element.
We got the 30 pieces of silver but we sold our souls. Teachers are becoming more like paper pushers with every passing day.
Not a week goes by but some Department directive (Circular) or guidelines come in the door that we have to consider, implement or write a policy about.
We got two nice book this week ….. a ‘Crisis Management’ policy expected from it.
Benchmarking is no ATM ….. not for us it isn’t/wasn’t.
Good to get another perspective, thanks. I too am fearful of the word productivity, being wielded like a magic sword by the powers that be. Essentially it is a PR exercise, it implies in a very subtle way that any failure is OUR fault, not THEIRS. Orwellian language anyone?
The government does a shite job …. we’re made work harder …. and we also take the rap.
As an aside …. the officials in the Department of Education and Science are often criticised for many reasons.
I have to say that I have nothing but 100% respect for the officials who work in the DES. They have always been helpful and courteous in their dealings with me. If help or answers are needed …. the hard workers in the DES will provide them.
Their biggest thorn seems to be political interference. Bad political decisions wreak havoc on an otherwise working system. New Ministers do a spring cleanout.
The only fault I have with DES …. is the messing about they had with the new school building that they told us we needed …. 12 years later they told us that that funding wasn’t there anymore.
We have a 2 acre site … paid for!
We have a full set of plans … paid for!
We have full planning permission …. hard fought for!
We have a local contribution of €50,000 sitting in the bank …. raised with difficulty! (I visted many a door selling €10 tickets)
We have two archive boxes full of ‘new school’ material ….. sweated for!
The whole system is a sham when it comes to making decisions regarding large scale school building projects.
I’ll do a post about the trials and tribulations of ‘Not getting a new school’ at some stage.
Keep the Ministers and the other political heathens away from their respective departments and things may get done!
Well put. Re-runs of yes minister all round.