The Justification of Nurses and Gardai to strike

by FiskalRectitude Sun Jan 17, 2010 15:13

while there are a lot of daft little complex bonus calculations in public sector pay that really should be wiped out in favour of a flat rate per hour. And I am of the opinion that everybody in the state, public or private, should only get as a maximum, a means tested statutory pension of equal value (i.e. dole level) , sorting out any extra nest egg over and above this base guaranteed income from their own endeavours. In spite of my beliefs in this regard, nevertheless I think your article should be read along with this list (courtesy of wsm - thanks!)

Because in reality, the fact is, the majority of nurses and frontline staff make very ordinary wages and work very hard for those.

There are however a number of administrative leeches that are paid quite disproportionately to the good they do and we probably wouldn't miss any of them if they disappeared tomorrow. In their case a root and branch restructure and firing of these overpaid parasites is needed in the interests of fair play

That includes half the government (did I only say half?!)

The argument given by vested interests for keeping the status quo is that even if we got rid of these management wastes of space, the savings aren't great, but what it will do is show fairness which is what the hard pushed low wage frontline staff have seen little of so far.

Gardai are a special case in Ireland and I suspect, as the enforcers of our corrupt lopsided unfair system, our lords and masters will take care of them, because at the end of the day they are all that stand between us marching on lenister house and throwing all these useless self serving right wing traitorous crooks out on their useless corrupt asses.

In times like these, a sliding scale of tax starting at 0% tax at 40000 and rising to 100% at 100000+ is what is required. No exceptions. (nobody deserves more than this. Especially if all they seem to do for it consists of mostly attending meetings, pushing paper and emails around and delaying people's services and generally getting in the way.

The upside of public service is a stable job for life. That's worth a hell of a lot. If you don't like it, there are 400000+ folks on the dole who might, many with decent qualifications.

Public sector pay should be linked in the contracts to the GDP of the country, that way if things get bad, it can return to emergency rates when the country gets into bad shape, and can be increased proportionately when things improve, with a definite minimum base rate for a particular job. It's only common sense.
Any private sector job gets wage cuts when the company is at risk and going into debt, and gets raises when times are better. Why shouldn't our economy follow those principles too?

However before ANY of these harsh measures are implemented on public service staff, there are LOTS of things that can be done first. Every single tax loophole needs to be closed and nobody should have an irish passport without being liable to pay tax here in Ireland. An industrial strength whistleblower charter needs to be enacted to get rid of all the corruption that currently permeates all the rotting structures in Irish society.

Anglo Irish should be allowed sink, nama should be abandoned, and the credit unions should get all the money earmarked for banks instead because they are probably the only ones keeping the small businesses alive in this country right now.
If a bank is too big to fail then it is too big to be allowed exist. Let the foreign gamblers er...investors rot. They knew the risks. Fuck 'em. Let those fat developers face the courts directly and have their homes sold from under them and let them feel what is like not to be able to have a roof over your head for you and your kids in your own country because of a price regime they and their pals in FF helped along. Fuck 'em too. and jail time for anyone who broke the rules. Not slaps on the wrist. Not golden handshakes. HARD TIME. So people will see that there are CONSEQUENCES for gombeen behaviour.

Also, raise corportion tax. A few percent won't kill the greedy bastards. They still make plenty. Let them feel some pain too. It should not be just the weakest in society. And the big supermarkets. They have us by the balls. They totally squeeze local produce suppliers and put half them out of business, and they force all the smaller shops out of business too. Then most of their profits just flow out of the country. What if they couldn't flow out so easily? We must be crazy to let this stuff continue in times like these. What we need are lots of local co-op supermarkets that pay a fair rate for produce and feed the profits back into the community. Kick out these destructive monsters.

We really and truly need to dissolve the HSE completely and fire drumm, harney and the whole lot of those right wing idiots, abandon all this "centre of excellence vapourware" and PPP crap that costs more and wastes public resources. Instead give each hospital a budget proportional to the number of people they serve and an administrator. Put everyone's med records on a swipe card and completely streamline the whole wasteful charade.

Fuck out all these road toll corporations. These contracts are just crazy. Give them the cost of building their road and tell them to fuck off.

Last but not least, nationalise the corrib gas field and contract a team to pump the gas for us. that's billions right there! not to mention the millions in savings not having to beat up Irish citizens.

So there are lots of things here that could improve our situation in the long run. However none of it will happen. Instead we'll get more and more into debt as vested interests keep their political stranglehold on those in government. Eventually the IMF will come in and their self serving "austerity measures" will mean we'll go back, in desperation, to being a third world source of cheap labour. With a broken down infrastructure and the celtic tiger bubble just a distant memory.

Meanwhile, I think we should look for inspiration to Iceland, who actually put a vote to their citizens as to whether or not to pay back the billions owed to foreign speculators/gamblers instead of putting it where it was really needed. Dead right! Meanwhile our lot roll over and put us all into servitude for generations to speculators and property developers through nama and the bank guarantee scheme and a bunch of huge and useless black hole loans to zombie banks. Traitors to Ireland one and all.

by donkylemore - none Sun Jan 17, 2010 19:26

Fiska
You've covered a lot of issues here.
While I would agree basically with the tenure of most of your sentiments the trouble is as they keep telling us '' we are where we are''
Not much comfort there for the underprivileged or disadvantaged .
But I was trying to focus on these 2 groups here , as I feel that they are over- privileged, and their pensions are undeserved and disproportionate.

I would agree that the Nama monster is going to come back to haunt not only us but also to haunt many generations to come.
Moreover I am not convinced that ANY one actually knows how this thing is going to work.
There is insufficient protection for the taxpayer . There is already evidence to suggest that the banks will freewheel their way with their past sinful and profligate conduct. .

I dont believe that Mr Lenihan has secured the avowed promise from the banks which the public desperately need to convince that they will change their errant ways.

You should have written this as a blog of your own,
You clearly demonstrate that you have the understanding and passion to instill some old fashioned ethical values into our dissolute society .

Thank you for expanding the debate

by FiskalRectitude Sun Jan 17, 2010 23:06

Just got a bit carried away there. Originally I just wanted to make the point that the figures show that a large number of nurses and normal gardai and folks like that actually earn 50k or less. But I agree, some of the pension stuff is a bit crazy and the state cannot afford it at all. Like I said, everyone should just simply get a very basic statutory pension once they reach a certain age, regardless and anything more should be up to themselves. The government ministers have the whole pension thing set up so they can rob us blind. Of course they need to keep the upper civil service happy too so they keep quiet. And some of their protection muscle too. it's all quite ludicrous.