Sir, – JD Mangan (September 12th) criticises those who want to pull the plug on the Croke Park agreement and he claims that leaving existing compensation packages in the hands of civil servants will boost economic virility.
He is sadly mistaken for two simple reasons. First, these generous compensation packages are paid for by the rest of us through tax, so his economic virility argument is a zero sum game – for the civil servants to win everyone else loses and vice versa.
Second, civil servants’ packages have remained sacrosanct for the duration of the crisis yet there is not a jot of evidence that they are out spending in the domestic economy. In fact, the domestic economy remains horribly depressed. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – In all of the discussions surrounding public sector workers, I have heard no one refer to the national agreements that were in place since the late 1980s, before being succeeded by the Croke Park deal. In those agreements, “change” for the ongoing good health of organisations was enshrined in each one of them, and paid for time after time. The changes now being negotiated under Croke Park should have been implemented years ago if management had been doing their job. It is quite disgraceful what they, unions and workforce have been allowed to get away with. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Almost 40 per cent of public servants are paid less than €40,000 a year and 75 per cent are on less than €60,000 (Opinion, September 12th). The Labour Court has directed a minimum of a 34-hour week for many local authority staff (Home News, September 11th).
Is it any wonder this country is on its knees? I work in the private sector and and I am a trade union member. For 35 years I have worked in the hospitality industry, hotels and licensed trade, and when I read these articles my blood boils. At present I average a 44-hour, four-day week and that is after my meal breaks. My take-home pay is just under the average industrial wage.
If there are two better arguments for replacing the Croke Park agreement I have yet to see them. It is ironic that it is the Labour Court and a trade union leader that provide them. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – As a young person, I have plenty of reasons to find fault with the Croke Park agreement – particularly its protection of existing conditions, pay and positions at the expense of actual or prospective new entrants to the public sector.
I’m also not sure that the “industrial peace” it has provided since 2010 has been beneficial to Irish politics. However, I will defend it as a legitimate attempt by the unions involved to protect the interests of their members, as is their purpose, against a sustained ideological attack on the public sector.
It might be noted that the Government only needs to reduce its net pay bill, and that perhaps the best way to gather money from those – in the public or private sectors – who are ostensibly paid too much is to increase taxes. – Yours, etc,