It was a grim year, but greater reality is needed from everyone, especially union leaders, in 2010
HOW DEEPLY ironic that it was the trade union leadership that lifted the lid on the outmoded work practices in the public service as they struggled – and failed – to do a deal with the Government just before the Budget.
It was no right-wing economist that extolled the merits of starting work at 8am; extending the working roster across seven days; moving redundant staff to where work needed to be done; promoting people solely on merit, and making increments conditional on performance.
Never mind that outside the public service such work practices are taken for granted, or that many people had presumed that the Benchmarking ATM bonanza back in 2003 had secured many of these basic reforms. No, in the parallel universe occupied by some union leaders this is still “revolutionary” stuff.
Peter McLoone, chairman of the Irish Congress of Trade Union’s (Ictu’s) public services committee, characterised adjustments to such standard working conditions as “massive changes in work practices” that would deliver “a massive transformation in the delivery of public services far beyond anything previously contemplated”.
We know too that the de facto price being sought by the unions for this coming of age was about €1 billion. And when a hapless Government was so broke that it had to say no, these latter-day converts to the obvious necessity of reform went apoplectic. Reform was their ball, and they were taking it home. “Offer withdrawn. Game over,” thundered Sheila Nunan of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO).
With each passing day, the union leaders’ “vingence bejasus” mutterings grow ever darker, and even the usually level-headed congress general secretary David Begg is claiming there is a campaign of incitement to hatred against public servants!
It’s time for a reality check. The country is banjaxed. The public sector pay cut, on top of the levy imposed on all of us, is certainly harsh on some workers. But is it as tough as the fate of the 120,000 private sector workers who lost their jobs this year?
And for those in the private sector who have retained their jobs, there has been painful adjustment too. A sense of victimhood on the part of public or private sector workers is not going to get us out of this mess.
Producing goods and services at a competitive price, not only in the multinational (foreign direct investment – FDI) sector, but also across native industries such as food, tourism and IT, is our only long-term salvation. An antiquated public sector is not a luxury we can go on tolerating. It is a significant drag on achieving global competitiveness through its high payroll cost and its failure to deliver top quality outputs.
However belatedly, our society must have those so-called revolutionary reforms. If there is no work for permanent, pensioned workers in Agency/Department A, they must transfer to Agency/Department B. We saw this drag on both efficiency and social solidarity earlier this year when Minister for Social and Family Affairs Mary Hanafin could not redeploy public servants to welfare offices to cater for the explosion in numbers signing on.
It is common knowledge within the Health Service Executive that there are about 6,000 surplus staff there, arising from amalgamating 11 health boards five years ago.
With the teacher unions among the most vocal in the clamour for more industrial action, when are they going to address the McCarthy report findings? Working hours for primary and secondary teachers are among the lowest of all the OECD countries, and holiday breaks among the longest. McCarthy revealed that primary and secondary teachers have 31 and 30 uncertified sick leave days each year; the equivalent of six working weeks. And 52 per cent of all teachers are in receipt of various “management allowances”.
When Garda Representative Association general secretary PJ Stone declaims loudly about the injustice of the wage cuts, and threatens another so-called blue flu or worse, perhaps he might address McCarthy, and that report’s identification of no fewer than 57 allowances in the Garda system, including such beauties as a “Plain Clothes Allowance” and a “Non-Public Duty Allowance”.
The unvouched expenses of TDs and Senators are up there with these other public sector good time legacies, and just as much in need of reform.
Another issue is our national minimum wage. Querying the affordability of the second highest rate in Europe evokes howls from trade unions, but are we not are entitled to wonder how, say, our tourism industry can compete with the UK when our minimum wage is €2-plus per hour higher? In the debate about the exodus of shoppers to the North, this contributor to the grocery sector’s uncompetitiveness is rarely mentioned.
The reality is that we are mired in a deep economic crisis. We may have grown wealthy for a few years by building houses and selling them to one another. But we’ve had to wean ourselves off the mind-altering, performance enhancing property bubble. The touchstone of our survival now is production of goods and services that are competitive abroad.
We need social solidarity like never before. We need critical analysis, not hackneyed class rhetoric. We also need real, inspirational leadership, from our politicians and, yes, from trade union leaders too. Leadership based on facts, not fantasy.
Stephen O’Byrnes is a director of public relations consultants, MKC Communications. Previously, he was a journalist and an official with the Progressive Democrats