"Public Sector Debate": Any chance of a truce?

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damson

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There's an interesting thread on politics.ie:
[broken link removed]

In pretty much every sphere I move in at present, and especially noticeable on internet discussion boards, the public-private sector battle is evident. It's bitter, divisive, and ultimately unproductive - except for the government, who are running a classic 'divide and conquer' programme.

At the risk of sounding like a naive, "can't we all just get along" type, is there any possibility that something of the attitude displayed in the link above could be harnessed here on AAM?

From the politics.ie thread:
Posted by lifeisagame on politics.ie [Original post, edited]
As a Member that has ceaselessly attacked the Public Sector I am also a pragmatic Businessman.
Is it time to stop the war and join forces?
By this I mean a joint attack on the forces that are attacking both our Sectors.
We are ALL going to suffer at the hands of this or even the next Government.
Having, for many many years worked in environment of Industrial Relations and seen the Bitterness it left on long time friends against each other, I have long believed that no matter what, it only gets resolved by dialogue.
...
However, like the Government, the Unions and indeed ourselves we never expected this depth of depression. I am not sure that they can dig us out of this hole and I believe we must force direction on them.
How do we do that? Well for starters bridge the divide between us. Then set up a genuine recovery Forum on P.ie and bring the thoughts,minds, brains and will together.
This Government can drive anything through while we are divided because we are defenceless and they can laugh at us fighting among ourselves.
...
So I personally am going to back away from this war, I am going to do what I enjoy and do best and that is take the joint problems and seek Counter Measures that fit.
...
Finally, I personally am declaring a truce with the Public Sector...
Click to expand...
Posted by Newsy on politics.ie
I welcome your post, lifeisagame.

There has been a very well orchestrated campaign on many things in the past months. The Banks/deveropers/politicians threesome being denied, NAMA not being a bailout and then the private/public war that was well managed and fueled by sections of the media.

The only way things will change in the country, is NOT to fall for the spin or not to be divided. There truly is strength in numbers.

We are a people, who can do better, be better and demand better. It is our responsibility to do just that.
Click to expand...
Posted by Mitsui2 on politics.ie
I am not nor have I ever been a public sector worker, but some of the anti-ps vituperation that's been on here recently has been completely surreal.

Some of it may stem from actual deeply-held belief (although if so I think the believers need some kind of counselling) but an awful lot of it - it has seemed to me - is a kind of lashing out in the face of the enormous difficulties we all face and the fact that the government seems at best resigned to effing us all over, at worst quite determined to do so.

As far as I am concerned there is now a definite - dangerous, shortsighted and little short of criminal - tendency in this government and its minions in and out of politics to encourage social polarisation of one form or another.

The only conceivable reasons I can think of for this are so as to a) disract attention from what the government is actually doing and b) weaken public anger against the government by turning sections of the public against each other.

Though not, as I say, a public service worker myself, I very much welcome the OP as a voice of sanity. I suspect that the government will turn on various sectors before this is all over, at least some of which will probably coincide with my own prejudices and tempt me to fume & rant. But we all of us need to take a very deep breath at this stage, and remember who is actually behaving in the most inimical fashion towards all of us collectively.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

I'm on. Sick of it. Again.

In fact am currently considering simply staying out of The Depths purely because of this public/private thing.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

Agreed. A self imposed truce is the way to go. We must have some common ground.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

ah right... like should toilet paper dangle on the inside or outside...
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

Caveat said:
I'm on. Sick of it. Again.

In fact am currently considering simply staying out of The Depths purely because of this public/private thing.
Click to expand...

+1 - Especially because no new arguments are being produced - same old stuff all the time.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

Sounds like a plan! We've all been at it hammer and tongs for nearly a year and, as Ney says, it's just the same old arguments and counter arguments. I think, at this stage, anybody who was prepared to budge has done so. There's nothing more to be achieved by continuing the rows.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

The saddest thing to me is some of the issues are worth debating, but the points get lost in unsubstantiated "facts" and sometimes defending for the sake of defending. Among the many threads there have been I have learned stuff I didn't know and had to change my own views on certain things. Doesn't that make some of the frustration worthwhile?

It is a pity that they do decend into a predictable slump, but in some cases there are very good points raised on either side of the "debate", important things too.

I think it more important that when a point is valid it is accepted on either side. But there seems to be a culture of "this poster's not for turning" and the threads suffer as a result.

Given the scale of the problems in the state and given the pain we're all going to have to take, I don't see how we can avoid these current issues. Yes it's unfortunate that at this moment the focus is on public spending. but that's a big thing that's needs sorting it's not something we can ignore because if it isn't sorted don't make too many plans for beyond April.

As I say, arguments and rows aside, I've actually learned a lot from these threads.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

Latrade said:
The saddest thing to me is some of the issues are worth debating, but the points get lost in unsubstantiated "facts" and sometimes defending for the sake of defending.
Click to expand...

+1.
The PS wage bill will have to reduced and is worth discussing but it just ends up getting bogged down non-PS workers making cheap shots or PS workers getting over-defensive.
I was going to start a thread for public servant to make suggestions as to savings could be made in the public sector but I could see it would end up going down the same road as previous threads.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

I'm starting to get bored with AAM because so many of it's posts go down the same route, you almost know at this stage who will be posting and who will be saying what once you read the first post.

What really disappoints me is the failure of people on both sides of the arguement to accept that the others may actually have valid points. The reality is that the public sector is far from perfect, despite what some posters on here would have you believe, but it's also far from being the money sucking innefficient bloated monstrosity that other posters would have you believe. Rational reasoned arguement goes out the window.

I think Shawady post about public sector workers making suggestions for cost savings is an excellent one, providing they are not couched in vague management speak around "efficiencies" and "synergies". These are the people at the coal face, why not get them to make some reasoned suggestions, preferable with numbers attached and ask private sector worker posters not to comment on them for a week?
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

Mpsox said:
I think Shawady post about public sector workers making suggestions for cost savings is an excellent one, providing they are not couched in vague management speak around "efficiencies" and "synergies". These are the people at the coal face, why not get them to make some reasoned suggestions, preferable with numbers attached and ask private sector worker posters not to comment on them for a week?
Click to expand...

I would be delighted to see such posts. And would be happy not to comment at all. I would be very interested in seeing the outcome.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

The public sector should share IT, HR, Finance + Training.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

cork said:
The public sector should share IT, HR, Finance + Training.
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sounds good in theory, but with with their track record (and the track records of the uk public sector also) on large projects like this it would be a disaster.

Nice idea though
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

galleyslave said:
sounds good in theory, but with with their track record (and the track records of the uk public sector also) on large projects like this it would be a disaster.

Nice idea though
Click to expand...

Sorry*, but talk about giving up before we even try. It's hardly fair to say the PS should be reformed and then say that they'll mess up the reform anyway. Liaconn is right: damned if they do, damned if they don't.

And just what has the UK's track record got to do with here? Why not say Germany has managed its PS reform well, that's just as valid.

*sorry appreciate aim of thread didn't mean to bite, but then went ahead regardless.
 
Re: Any chance of a truce?

Latrade - I mean that large scale national projects have a bad track record. Smaller ones, fair enough
 
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