What could/would be wrong with this? Pay "Front Line" public servants relatively more

"Pointing out something that is obvious to everyone is the job of the unions" you say..wow..

You say perception is "no one does anything in the public service!,not for a minute do I believe that! That is just not true!

You guys really should take that up with the unions,as apparently they are now to blame for only calling certain jobs "frontline"..when in fact its beginning to look like everyone is frontline..

Is it that when the unions are looking for more,they use the "frontline" argument and now everyone wants to be frontline??
Im not in a union so I dont know who they consider to be frontline,however every single time the union mentions the frontline,they say Guards,nurses etc..they never ,that I can recall mentioned the IT staff..

How about those in the PS tell us who is NOT frontline? Then those who are could be considered as per my original post.
 
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There is no agreed list of frontline staff. This issue arose a few years ago when it was being proposed that non frontline staff should work a shorter week in a bid to save money. Staff in payroll offices aren't frontline but they facilitate payment to front line staff.

Staff in Nursing Home Subvention are not front line but without the admin people approving subvention, clients remain in inappropriate settings like an acute hospital, elderly hospital.

In the end the issue was parked,
 
thedaras said:
How about those in the PS tell us who is NOT frontline? Then those who are could be considered as per my original post.
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Or we could just accept that a "frontline" definition is meaningless when it comes to determining pay
 
thedaras said:
Is it that when the unions are looking for more,they use the "frontline" argument .
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Used to be, now it's a play on people's sympathies to avoid cuts

thedaras said:
and now everyone wants to be frontline??
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No, it's a general argument designed to as an initial defence against a blanket public service pay cut

thedaras said:
Im not in a union so I dont know who they consider to be frontline,however every single time the union mentions the frontline,they say Guards,nurses etc..they never ,that I can recall mentioned the IT staff..
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IT wouldn't be frontline, they're an example of non-frontline.

Garda & Nurses unions might be happy to make the distinction to save their members for paycuts. The likes of SIPTU would invoke the use of "frontline" to play to people's sympathies towards the entire public service.

You are just being played if you buy into the whole salaries of "frontline" workers should be immune from cuts whilst those of "non-frontline" should not argument
 
DerKaiser said:
The unions have a job to do. In the public sector they are fighting a battle in terms of public perception.

The lazy perception is that no one does anything in the public service.

The danger for the unions is that this will ultimately lead to pressure on the government to reduce the size and cost of the public sector.

What do they do? They point out to people that there is obvious work done in the public sector. People deal with nurses, teachers, guards, etc everyday.

It is harder to go out an espouse the merits of someone who is just as useful, if not more so, if neither you nor the general public understand their roles or see what they do on a daily basis e.g. IT resources.

So the unions just fight the smarter battle by pointing out something that is obvious to everyone (e.g. firemen rescue people) in order to hold back the wave of negative sentiment against the entire public service.

This has somehow morphed into the idea that people who save lives are infinitely valuable whilst people who work at computers are not.

There are lots of people who would be capable and happy to be teachers, nurses, guards, etc. There are not lots of people capable of leading a project to designing and implement an efficient HR system for example. This point the most important consideration in determining wages. There's no point in throwing money at guards, nurses, etc as we have plenty capable people willing to do this work. Good IT experience on the other hand is maybe something the public service should have paid more for or at least tried somehow to attract better people in the past.
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+ 1 , excellent post.

It is of course an exercise in PR when the unions refer to customer facing employees as the public can emphatise with same and are more likely to sympathise with them rather than equally valuable support staff.

Although unstated the Unions also make it clear to Government and the public alike how dependant we are on Guards , Nurses , Teachers etc & the dangers inherent in possibly provoking industrial action .
 
thedaras said:
I really would like you to clarify that statement re divide and conquer??
Im trying to see things from both sides and looking to see what kind of solution would work that would keep everyone(or at least most ) feeling good!
I dont see what your problem is with me trying to clarify who the "frontline " staff are.( I cant see what else is the issue?)

Remember I mentioned in the OP that as I understood it they were Guards,nurses etc,but that was challenged and fairly so,and why not.

Also "good man" eh Im a woman..
I dont see where the divide and conquer is?
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First, let me apologise for thinking you were male (sorry about that).

Obviously, you know that on many sites like this there is Public V Private sectors debate some which is fair and most which is unfair. Our government is mainly behind the anti Public Service thought and of course the unions got involved and suddenly the government threw in the Front Line Public Service words. The like of Firemen, Nurses, etc were considered saints of the island and the (let's say) back room people branded as lepers of society.

Therefore the public service was divided into Front Line V Back-room. Many of the "front-Line" unions e.g INMO hopped on the bandwagon and there was an intended attack on non fron-line public servants from everywhere. Unfortunately for the back-room public servants they had to contend with the "Front-Line-Public-Servants" attacking them also. Merely, I point out that this is a typical situation of dividing and conquering.

Please note the above is loosely meant. Also, apologies for replying so late in the day. I dont have access to the internet during normal working hours like many on here.
 
Ok,thanks for that clarifaction.
Its a pity that its seems at the moment that there are only two solutions being given any creedence,ie.get rid of the lot of them or they should all stay and be paid.
All im trying to do is look for a logical solution.,
the one i posted is obviously not a runner.
I had no agenda other than recognising the great work that some,and not all the ps do,that by getting rid of the slack,would in effect mean that the "frontline" staff could be better protected.
However that would of course include pay related preformance etc for them.
Ah well, at least i tried,would love to hear other ideas that posters have as a real solution.
 
thedaras said:
would love to hear other ideas that posters have as a real solution.
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Give the Croke park agreement reasonable time to deliver set savings targets.

If these aren't met by the people on the ground in the public service, they'll have to accept the uniform slash and burn cuts from outside of their control.
 
Give the Croke park agreement reasonable time to deliver set savings targets.

If these aren't met by the people on the ground in the public service, they'll have to accept the uniform slash and burn cuts from outside of their control.
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DerKaiser, sorry to piggyback on thedaras post, and great earlier post BTW, but a lot of reports in newspapers and interviews with politicians over recent months suggest the Croke park agreement is going nowhwhere fast. From what I hear the problem is mainly on the management side, with failure to implement plans etc. Any thoughts on this?
 
In the Public Service in most instances promotion is through seniority i.e the longer you are there the more likely that you will be eventually promoted. You may not want the promotion but your senior colleagues will ensure you accept. The respective trades union will also insist you accept. This method ensures that the best person for the job is not necessarily the promoted person.

Some areas of the Public Service have competition for all promotions which can be another method of ensuring the wrong person gets the job.

In both instances above occasionally the right person gets promoted.

However, many promoted people know much less than their colleagues and just accept the promotion and sink into the background instead of bringing new life and new methods into the area in which they are now manageme.
 
Leper said:
In the Public Service in most instances promotion is through seniority i.e the longer you are there the more likely that you will be eventually promoted. You may not want the promotion but your senior colleagues will ensure you accept. The respective trades union will also insist you accept. This method ensures that the best person for the job is not necessarily the promoted person.

Some areas of the Public Service have competition for all promotions which can be another method of ensuring the wrong person gets the job.

In both instances above occasionally the right person gets promoted.

However, many promoted people know much less than their colleagues and just accept the promotion and sink into the background instead of bringing new life and new methods into the area in which they are now manageme.
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That is not true. The majority of promotions in the Public Service are now done by competition and promotion on seniority is very rare and mainly at junior levels. I agree that competitions are not perfect either, and some people are just good at interviews but crap at the job, but there's really no fairer way of doing it in a huge organisation with hundreds and hundreds of staff. It's just not possible to hand pick people for promotion in that situation and some other method has to be found. Also, in the civil service staff move around between sections and are expected to be generalists so interviewing for specific posts rarely happens. | am currently in a post which required a specific skill and for which there was a targetted interview process but it's not a promotion and, when my contract here is finished I will be thrown back into the general pool and will just have to take up the next vacancy in my 'parent' Department. While it's important to have people who can move around and take up posts anywhere, it might also be worthwhile to have a larger number of people who are recruited because of a specific ability or aptitude and try to develop them in that area alone.
 
liaconn said:
That is not true. The majority of promotions in the Public Service are now done by competition and promotion on seniority is very rare and mainly at junior levels. I agree that competitions are not perfect either, and some people are just good at interviews but crap at the job, but there's really no fairer way of doing it in a huge organisation with hundreds and hundreds of staff. It's just not possible to hand pick people for promotion in that situation and some other method has to be found. Also, in the civil service staff move around between sections and are expected to be generalists so interviewing for specific posts rarely happens. | am currently in a post which required a specific skill and for which there was a targetted interview process but it's not a promotion and, when my contract here is finished I will be thrown back into the general pool and will just have to take up the next vacancy in my 'parent' Department. While it's important to have people who can move around and take up posts anywhere, it might also be worthwhile to have a larger number of people who are recruited because of a specific ability or aptitude and try to develop them in that area alone.
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+1.

I answer queries all day from staff in grades above me who simply don't know enough about legislation and policy. I've been in the office for nearly ten years, I've picked up knowledge along the way. Grades above me have been parachuted in and don't know a lot of the basics of what we as an office do.
 
Obviously, it depends on which Department, Section, etc what ways promotion is attained. I think we all agree that some is by competition (interviews) and some by seniority.

I'm not going to argue the rights and wrongs of the selection process as both are seriously flawed. In my time in the public service I have seen dundering idiots promoted and occasionally somebody deserving of promotion getting there eventually.

I have even come across two cases where there was a selection process to compete by interview in which two people were disregarded even before the interview as being unsuitable. The same two people went on later to attain a Masters Degree each. So much for some peoples' opinions.
 
Leper said:
In the Public Service in most instances promotion is through seniority i.e the longer you are there the more likely that you will be eventually promoted. You may not want the promotion but your senior colleagues will ensure you accept. The respective trades union will also insist you accept.
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This is utter tosh.

If the best person isn't promoted (which wouldn't be preserve of the public service btw) it wouldn't be for the reasons offered above.
 
Whatever my post is, it is not "tosh" but, promotion through length of service over the length of service of a competitor is dying out. I have no problem with this.

Let's go to Bus Eireann and any driver there will clutch onto "seniority" like Tony Soprano grasped money. The old seniority situation still holds sway there.

One bus driver recently pointed out to me that if three drivers went into the toilet and there were only two cubicles the more senior drivers had first call.

It might sound unbelieveable, this was the way it was when I was in the Civil Service.
 
Leper said:
Whatever my post is, it is not "tosh" but, promotion through length of service over the length of service of a competitor is dying out. I have no problem with this.

Let's go to Bus Eireann and any driver there will clutch onto "seniority" like Tony Soprano grasped money. The old seniority situation still holds sway there.

One bus driver recently pointed out to me that if three drivers went into the toilet and there were only two cubicles the more senior drivers had first call.

It might sound unbelieveable, this was the way it was when I was in the Civil Service.
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OK , let's look at seniority for bus drivers in Bus Eireann.

One bus driver has 30 years service & the other has 1 years service but at the end of the day they are still bus drivers & are not competing for promotion ,so exactly what benefits accrue from " seniority "

As for the toilet story , you are right it does sound unbelievable but nonetheless hilarious.
 
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