If public sector workers took 1 week unpaid holiday

[Purple]

So the suggestion could be that public service employees do not get paid for one of their weeks annual leave.

Maybe, it's not my idea.
I don't like the way the government are looking for ways to cut the pay of public an civil servants but don't have the balls to just come out and be honest about what they are doing. Getting your pay cut is a big deal, it should be acknowledged as such. I'm not saying I'm against public sector pay cuts, they are necessary as we cannot afford current pay levels, but it's insulting to those that are taking the hit to pretend it's other than it is.

Im not sure what you mean by this : is it "chuir amach do lámh"

Something like that

 

[daithi]

..actually, I think 2 weeks unpaid leave,staggered over the year could be doable...

daithi

 

[becky]

I did hear a shorter working week was discussed at the last talks.

We got a circular this week announcing a memoratium until end 2010. Further instructions are to follow and I fully expect that managers will be asked to consider short weeks/term time etc. I'd say managers will then have to explain in detail why its not possible in their section.

 

[dodo]

Thousands of public service workers take unpaid parental and extended maternity leave every year already!


When you say public sector workers do you mean every category of employment or perhaps you mean just administration/clerical type workers?

For instance do you want junior hospital doctors to take 1 weeks unpaid leave? How about physios, laboratory scientists, nurses, radiographers etc.

If teachers were to take a 1 weeks unpaid leave would they take it all at the same time? Who would take their classes?

I agreed with alot of what you say,there would have to some sort timetable done, as for schools just do not pay them for 1 week of their all to long holiday's ,look of course there would be huge thinking, but our government really need to start realizing that they are the employer,Boss,Gaffer etc, these workers which by the way my wife is and has been for over 11 years need to be treated in the same vain as other employee's are in other companies.I don't know of any other employer in the Country that seem to have to ask permission for every single thing they seem to want to do to improve their company.As mention in an earlier post the 5 days do not have to be taken all at once.

 

[csirl]

Average industrial wage figures are meaningless in a country like Ireland where a small percentage of workforce are in industrial employment. Ireland is a services economy, so the average services sector wage would be more relevent.

 

[liaconn]

Re: If public sector workers took 1 week holiday

I asked if it was the mean or the median, there are different kinds of average, you know!

And where are you getting your figures from? Is 37k the industrial wage average? I don't think its an average for the entire private sector,which is a pretty meaningless figure anyway.
Can you quote your sources?

I would like to know this as well? It sounds as if the figure quoted is being skewed by the salaries of people at the very, very top. There is no way the majority of public servants are on >49K.

 

[dodo]

People bandy about these averages as if they had some meaning, without understanding the basics of statistics.
Example, a small company, the boss says the average wage in the company is €30,000 pa, while the union rep says the average wage is €17,000. Is one lying or just mistaken?
Neither, they are both right, they are just using different definitions of average.

boss pays himself €125,000 andthe other eight employees €29,000, €28,000, €21,000,€17,000, €15,000, €13,000, €12000, and €10,000. Add these together and divide by the number of employees, and the average (mean) is €30,000.​

The union rep has used a different average, called the median. This is the one that comes in the middle when the numbers are put in order. If you line them up you will see that it is €17,000. Most people would agree that this is a moresensible average to use in these circumstances - unlike the mean, it represents a more typical sort of salary in that firm, and it is not distorted by the anomalously high salary of the boss.​

Ever hear of lies, damned lies and statistics?​

Agree to a point but from my own family situation, my wife is in Aminstration in Public sector no fancy certificate's behind her or anything and is on 42K for a 36 hour week with 28 days holiday,Not bad is it
(maybe they should be made give back one weeks holiday) I would love to know what the average holidays are per year leaving out teachers of course) v Private sector

 

[ludermor]

People bandy about these averages as if they had some meaning, without understanding the basics of statistics.
Example, a small company, the boss says the average wage in the company is €30,000 pa, while the union rep says the average wage is €17,000. Is one lying or just mistaken?
Neither, they are both right, they are just using different definitions of average.

boss pays himself €125,000 andthe other eight employees €29,000, €28,000, €21,000,€17,000, €15,000, €13,000, €12000, and €10,000. Add these together and divide by the number of employees, and the average (mean) is €30,000.



The union rep has used a different average, called the median. This is the one that comes in the middle when the numbers are put in order. If you line them up you will see that it is €17,000. Most people would agree that this is a moresensible average to use in these circumstances - unlike the mean, it represents a more typical sort of salary in that firm, and it is not distorted by the anomalously high salary of the boss.

Ever hear of lies, damned lies and statistics?​

Surely the fairer way would be to take an average of the employees wages?
I dont understand your logic of your mean , it is too simplistic , is there a reason why wouldnt use an average of the employees?

 

[Sunny]

Surely the fairer way would be to take an average of the employees wages?
I dont understand your logic of your mean , it is too simplistic , is there a reason why wouldnt use an average of the employees?

He is using an average. Mean median and mode are all averages calculations. He is correct in saying that the median is better for working out average incomes because the mean is sensitive to outliers in the distribution i.e. the average will be skewed upwards by people earning high salaries.

 

[foxylady]

Re: If public sector workers took 1 week holiday

I understand that public sector workers on €24k or thereabout have difficult time, just as anyone else. But they still have their jobs and a guaranteed pay cheque at the end of the month unlike a lot of people in the private sector. Private sector workers have suffered so much with job losses, pay cuts, reduced hours, etc. and this applies to everyone from minimum wage employees to senior executives.

Personally I think it's unfair of public sector to constantly whinge and moan about the bad hand they've been dealt with the pension levy, spending cuts, etc. Over a hundred thousand private sector employees have it a lot worse at the moment.

ost public sector workers have had recent pay cuts which Brian Cowen likes to call a pension levy when in fact its no more than a pay cut.

its the likes of ministers and the taoiseach himself that needs to take pay cuts as they can well afford to.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Re: If public sector workers took 1 week holiday

I asked if it was the mean or the median, there are different kinds of average, you know!

And where are you getting your figures from? Is 37k the industrial wage average? I don't think its an average for the entire private sector,which is a pretty meaningless figure anyway.
Can you quote your sources?

Actually - I was wrong with my figure of 49k average wage in public sector.
It is in fact 50k.
€966 euros per week to be exact.
Just heard it this very second on six one news from george lee also.

[broken link removed]

In fact - here are the figures from teh cso.
They only go as far as 2007 for some reason though.
BAck in 2007 the average was 921 per week.

[broken link removed]

As for your comment that there are different kind of averages this is not true.
The median is not another type of average.
The median and average are 2 distinctly different things.

As for your reasoning that an average can be skewed by a particular high figure being prsent this is correct.
However - there are now 373000 workers in the public sector.
WIth that many workers such skewing does not exist.
So the average is indeed very relevant in this scenario.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Both the median and the mean are commonly referred to as averages, the technical definition is largely irrelevant in common parlance, hence my point. You cannot confidently assert such skewing does not exist without knowing how many are on high salaries.

You are mistaken about the median being referred to as the average in common parlance.
It is not the average - and therefore anyone who uses it instead of the word average is plain wrong and should not be copied.
They are 2 different measurements. The technical definition is not in anyway largely irrelevant as you suggest.

As for the skewing the smaller the sample of data the more likely skewing can arise.
373000 is not a small sample of data - and consequently skewing is non-existant.

 

[liaconn]

No, but when you're dealing with that number of people and with a wide,wide range of professions and job titles, quoting an 'average' salary does not make much sense.

 

[dodo]

No, but when you're dealing with that number of people and with a wide,wide range of professions and job titles, quoting an 'average' salary does not make much sense.

What part of the public sector do you work and do really not consider people who work in this sector to be very lucky in general with the security of their jobs.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

What part of the public sector do you work and do really not consider people who work in this sector to be very lucky in general with the security of their jobs.

No because during the boom years no one wanted the public sector jobs they found it hard to fill positions, now times are bad and the people how went into the public sector are seen as money grabbers how should feel guilty for going into the service when no one else wanted to.

Well tough $hit, no guilt here. I decided to go in and have job security but rubbish pay. You can't have everything in life.

 

[NorthDrum]

No because during the boom years no one wanted the public sector jobs they found it hard to fill positions, now times are bad and the people how went into the public sector are seen as money grabbers how should feel guilty for going into the service when no one else wanted to.

Well tough $hit, no guilt here. I decided to go in and have job security but rubbish pay. You can't have everything in life.

Totally inacurate drivel Ron. I tried to get a Public service job in 2003 during the peak of the boom. There were a couple of hundred of us in Croke Park doing those exams and only a handful of jobs.

There are only so many Public service positions available. Quit playing the bleeding "I chose job security" card. The TRUTH is a majority of people in the private sector didnt have a choice but to work in the private sector and a majority of them didnt make millions in the boom years.

I wont write down the salary I was on after 5 years in the private sector, with a business degree, stockbroking diploma and Financial qualifications. Lets just say it was comfortably below the industry average (back then and today) and I know many many people who were stuck with the same paltry salary with similar or better qualifications. I wasnt getting the cushdie (cushdie from where i was looking up from!) benchmarking figures that the poor unfortunate public service workers were getting!

Your constant Private sector bashing is no better then people who call public sector workers as "all lazy". Hypocrite to the core my friend.

 

[Purple]

Ron, I know you work in the private sector (self employed) as well as your public sector job so you have no agenda here. The facts are that 10 years ago the public sector, on average, job for job, was better paid than the private sector and over those 10 years the gap has increased, not decreased.

 

[Yorrick]

Myles na GCopaleen reckoned that everyone should stay in bed for one week out of every four. It would be a great saving on fuel, elctricity, food etc

 

[liaconn]

What part of the public sector do you work and do really not consider people who work in this sector to be very lucky in general with the security of their jobs.

What kind of off the point remark is that? I was talking about the impossibility of working out an average salary for an area as wide and varied as the public sector. I did not, at any stage, say that people in the public sector were not lucky to have job security. That does not mean, however, that the people at the very bottom, on low salaries, should be asked to take a week's unpaid holiday because if you add everyone's salary together and work out the average it comes to a reasonable wage.
That would be like adding up the salaries of everyone who works in a hospital, from the top consultant down to the person who mops the canteen floor, saying the average works out at blah and therefore all hospital workers are on great salaries and should take a pay cut. Its a lazy and inaccurate way of doing the figures.

 

[liaconn]

Totally inacurate drivel Ron. I tried to get a Public service job in 2003 during the peak of the boom. There were a couple of hundred of us in Croke Park doing those exams and only a handful of jobs.

There are only so many Public service positions available. Quit playing the bleeding "I chose job security" card. The TRUTH is a majority of people in the private sector didnt have a choice but to work in the private sector and a majority of them didnt make millions in the boom years.

I wont write down the salary I was on after 5 years in the private sector, with a business degree, stockbroking diploma and Financial qualifications. Lets just say it was comfortably below the industry average (back then and today) and I know many many people who were stuck with the same paltry salary with similar or better qualifications. I wasnt getting the cushdie (cushdie from where i was looking up from!) benchmarking figures that the poor unfortunate public service workers were getting!

Your constant Private sector bashing is no better then people who call public sector workers as "all lazy". Hypocrite to the core my friend.

So you didn't get a job in the public sector because other people, who competed fairly and squarely with you for the jobs, were deemed better. and therefore got a better paid job than you What's so wrong about that? I applied for some jobs in the private sector, they were given to stronger candidtates and I settled for a less well paid job in the public sector. That's life.