Bleh, usual indo bollocks regurgitated every few months.

yeah

it never ends

I would have thought that by now the madness would have stoped

Which ballocks are you referring to?

The ballocks of the Irish Independent re-running old stories or the complete and utter ballocks of continuing to pay annual increments to public servants as a matter of course without any justification. Truly the Loreal public service: because we are worth it.

I happen to think that we have too many public sector workers, and that many roles within the public sector are overpaid (going on the base salary).

However, I cannot agree that paying increments is bollox.

A teacher with 20 years experience should not be paid the same as one with 5 years experience. That older teacher will likely be taking on many extra-curricular activities, and may be doing a lot of the jobs of 'B post' teachers without having the title.
A nurse that's been running around a ward for 4 years is probably more valuable that one who has just qualified

What do the complainants work as, and do you expect your pay to be commensurate with your experience? I work in IT, and my salary has moved rapidly. And why shouldn't it, the benefit of my experience has improved me greatly. I see no reason to believe that experience wouldn't benefit any public sector work in a similar way.

Now, if your complaint is that they should pass through a quality gate to obtain the increment, then fair enough, but I don't see how this can be effectively operated, as there's no accountability and ultimately management wouldn't be constrained in approving the increments. Increments is about the best method we have to separate experienced from non-experienced in such a heavyweight union shop.

What we need is a program for redundancies and base salary evaluation at every post, and at every grade, and to switch the public sector to defined contribution, or at the very least to average over the salary lifetime instead of considering final salary.

Spot on JammyB, you saved me the hassle.

I'd much prefer if I could individually negotiate pay increases like in the private sector but that just won't work in the public sector. Also, I'm not sure how you can talk about pay increases when the past few years have seen my pay go down by 7% and then up by 2.5% and then down by 2.5% in tax changes.

Normally your salary goes up because:

1. You get pay increases
2. You get promoted

Public service salaries go up because:

1. You get pay increases
2. You get promoted
3. You stay in the same role and get additional increases automatically without reference to ability and without assessment

The issue is not that increments exist and are awarded. It is that they are awarded automatically to all without evaluation/assessment/justification.

I can agree that there should be some form of increments system, but the scale of the one the public service currently have is ridiculous. Teachers for instance get heft increases every year up to point 13, then they get more hefty increases every 3rd/4th year.
It's worth noting that when they have a longer gap between increments, the salary jump goes up.

A teacher with 5 years experience is not worth all that much more than a teacher with 20 years experience. Both teachers have enough experience to know how to do the job, and certainly when I was in school, they were equally likely to be involved in extra-curricular stuff. A teacher with 5 years experience is paid about E41k, at teacher with 20 years experience is paid about E55k. The gap should be more like E5k than E14k.

Would you not find a lot of teachers leaving after 5 years ?

I think that's a little simplistic.

In the private sector I get salary increases for:
1. Performance
2. Progression through a salary band (experience)
3. Promotion
4. Market assessment (every few years, everybody gets something, ostensibly because we've been measured against the job market for our skills, but in reality because attrition has increased)
5. Handing in my resignation - can't use this too often

In the public sector this is:
1. Increments / Progression through a grade ... universal
2. Promotion
3. Market assessment (benchmarking and adjustments for inflation) ... universal

In fact, I see the public sector as missing one of my opportunities. I can get an extra bit of salary over my colleagues on the same level if I work hard.

All that happens in the public sector is that the pot is shaken up and distributed to everyone equally in the form of increments. Now, I agree benchmarking should be re-evaluated, and we've gone a way towards that with the 11% pay cut, but that is off the base-salary and the increments scale.

I think it's grossly unfair to paint increments, in this context, as some sort of unwarranted pay-rise without productivity. They are outside of the process completely. Having a salary scale (as defined by increments) is the only union-friendly argument-free way of rewarding experience over time in the public sector. Attack the base rate by all means, but hyping the increments is unfair in my opinion.

I think it's a bit of a myth that high salaries are what motivate people to do a good job.
Salaries are important up to the point where people can live comfortably, i.e. buy a house they want to live in, put their kids through education, drive a car that's not falling apart, eat out occasionally and go on holidays.

After that quality of life factors are far more important. Public Servants have a great quality of life. Their terms and conditions are second to none, gold plated pensions, permanent job security, excellent sick leave, good holidays, flexibility with things like job sharing. For those who want to earn more, there are opportunities for posts with greater responsibility.

There are other ways increments could be awarded, but automatically giving 14 separate increments over the course of a teaching career simply for showing up to class everyday is wrong.

Really? In 6 years as a software engineer my salary has increased over 250%. That's more than a teacher's will over an entire career. And you think a teacher's should only increase by 12.5% over a similar time period?

I'm not defending teacher's salaries, but there needs to be a reason for them to keep at it, same as any job. There's very little scope for promotion for teachers, management is narrow.

But looky here:

http://www.asti.ie/pay-and-conditions/p ... uary-2011/

We pay allowances for qualifications that you cannot teach without. This has been here since teachers didn't need degrees. What a load of shit! There's your fat. Start taking that crap back. But leave the incentives for someone to have a career.

My current situation has

1. Annual pay reductions
2. No promotion
3. 2.5% per year with only 5 years left before I hit a plateau.

I don't see this situation changing in the next five years.

You're missing an important point though. Schools are union shops. Hospitals are union shops. Fire stations are union shops. Garda stations are union shops. Part of the raison d'etre of any union is to make all workers equals.

That means that the teachers who really do get better, and should earn multiples of their colleagues, suffer, while the teachers who 'just show up to class' benefit unduly. It gets shared. That's the reality. The good teachers suck it up, and so should we.

You will also have your job in five years or however long you want with absolute certainty. And do the following not have a benefit and therefore a cost:

No chance of redundancy
Defined benefit index-linked pension
Short working week
Long holidays including additional "privilege days"
Half an hour off a week to cash a non-existent cheque

Benchmarking 2.0 would address the inequality between the public and private sectors that has been created.