Civil Service is nice soft easy job, no pressure compared to the private sector

[rabbit]

Not always all that insignificant. All businesses in Ireland have to spend more each year on electricity compared to their competitors abroad. Some annual ESB bills are in the millions are they not ? And because their employees have to earn more to pay their electricity bills, there is the knock on effect. Its not the only overhead which is uncompetitive , but it is one.

 

[Dipole]

THanks for highlighting my point yet again. Given that the state is the employer, and the state gets back 30%-40% of the total cost of employment through tax & PRSI, the 'what it costs to get a guy sitting at a desk' figure is much lower than the headline cost.

Source?

Rainyday, the link I gave you points out that small domestic consumers are paying more for electricity than anywhere else in the E.U.
I'm a small usage domestic consumer who resents having to pay larger E.S.B bills because the company is inefficient. As an Irish citizen I have a stake in that company and I'm not being served well by it because it is not efficient.

A private company would constantly be striving to reduce costs regardless of what they currently are. You are suggesting that the government has no incentive to reduce labour costs in the ESB. I would have thought that a responsible government would want to lower payroll to lower the costs of an essential service to the public or else to take a bigger dividend each year with which to build hospitals, schools or roads.
How exactly is the ESB going to survive in a de-regulated market with such high costs? Is it in the nation's interest for the ESB to fold within a few years of being privatised because of crippling labour costs?

 

[RainyDay]

Some annual ESB bills are in the millions are they not ?

Where the ESB bills are in millions, how big are the labour bills for those organisations? How much have the labour costs increased relative to the electricity costs?

For the record, I haven't said that the ESB is efficient or inefficient. I haven't said that the ESB shouldn't be reducing their labour costs (though I did notice that their headcount had reduced significantly from 2004 to 2005.

I'm just pointing out that a lot of the 'civil service'-bashing that is going on in this thread and elsewhere is based more on pub-talk than facts.

 

[Dipole]

I'm just pointing out that a lot of the 'civil service'-bashing that is going on in this thread and elsewhere is based more on pub-talk than facts.

Seems that the majority of the criticism in this thread is based on personal experience and/or information in the public domain.

 

[ashambles]

[broken link removed]

The thermal power station at Poolbeg in Dublin - where staff costs run at €103,000 a head - consists of three aging individual units producing 490 megawatts of power in total.

Plenty of coverage of ESB salaries in the media recently - so it's paper talk rather than pub talk, even an average of 65k is hardly cheap, certainly most private sector workers would consider this a substantial amount of money.

Naturally the 65k figure doesn't factor in the full cost of funding ESB pensions.

 

[ajapale]

Seems that the majority of the criticism in this thread is based on personal experience and/or information in the public domain.

I have to agree that the majority of the cirticism in this thread is based on ancedotal evidence.

 

[jdwex]

[broken link removed]

The thermal power station at Poolbeg in Dublin - where staff costs run at €103,000 a head - consists of three aging individual units producing 490 megawatts of power in total.

It seems that ESB staff are very highly paid. However, it would be interesting to see the basic rates for the various grades, and how much these staff costs are made of overtime. I think in fairness it should be noted that the ESB are not allowed to invest in newer plant (to help level the playing field for new market entrants), so this probably increases the maintenance/overtime costs.

 

[rabbit]

For the record, I haven't said that the ESB is efficient or inefficient. I haven't said that the ESB shouldn't be reducing their labour costs

Thats the problem. Too many people put up with the civil service mentality of paying themselves much higher salaries than the average industrial wage, and too many people willing to put up with paying our electricity prices which are much higher than most if not all other countries.

 

[jdwex]

Thats the problem. Too many people put up with the civil service mentality of paying themselves much higher salaries than the average industrial wage, and too many people willing to put up with paying our electricity prices which are much higher than most if not all other countries.

I think the figure is approx 10% higher than a comparable job in the private sector. It is meaningless just to compare it to the average industrial wage - average educational achievement is somewhat higher in the public sector.

 

[rabbit]

The thermal power station at Poolbeg in Dublin - where staff costs run at €103,000 a head - consists of three aging individual units producing 490 megawatts of power in total.

So the average worker in that electricity generating plant - on a salary of € 103,000 - with 100% job security and with his / her generous pension, sick days, generous holidays and coffeee breaks etc - is so much better educated than the average worker that they deserve that salary and perks ? Come off it.

Any ESB workers I know are not highly educated and yet are relatively exceptionally very well paid...and one of them is continually off on sick leave for one minor ailment or another - when he is not on holidays to the caribbean or on some training course. He admits himself its a very easy number.

 

[jdwex]

So the average worker in that electricity generating plant - on a salary of € 103,000 - with 100% job security and with his / her generous pension, sick days, generous holidays and coffeee breaks etc - is so much better educated than the average worker that they deserve that salary and perks ? Come off it.

Any ESB workers I know are not highly educated and yet are relatively exceptionally very well paid...and one of them is continually off on sick leave for one minor ailment or another - when he is not on holidays to the caribbean or on some training course. He admits himself its a very easy number.

Rabbit- you mentioned the civil service in the previous post- and I replied to it .

And The salary is not 103,000- that is total staff cost per head which is something different.
jd

ps I don't work in the civil or public service.

 

[rabbit]

And The salary is not 103,000- that is total staff cost per head which is something different.

OK Apologies. The point is still largely the same. " So the average worker in that electricity generating plant - who each costs € 103,000 in salary and taxes to employ - with 100% job security and with his / her sick days, generous holidays and coffeee breaks etc - is so much better educated than the average worker that they deserve that salary and perks ? Come off it.

Any ESB workers I know are not highly educated and yet are relatively exceptionally very well paid...and one of them is continually off on sick leave for one minor ailment or another - when he is not on holidays to the caribbean or on some training course. He admits himself its a very easy number."

​

 

[rabbit]

I don't work in the civil or public service.

But maybe you are employed there ? LOL

 

[jdwex]

But maybe you are employed there ? LOL

.

 

[RainyDay]

Thats the problem. Too many people put up with the civil service mentality of paying themselves much higher salaries than the average industrial wage, and too many people willing to put up with paying our electricity prices which are much higher than most if not all other countries.

You seem to be making more assumptions that an ESB engineer has tea breaks. I didn't make any comment on what I'm willing/not willing to put up with. I was simply pointing out the gaping holes in the so-called case for the prosecution.

 

[rabbit]

You seem to be making more assumptions that an ESB engineer has tea breaks..

The point is not about tea breaks. If only the only difference between the public and private sectors was tea breaks. I wrote " So the average worker in that electricity generating plant - who each costs € 103,000 in salary and taxes to employ - with 100% job security and with his / her sick days, generous holidays and coffeee breaks etc - is so much better educated than the average worker that they deserve that salary and perks ? Come off it. "

I didn't make any comment on what I'm willing/not willing to put up with.

None of my business what you are willing / not willing to put up with. However, should someone in the country not say stop to our escalating electricity prices, amonyg the highest in the world ? It is contributing to our uncompetiveness. If our manufacturing industry rewarded themselves with the same pay and conditions as the ESB workers they would not last very long on the world stage. Should our electricity workers not put up with the same pay and conditions as workers in other sectors / other industrialised countries ?

 

[RainyDay]

However, should someone in the country not say stop to our escalating electricity prices, amonyg the highest in the world ? It is contributing to our uncompetiveness. If our manufacturing industry rewarded themselves with the same pay and conditions as the ESB workers they would not last very long on the world stage. Should our electricity workers not put up with the same pay and conditions as workers in other sectors / other industrialised countries ?

Wouldn't it be interesting to see a comparison of the impact of the rise in electricity prices against the rise in house prices, and assess their respective impacts on our competitiveness or otherwise? Or maybe we should compare the impact of the rise in car prices on our competitiveness? The 'free market' isn't a perfect world, and certainly isn't a panacea for all our ills.

 

[rabbit]

Wouldn't it be interesting to see a comparison of the impact of the rise in electricity prices against the rise in house prices, and assess their respective impacts on our competitiveness or otherwise?

Thats clouding the issue. It is true however that everyone involded in the construction industry in Ireland has to pay some of the highest priced electricity in the world, but the now very high wage bill in the public sector is not the sole reason for our price bubble in the property area.

The 'free market' isn't a perfect world, and certainly isn't a panacea for all our ills.

Nobody said the "free market" is a perfect world. However, there is nothing free about a select group of workers in a monopoly situation holding the country hostage, as they did during power strikes in years gone by. Electricity workers costing an average of € 103,000 each in payroll costs per annum is certainly not a free market. They must be the highest paid electricity workers in the world. No wonder our ESB bills are so high and ever increasing. No wonder multinationals are complaining about our economy becoming uncompetitive.

 

[jdwex]

OK Apologies. The point is still largely the same. " So the average worker in that electricity generating plant - who each costs € 103,000 in salary and taxes to employ - with 100% job security and with his / her sick days, generous holidays and coffeee breaks etc - is so much better educated than the average worker that they deserve that salary and perks ? Come off it.

Any ESB workers I know are not highly educated and yet are relatively exceptionally very well paid...and one of them is continually off on sick leave for one minor ailment or another - when he is not on holidays to the caribbean or on some training course. He admits himself its a very easy number."

​

The actual report is here
http://www.dcmnr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyre...6220DF2FC/26726/DeloitteReportOctober2006.pdf

From the report, the average salary in esb powergen is about 60k , compared to a sector average of about 50k. The issue is the disparity between these figures. Comparisons with "average industrial wage" are meaningless. They do mention a high level of overtime (near the end of the report), and poor operational efficiency of turbines-not surprising seeing as they are quite old

 

[Dipole]

I have to agree that the majority of the cirticism in this thread is based on ancedotal evidence.

Ajapale the majority of the input in terms of word count has come from Rabbit which was presented as anecdotal until challenged on it when he presented examples from personal experience
Practically all the other posters who contend that the public sector doesn't provide good service to it's customers were speaking from personal experience, not what they heard down the pub.
Read the thread again.