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[Photo Galleries ][Polls Discussion ] Posted by Tuars on December 02, 2003 at 20:17:13: In Reply to: Benchmarking posted by Confused Ex-Pat on December 02, 2003 at 19:14:21: This is my understanding: When the Celtic Tiger was at is height incomes in the private sector were far higher than in the public sector so the public sector unions and the government negotiated a deal whereby public sector pay would be benchmarked against (or mathced with) private sector pay in return for improvements in productivity. It has been suggested that the requirements for productivity improvement were rather loosely defined and that many public servants are getting a pay increase without providing any measurable improvement in productivity or quality of service to the public. Also, if you were of cynical mind you could note that the public sector weren't clamouring to have their wages matched to the private sector when the arse fell out of the economy and pay cuts and job losses followed. Anyway in the heel of the hunt it looks like Fianna Fail made a poor deal with the unions and benchmarking will cost the country a fortune and the public will get a poor return on the investment. Fine Gael have sorted of suggested that the government should renege on the agreement (they say that payments should be put on hold for a while) but that would open up another can of worms regarding future agreements between the social partners.
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