Actually if the incessant IBEC PR machine is to be believed “ sure your lucky to have a job” then you would be paying to stay in work…. On hang on with all the new taxes, household charges etc you already are.

IBEC and ISME….Every day you have ISME Chief Executive moaning about the cost of paying staff…..No fear the directors and Chief Executive of both these bodies dropping their wages

Would you rather be working for 10% less at the business that currently employs you or have it go bust because they couldn’t get their costs down and you ultimately getting nothing? Serious question, would you rather 90% of what you were previously earning or 0% (ignoring social welfare for the sake of argument)?

Because as it stands, there are a lot of laws that forbid the favourable option from above being carried out, thanks to our social partnership days. No one is saying that we should go back to the 1800’s Britain or slavery, but a bit of common sense is needed.

Neither the trade unions or the employers’ organisations should be completely running the show.

@Glynn

Well it’s kind of difficult to argue with IBEC’s line there, we are in a bit of a crisis here if you haven’t noticed.

@Martin

A lot easier to drop the directors’ salaries when they’re not unionised or protected by social partnership laws. The reason they “moan” is because in the case of a lot of their workers, it is in fact illegal.

So maybe government, which owns the ESB (highest paid electricity workers in the world), CIE (per passenger KM costs 4x higher than Scotland), sets the VAT rate and is imposing all round higher charges ought to take a slim pill?

It’s hard to be competitive when you have high rates of pay, raw product and transport Is to expensive. Apart from that the retail giants are really ripping us off. One product that costs €2.38 to produce and deliver and has a retail price of €11.99. I am not going to give the product name or company. My wife works for the company and if identified retail company could refuse to deal with her company and would put 60 jobs at risk.

As i said it’s my wife’s job not my company so I don’t know the running cost. She is paid €13:25 an hour and is looked after very well by her bosses. The factory does not want to punish the staff who work very hard to get there job done.

I agree seamus…You never hear IBEC or ISME complaining about the high cost of electricity,transport,tolls,insurance,rates, their salaries etc etc .I cannot remember when Mark Fielding last actually focussed on the elephant in the room the high costs other than labour that are contributing to the overall barrier to doing business.ibec and isme take the easy route blame the wages of the people employed and not the high costs inposed by government and local authorities….Never ceases to amaze me when ibec and isme go on about sunday premium rates yet across europe they dont have this problem as they dont open on a sunday..

You’re wrong there @Martin.

In the past they’ve gone on about the transport network, electricity costs, broadband speeds in the West, upward-only rent contracts (think that might be the preserve of ISME more than IBEC), defence of the corporation tax rate from Europe… And a pile of others that escape me at this minute.

Fact is there a lobby group and if they didn’t lobby effectively on all the issues affecting their members, their elected leaders would be removed and replaced with those who would. Just like a Trade Union.

Unfair to misrepresent the organisation that represents over 800,000 jobs as the evil bogey man out to eat your payslip.

Guts of the rant over, but since when do businesses not open on Sunday? It’s not the fucking 50′s any more!

Eh, “Towards 2016″ ring a bell? “Program for Prosperity and Fairness”? JLC’s maybe?? We were massively overpaid, and still are in a lot of sectors. We pushed up the costs in this country, we caused “Rip-off Ireland” and now we’re dealing with the consequences of a weak FF government pandering to SIPTU/ICTU and poor lobbying by IBEC/ISME when our goods are too fucking expensive for anyone in their right mind to buy them abroad.

Like it or not, we’re an uncompetitive economy and we need to sort that out urgently.

Earth. Planet Earth. Specifically Ireland. But let me give you some facts about the world which I inhabit (not sure I can say the same for you).

You inhabit the same world as China, therefore you compete with them. Like it or not. Restricting fundamental EU rights of everyone from outside Ireland just so you can remain overpaid isn’t going to happen, my “friend”.

The tax intake from low-paid workers would be higher than the tax from the spurious number you quoted up there (according to ICTU, it was 14), simply because there are so many of them. Therefore, they are a priority. A lot of these millionaires (technically) live abroad too, and it’s very difficult to force them to declare residency without violating their human rights and/or EU law – and that would be a ridiculously dangerous precedent to set for everyone else in this country.

Also, learn the difference between “tax avoidance” and “tax evasion”. Former is legal, latter is not. People making use of loopholes for the purposes of tax avoidance is the fault of those who wrote those laws, i.e. the Oireachtas. Lobby them, I’m sure they do care about revenue lost here (not being sarcastic).

A worker should be allowed work for as long as he/she likes, provided they’re not being coerced into it. We don’t need a Nanny State to tell us what we can and can’t do.

Irish Ferries – one company. One solitary company. Can you name another? Well I can quote a statistic of 3 business per day going under last year, citing labour costs. 3(365), if you have a calculator handy do the sums there, it’s not a pretty sight. One things for certain though – 3(365) > 1.

Whatever about the PPF, T2016 (agreed in 2007, just before we hit that economic iceberg) was the final nail in the coffin of our competitiveness. There’s no arguing with that, I know myself first hand.

Open your mind, Seamus. The world isn’t exactly as described by your Trade Union masters.

So, in short, you’re wrong.

Irish ferries ring a bell .

Seamus irish ferries that is the exception. Can you not realise if business don’t make a decent profit them they go out of business and sack all their staff.

Apart from ESB, Bord Gais and BnM (and a very few other minor items/companies) every single other cent in this country is generated by private firms.

Think of it this way, a private firm not only pays the wages of its staff but contributes to the wages of public sector works, pensioners, dole dependants, children, etc…

This is not a bashing public sector rather than pro business, and in fact it’s possible to be pro business and pro public sector at the same time.

The two figures I quoted? OK then, allow me to provide my rebuttal before I stop bothering with some ignorant union devotee.

The number of millionaires who didn’t pay tax – got that number from ICTU’s chief economist Paul Sweeney. If I’m wrong, then the people that decide what your opinion is going to be, i.e. your union masters, are wrong.

3(365) [as in 3 {number of companies that went under last year} multiplied by 365 {number of days in the year}] – number quoted from above comment, also something I’ve heard frequently.

I’m not going to bother debating with you any more because frankly, no one takes your opinion seriously. Especially seeing as you can’t construct a paragraph or any form of structured argument. You say the same things over and over, regardless of what responses have proved your claims wrong. You’re extremely narrow-minded, with the standard Irish “begrudge those who have it better than me” mentality, no matter whether they’ve earned it lawfully or not. You’re racist towards migrant workers with the South Park “They took our jobs!” attitude, yet blame the migrant workers themselves for your own attitude.

Generally speaking, I find your attitudes disgusting.

I suggest you get back into education.