Skip to content
The Economy

PRIVATE SECTOR MANAGERS MADE MOST IN BOOK

A call for a more reasoned debate on the economy was made by SIPTU Head of Research, Manus O’Riordan, today. He was speaking at the launch of an analysis of wage trends since the late 1990s, with a particular emphasis on the period since 2005.

Entitled, ‘Separating Fact from Fiction on Earnings: The Use and Abuse of Statistics’, it shows that the largest single divergence in pay over the past decade has not been between public and private sector workers but between private sector managers and all other groups.

In the more recent period since December 2005 it also shows that while public sector workers had nominal pay increases of 12 per cent, managers in industry enjoyed increases of 13.5 per cent and manual workers received increases worth 5.4 per cent. However, when inflation and the pension levy claw back for public servants are taken into account, the only group to beat inflation are private sector managers.

“Most of the debate in the media in recent weeks has been governed by hysteria. In those circumstances the people under attack, in this case public sector workers, tend to react defensively and a rational debate is impossible,” Manus O’Riordan said.

“The problem is that unless we look at what has happened objectively and in some detail, we will not really know how we got into the present crisis, let alone devise a road map out of it. The purpose of this study is to look at the facts and establish what happened in the recent past.”

“We urgently need to replace the present debate on pay developments, which has been poisoned and bedevilled by both misrepresentations and misunderstandings, with a reasoned alternative that reflects reality. Otherwise it will not be possible to reach a sustainable consensus on how to deal with the crisis.”

Click on the link below to read or download the full Report


File icon  Separating Fact from Fiction (pdf, 670 kb)

Unpublished letter by SIPTU Head of Research, Manus O’Riordan, to Financial Times.

20.10.2009
Letters to the Editor The Financial Times Subject: STERLING AND THE RISING EURO Sir, Ralph Atkins reports (FT, October 14) that an increasingly concerned ECB has been moved to escalate its "verbal interventions" on the subject of dollar weakness. Fair enough, as far as it goes. As an Irish and European trade unionist I have even greater concerns about the job losses arising from such adverse exchange rate movements. But what planet does the ECB inhabit, if it cannot see the even greater economic havoc being caused by the elephant in the EU's own room?
Read Full Story...

RTÉ Radio debate on the economy with Manus O'Riordan, Head of Research, SIPTU

RTÉ Radio debate on the economy, chaired by Rachel English, had as its panel: Moore McDowell [UCD], Michael Mulcahy TD [FF], Andrew Doyle TD (FG), Lise Hand ("Irish Independent") and Manus O'Riordan (Head of Research, SIPTU).

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/latedebate/1254304.html

New Eurostat study shows that the minimum wage in Ireland is not “second best” in the European Union as recently claimed. Read “Updating the Facts” by Manus O’Riordan, Head of Research at SIPTU.

04.08.2009

Read Full Story...

MINIMUM WAGE CALLS MADE AT SCHOOL DEDICATED TO WORKING CLASS CHAMPION

25.07.2009
The following letter was published by both the Irish Examiner and the Irish Times on July 25, 2009 If Dr. Peter Bacon and the Minister for Finance felt no sense of shame in seeking to undermine minimum wage protection, they might at least have had a sense of occasion at the bitter irony of making such statements at a summer school dedicated to the memory of Patrick MacGill, that "graduate" of Ulster's hiring fairs and Scotland's navvy camps. The school's own website boasts how, "as organised labour was becoming a force in the land, here was a powerful voice on behalf of the working class" who had himself shared its hardships, and it expresses pride in MacGill's "relentless criticism of the local merchant, the gombeen man".
Read Full Story...

POOR CAN’T PAY CAMPAIGN SAYS “NO TO MINIMUM WAGE CUTS!”

03.08.2009
The Establishment clarion cry for a cut in the minimum wage is based on an "analysis" which, if it exists it all, is decidedly faulty. The minimum wage was equivalent to €5.59 per hour when first introduced in April 2000. In the meantime, average industrial earnings for manual workers increased by 60 percent up to the final quarter of last year. If there had been a pro rata adjustment in the minimum wage, it would have been set at a level of €8.95 from this January.
Read Full Story...

REAL MINIMUM WAGE ALREADY CUT BY 4 PERCENT

26.07.2009
The following letter was published by the Sunday Business Post on July 26, 2009 The clarion cry from Dr. Peter Bacon for a cut in the minimum wage is based on an "analysis" which, if it exists it all, is decidedly faulty. The minimum wage was equivalent to €5.59 per hour when first introduced in April 2000. In the meantime, average industrial earnings for manual workers increased by 60 percent up to the final quarter of last year. If there had been a pro rata adjustment in the minimum wage, it would have been set at €8.95 from this January.
Read Full Story...

File icon  What to Make of Earnings Statistics? (doc, 93 kb)

In a comparative analysis of earnings data, SIPTU Head of Research Manus O'Riordan illustrates how CSO earnings statistics for all employees in industry, while technically precise, are giving a misleading impression of the rate of earnings increase for any one of their three employee category components, due to a significant change in the composition of the total work force arising from dramatic job losses among manual workers. He also demonstrates that, over the three year period from December 2005 to December 2008, private and public sector earnings have been moving in line with each other and have just matched inflation.

Statement on the Economic Crisis

19.01.2009
It is important that we analyse the economic crisis properly and respond to the challenge in a manner that best protects the jobs, pay and living standards of union members and workers generally. There is no point in under-estimating things. This is a global crisis on a scale that has not been seen since the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and its aftermath. It was correctly described in a recent editorial in the Irish Times as ‘… intrinsic to the very functioning of the capitalist system’. Tragically, the global problem has been compounded by the policies pursued here since 1997. These embraced the neo-liberal free-market model hook, line and sinker. The tax base was dismantled by cutting capital taxes and the higher rates of income tax dramatically in the interests of the well off. This was offset by shifting the emphasis from direct to indirect taxes such as VAT and stamp duty, thereby transferring the burden disproportionately onto the middle and lower income groups during the credit-led property boom which followed. When it evaporated, this left a gaping hole in the public finances.
Read Full Story...

File icon  Don't Bank on Squeeze (doc, 289 kb)

On December 4 SIPTU Research published its latest economic analysis in a document entitled “Don’t Bank on Squeeze, But Squeeze the Bankers!: Some Dos and Don’ts for Economic Recovery”. Click on the attached to read the full Research document.

File icon  "Economic Challenges - The Union Response" (ppt, 601 kb)

A presentation by Manus O'Riordan, Head of Research and Marie Sherlock, Researcher at the South West Regional Conference in Tralee on October 4, 2008

File icon  Don't Turn a Recession into a Depression! (pdf, 73 kb)

The roles of both consumption and investment in ensuring economic recovery

Don't turn a recession into a depression!

26.06.2008
SIPTU economists emphasise importance of both consumption and investment for economic recovery
Read Full Story...

SIPTU economist warns those calling for yet more wage cuts in light of rising unemployment to be careful what they wish

01.07.2009
SIPTU’s Chief Economist and Head of Research Manus O’Riordan has warned those calling for more wage cuts in the light of today’s rising unemployment figures that this will only drive the economy into deeper recession. Mr O'Riordan said that lobby groups and commentators who use the continuing unemployment crisis to repeat their now ritual calls for wage rates to be slashed were persisting in the pursuit of bankrupt policies. “They should be more careful what they wish for.
Read Full Story...



Previous and Next: Liberty |