Public Sector Strike

The question: If you were a public sector worker, would you be for a strike?

Consider:

Your pay hike is declined, but ministers get enormous increases.
You get shouted at daily, after the government wastes R400million on a system that does not work.
You, as a policeman, get shot at daily, but are too scared to draw your weapon in case you get jailed.
The hospital you work in has no money for soap.


If I worked in the public sector, I would be painting my sign board instead of writing this.

Only public servants can strike for a 12% salary hike...I got a 3.8% hike for this year...and I actually do some work (well, in between this myADSl, and lots of coffee, and chatting on the e-mails, and surfing for porn )

Bageloo said:

...I got a 3.8% hike for this year...and I actually do some work (well, in between this myADSl, and lots of coffee, and chatting on the e-mails, and surfing for porn )

Click to expand...

Which again goes to show that almost any two people will have at least one thing in common.

Moederloos said:

Which again goes to show that almost any two people will have at least one thing in common.

Click to expand...

I'm sure you are not talking about MyADSL....,that much is obvious

Sopme of them do not have the choice. Strike or die

I actually work for the public sector. Im quite two ways split on the demands of the unions.

I'd lub to get a nice fat increase. I'd quite happily settle for a 8% increase(bite me, I do 4 ppl's work so i think im entitled).
One side that no one really notices is that the plebs salary packages are quite out of whack with the work that they have to do.
I recently got offered a salary at a private company almost twice my salary almost that I am currently getting, but i refused since I really feel that I can make a difference(plus they let me play around with sql server 2005 here helping me get more experience that I can apply later in other jobs which I wouldn't have had if i left the service) and I quite like the enviroment that Im working in at the moment.

Other demands that the unions made that I really disagree with is the unlinking of salary increases with performance apparaisal. The way it currently works is that if you score a "satisfactory" score on your annual performance then you are eligible for a normal salary up notching. Now what the unions want is that requirement for "satisfactory" is taken away and that everyone gets the increase automatically. This is not a good thing obviously since how do you incenticise your staff to be better and improve on their service delivery.
Though i do feel that some key sectors really need to get a huge increase in salary(cops, nurses, social workers). These are the people that take care of us as a society. Plus if you pay someone a decent salary then their less likely to take a bribe or be dishonest(imho).

Oh and another thing is that the unions want to reduce the salary notches in a salary level that are currently in place.
I think we have about 16 salary ranges that a person can get. I have in the past have had increases were it actually only increased my salary with about R50 pm after the notch increase.

Not nice.

I hope they strike and the gvt is brought to its knees.

@ marine1. Honestly why would anyone want that? The point of a strike is not to cripple but to show solidarity for a cause.
Case in point being of salaries for public servants not being on par with outside private instition offerings.

Remember goverment has quite a large problem with filling posts with capable and proficient people since their salaries are never as good as what the private sector can offer.

For instance. I read a little article during the week where experienced nurses with quite high qualifications were leaving public service to go work rather overseas as basic nurses for the simple reason that the salary of a basic nurse there was quite substantially higher than what they were getting here with a crap load more work/responsibilities.

If you don't fill posts with capable people and rather settle for what you can get you end up with poor service delivery and people not motivated to work.

armitage said:

I actually work for the public sector. Im quite two ways split on the demands of the unions.

I'd lub to get a nice fat increase. I'd quite happily settle for a 8% increase(bite me, I do 4 ppl's work so i think im entitled).
One side that no one really notices is that the plebs salary packages are quite out of whack with the work that they have to do.
I recently got offered a salary at a private company x2 my salary almost that I am currently getting, but i refused since I really feel that I can make a difference(plus they let me play around with sql server 2005 here helping me get more experience that I can apply later in other jobs which I wouldn't have had if i left the service).

Other demands that the unions made that I really disagree with is the unlinking of salary increases with performance apparaisal. The way it currently works is that if you score a "satisfactory" score on your annual performance then you are eligible for a normal salary up notching. Now what the unions want is that requirement for "satisfactory" is taken away and that everyone gets the increase automatically. This is not a good thing obviously since how do you incenticise your staff to be better and improve on their service delivery.
Though i do feel that some key sectors really need to get a huge increase in salary(cops, nurses, social workers). These are the people that take care of us as a society. Plus if you pay someone a decent salary then their less likely to take a bribe or be dishonest(imho).

Click to expand...

Ironically, I'm leaving the bank for a public service job. It pays way more...
Before this I'd scored 3 offers from private companies and none could match my salary demand...the better part is that government advertised the job at the salary level I wanted and I did not have to negotiate for it.

This appraisal link to salary increase thing does not work very well as it's very subjective and not very transparent. If your boss does not like you...it's tough sh*t for you, you get nothing as he decides on your rating.
I have never heard anyone employee that was happy with it. The worst part is that last year I got 4.5% increase in spite of a very good perfomance rating of B+. I complained and was given 20% more only to find that the following year I would get 3.8% despite having achieved a similar rating. I just couldn't beg for an increase again hence I decided to leave... This just goes to show that the system favours only those with big mouths and those who socialise with boss...