‘That’s capitalism’ September 10, 2007
Posted by franklittle in Health, Ireland, Irish Politics, Trade Unions.trackback
Today’s Irish Independent reports that the HSE’s Brendan Drumm, whose combined salary/bonus package amounts to 400,000 Euros is to seek a pay increase. His package includes a salary of 330,000 with an annual bonus of up to 25%. He gets a car allowance and a pension of 25% of his salary.
Last week HSE health service managers, of which there are about a hundred, were revealed to be in line for bonuses of up to 20,000 Euros each.
Some of you may be familiar with the HSE from a recently announced freeze on recruitment, which is going to mean cutbacks in certain services in a number of hospitals, and a refusal to pay a decent wage to the nurses earlier this year because the HSE could not afford it.
There are times when the commentary a blogger could provide is so obvious as to be superfluous.
Thanks to the WSM’s Workers Solidarity for the stolen title.
“Thanks to the WSM’s Workers Solidarity for the stolen title.”
We charge a phrase license fee of 2cents per view. We’ll invoice you at the end of our next billing cycle (that’s capitalism!).
Where does capitalism come into this? Drumm is a paid member of the public service, no? It would be capitalism if he were the CSO of some form of private enterprise, but all he is simply an overpaid public servant.
All his salary proves is that we have a tight labor market with high salaries. And, maybe, it is capitalism after all. The expectations of public servants are over-inflated by the salaries paid to those who work in private enterprise (where accountability and results are much more stringently enforced by those who pay the bills).
I see where you’re coming from Eagle but it’s a rip-off of a column in the WSM’s publication where the greed and hypocrisy of the well-off are exposed. Yeah, we could get into an argument about whether as a public servant his vast wealth could be attributable to capitalism (I would strongly argue that it can be btw), but that wasn’t what I had in mind when I came up with the title.
“Drumm is a paid member of the public service, no? It would be capitalism if he were the CSO of some form of private enterprise, but all he is simply an overpaid public servant.”
He’s not really a public servant actually – he’s not a civil servant and his appointment was part of the process whereby private-sector management models were introduced into the health service.
You are also wrong to claim that the state bureaucracy is somehow not part of capitalism – a system which relies upon a pretty major state sector in all sorts of ways.
This is a terrible story, but don’t think such a preposterous situation couldn’t exist in a ’socialist’ society either.
It’s perhaps worth adding that you don’t have private firms over here and state organisations over there and never the twain will meet. They’re not just interwined, but they compete with one another for personnel andthey compete with one another for business, given that there is a permanent discussion as to whether functions should be privatised. This last, in particular, is why it is specious when people complain about salaries paid in public sector jobs (at any level) and then say that in the private sector, it doesn’t matter and is none of our business. It’s not just an entire hypocrisy, it’s an hypocrisy whose stated basis is without foundation.
Very true ejh.
I note that the HSE employs 100,000 people (65,000 directly). It’s a ridiculously large number, considering the state of the health service. A few of them are busy (too busy!) in casualty departments. But the rest of them…? There must be quite a few sinecures, and a lot of wasted effort.
And I’m [i]not[/i] saying privatize…
Drumm must be saying: “For misman–, I mean, managing such a large number of people, and keeping a lid (sort of) on the inefficiencies coming up to the general election, I deserve a large salary increase.”
A few of them are busy
Probably only a few. Probably only a few.