The Cedar Lounge Revolution

The Irish Independent talks about the public sector and the private sector… and uses some polling data. Let’s investigate further. May 13, 2009

Okay, reading an article from this week in the Irish Independent where it was suggested that: €250m pay bonanza for 340,000 in civil service, on foot of annual pay increments I was intrigued to see the following.

The perception of a pay freeze and the pension levy hitting public sector workers stands in stark contrast to the reality of state employees in permanent, pensionable jobs.

They are still seeing their gross salaries increase because the Government is allowing them to receive increased pay purely on the basis of time served.

So a pay ‘freeze’ in the public sector does not mean that workers stay on the existing salary — unlike the situation for thousands of private sector workers, many of whom have actually taken deep pay cuts.

A recent survey by Lansdowne Market Research found that three quarters of private sector workers had agreed to take an actual pay cut to protect their jobs. Fine Gael last night repeated its call for the pay scales to be actually frozen for the duration of the economic downturn.

It’s always worth researching the data used in the Independent, and here I have to admit I was a bit stumped.

I wasn’t able to find a Lansdowne Market Research survey that came anywhere close to substantiating that figure.

What was on the LMR website was the overall information from a survey carried out in the aftermath of the Budget entitled “Public Sentiment After the Emergency Budget”.

Now, it is of course possible that the original LMR survey was finessed to deal with such matters, but it doesn’t say so and neither does the report from April 21st. Which makes the proposition that 3/4s of private sector workers taking the supposed wage cuts quite an interesting one all told. Isn’t it more likely that that figure includes both public and private sector. It’s methodology is as follows, and it’s worth noting that no quota is mentioned as regards occupation:

Interviewing was conducted between 14th – 17th
of April 2009 amongst a nationally representative
sample of 1000 aged 15+ via telephone. Quotas
were placed on gender, age, social class and
region. The estimated margin of error is +/- 3.2%
at 50% with 95% confidence.

It’s worth a look if you’re interested, but the significant information for me was as follows. Under the heading “Few households have escaped the impact the recession is having on companies and organisations” it notes the question: Which, if any, of the following have happened to you or someone in your household recently?

Had a pay cut in work – 53%
Had a pay freeze in work – 37%
Employer has cut working hours – 34%
Made redundant – 26%
Any of the above 75%.

Since there is no differentiation between public and private sector in the methodology, and we must assume the survey is representative it’s reasonable to argue that the 53% includes both public and private. One must also presume that it incorporates the pension levy and – perhaps – other levies imposed since last year. It must also incorporate the public sector wage freeze.

And indeed this is the line that is taken in a previous piece in the Irish Independent from April which reports on the findings of the survey.

THE recession is hitting hard, with 53pc of Irish workers saying they have had to take a pay cut, according to a new poll.

And three quarters have had to accept a pay freeze, a cut in hours, or have been made redundant, the survey found.

Only one in 20 say they are better off now than a year ago, according to the field results of Lansdowne Market Research.

The 5pc who think they are better off represent a drop of more than half from the figure in January of this year (11pc) — and a massive collapse from the 27pc last September who felt their lives had improved.

And since that report (and the survey itself) uses precisely the same people as the raw material for broader opinions on the economy how could it be otherwise?

Government popularity has halved from the 2pc who thought they were going a “very good” job in January to only 1pc today. But the number thinking they have turned in a “fairly good” performance has risen from 8pc to 11pc.

Those rating the Government as “very poor” have risen steadily from 37pc last September to 48pc in January, and 52pc today.

The poll was carried out by Lansdowne last week, among a nationally representative sample of 1,000 people aged 15 and over.

But what of other surveys out there of just this topic? I’ll hesitantly refer to an Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association survey. Hesitantly because ISME is a lobby group and the survey was conducted amongst 400 such SMEs. The results ?

50% of companies introduced a pay freeze and 41% a wage reduction.

Even if we accept the accuracy of the figures yet again that’s a long way from 3/4s of private sector workers.

Perhaps there is some other survey that Lansdowne has conducted. But if so I can’t find any details of it either on their website or elsewhere in the media. I’d appreciate being pointed in the right direction if others know where it is. As it happens I’m not averse to the argument that increments should be frozen for a period of a year or even more (and it’s an interesting question as to why the government didn’t do so. Is that yet another area where ‘reasonable expectation’ has an impact?), although yet again the issue of the deflationary effects of such a measure concerns me.

Still, looking at the bigger picture, isn’t this all grist to the mill of a media eager to put worker against worker and ignore the reality that wages for all sectors are decreasing substantially. Private and public.

Meanwhile for an overview of some of the issues check out this …