Public sector workers are right to feel pissed off that their pay and pensions are in the cross hairs, at a time when there has been nauseating gravy trains at the Ceann Comhairle’s office and at FAS while three quarters of State sector CEOs have failed to make voluntary pay cuts. But if there’s one thing that’s also pretty clear from programmes like RTE’s Frontline last week is that a substantial rump within the union movement are hiding pay and pensions segregation behind a curtain of indignation and anger. They call for leadership but show none themselves by engaging in the politics of denial and by shooting messengers.

They appear to live on the other side of the wardrobe, in a Narnian world where pay levels can’t go down, pensions can’t be capped and there is a golden printing press oozing cash. That the real economy is on a collision course with bankruptcy and social welfare recipients face savage cutbacks, matters little when you a segregationist. That’s for them out there, it’s their problem let them fix it, just say no. If that sounds familiar you heard it before from others that desperately fought to maintain segregated systems and the power that comes from them.

• Rather than accepting the recent results from the ESRI using standard international science in measuring rates of pay that expose a 20% gap in favour of the public sector, the segregationists insist the comparison is flawed because it relies on age, experience and education rather than job content. This is daft economics and is the language of denial.
• The quadrupled public sector pensions liability of €101 billion calculated by the Comptroller and Auditor General using actuarial science is dismissed by relying on this year’s cash payout from the pay- as- you- go system despite the fact this method of calculating pension liabilities is illegal in the private sector because it creates the dangerous mirage that future pensions can be afforded. Add pensions to the pay gap and it doubles to well over 40%. Economics call this an imbalance. I call it apartheid.
• Eurostat data shows the alarming degree we overpay public services but it’s ignored by claims that like for like comparisons to Ireland aren’t fair because it’s more expensive to live here! That prices have fallen by nearly 6% and that most domestic price inflation up to the bust corresponded with accelerating public pay hikes are ignored.
• Based on 2006 data, Teachers in Ireland averaged €52 grand, ( now €60k). That’s 44% higher than the Euroland average of €36k and well above big economies like Germany at €42k, Britain at €41k and France at €34k. Health and Social workers in Ireland averaged €46k that’s 45% above the Euroland average of €38k and well above high cost economies like Sweden at €35k. The averages for Germany and Britain were similar at €34k and €38k respectively. The gap on public administration salaries is lower, but at €46k Ireland’s is still 21% above the Euroland average. The gap for politicians pay and pensions remains unadjusted despite promises to benchmark down to similar economies.

Unless you live in Narnia, no matter where you turn these truths keep popping up. We’ve simply been overpaying ourselves and we can’t afford to do so any longer. This year’s deficit has worsened and is now heading towards €30 billion in the red. That means we’re now paying half our bills on the national credit card. Going on strike won’t make that fact go away, it will just make it worse by increasing our extra borrowing cost which is already running €400 million per year above what it should be. Pay has to be cut and pensions capped, that’s the ugly truth. Lower paid workers on less than the average industrial wage need to be protected but progressively higher pay cuts have to be implemented, ideally within a new framework that includes a national recovery strategy.