SIPTU: Private sector bosses biggest pay hike winners

Bosses in the private sector received pay hikes of around 40% in the last decade, the country’s largest union claimed today.

SIPTU said it wanted to dispel the lies and hate propaganda over civil servants’ wages and insisted managers in the private sphere benefited most from the boom.

Research chief Manus O’Riordan said average public sector salaries, when the pension levy is included, jumped 17.6% since end of 1998.

The union said the findings must help inform the crunch pay talks between Government and unions aimed at averting a second crippling nationwide strike.

“The purpose of this paper is to bring about a cool-headed discussion of the sacrifices that everybody has to make, but those best able to make it are those who have gained most,” Mr O’Riordan said.

“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.”

Mr O’Riordan said earnings for public sector workers, private sector manuals and financial sector clerical workers all failed to keep pace with inflation from the end of December 2005.

The top union officer said between 1999 and 2009, bosses in the private sphere saw salary gains of 32.8%, while bonuses pushed the figure to over 40%.

On average workers across the public sector saw a 26.4% hike in salaries, but SIPTU said that when the 7% pension levy came into effect in March, the increase dropped to 17.6%.

According to the research – Separating Fact from Fiction on Earnings: The Use and Abuse of Statistics – weekly earnings for private sector managers jumped from €1,047 in 2005 to €1,188 by the middle of 2009.

In the public sector the figure over the same period increased from €869-€973, dropping to €905 when the pension levy kicked in.

Pay for manual workers in private industries increased from €607 to €639.