29 July, 2014

Dear Sir,

So, the civil service union insider suggests we spend more money and dig a deeper hole in Bermuda’s finances rather than hurt his members.

As a former union representative I sympathise with his position but after eight years of the civil service blindly carrying out the tax and spend then tax, borrow and spend policies of the former Government, and accepted the influx of thousands of new employees into their ranks, which eventually led Bermuda into the worst economic crisis we have ever been in, my sympathies are not overwhelming.

The number of government employees needs cutting back by at least 25 percent, or the costs reduced by that sum for us to stand any chance of digging ourselves out of debt.

As a self-employed person in the private sector my tax dollars of late have been largely spent paying for the international loans to pay a bloated civil service with an overall reputation of low productivity and poor accountability.

There are good civil servants and bad and the former know who the ones are that can take an entire day doing next to nothing and then take the next day or two off sick because of the stress.

The union insider says there has been little shared sacrifice. I know of many locally owned companies that have really suffered during the downturn, none that have prospered.

Private sector employees see their hours cut, not by seven hours a month but by seven hours a week and more, health benefits have been cut and pay slashed not by a paltry 4.6 percent but by 25 percent and more to try and retain employment.

The number of unemployed in the private sector is testament to the fact that the current Government cannot continue to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars every year simply to keep the civil service overstaffed and under worked. Government needs that money to grow the economy, not civil servant bank accounts.

We voted in the One Bermuda Alliance to make changes that would be painful to all in the short term, but up until now, despite the symbolic one day a month furlough, government employees have no idea what it is to really suffer financially.

It is time for Government employees to truly share the financial pain suffered by the people who pay them.

FORMER UNION MAN