Ušakovs Writes Half His "Private" Tweets During Working Hours?

The hourly rate set by Riga City Council for a councillor is 13.6 lats, and the council's regulations stipulate that a councillor is paid for 40 hours worked per month. Therefore a rank-and-file councillor can receive, at most, 544 lats "on paper" per month. Meanwhile, the mayor of the capital, his deputies and committee chairs are in an employment relationship with the municipality and receive a set salary [1].

Let us assume that Ušakovs is in a full-time employment relationship with Riga City Council (RCC). It follows that he has defined working hours - presumably from 9 to 17. Regarding his "presence" at work, his 2011 income declaration shows [2] that he received 17,204 Ls from the RCC, meaning that he cost taxpayers 2,645 Ls/month (calculated as the pre-tax amount), or 16.53 Ls/hour, or 0.275 Ls/minute. Assuming that composing a reply and writing a tweet takes 3 minutes - multiplied by the number of tweets written during working hours (~600) - this costs taxpayers 495 Ls/year. Such a sum would be proportionate, if only all Riga residents could enjoy this "private" service.

From an interview with the portal Diena, in response to a question about Twitter use, it became known that:

"This is my private (Twitter) account. But I use it very actively to communicate with Riga residents, responding to hundreds of questions and requests, providing concrete help in many cases," N. Ušakovs stressed to Diena.lv. At the same time, N. Ušakovs says that he has a free choice not to communicate with those people with whom he does not wish to do so [3].

Continuing the study already begun on the social portraits of two of the most prominent politicians on social networks, I offer a somewhat more detailed analysis of the RCC Chairman's social activities.

Objective: Does Ušakovs use his private Twitter account during working hours, and if so, how often?

1. Distribution by day of the week

values expressed as percentages

Conclusions: As can be seen, in 2011 Ušakovs was Twitter-active at the beginning of the week, most often on Tuesdays. In 2012, Twitter activity is observed on Tuesdays and Fridays.

2. Replies or tweets?

Conclusions: In 2012 Ušakovs has not changed his tweeting tendencies and devotes the majority of his tweets to replies. An increase is observed in 2012.

3. When does he tweet most?

Conclusions: Ušakovs' Twitter activity begins at 8 AM and ends shortly after midnight, with 6–7 hours devoted to sleep. The highest activity peaks are reached around 11 AM and 3 PM - a pattern unchanged over two years, except that in 2011 he also devoted considerable time to social communication at 10 PM.

4. Distribution by: working hours / outside working hours

Conclusions: The chart totals the number of tweets outside working hours, during working hours, and at weekends. Assuming working hours are Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, and weekends are Saturday and Sunday. We can see that some tweets are indeed written during working hours, and this trend is growing - in 2012, approximately half of tweets fall into this category.

5. Who are the lucky ones Nils corresponds with most often?

Conclusions: As the table shows, the "hundreds of Riga residents" mentioned in the interview with Diena are mostly journalists and people connected to politics or the media. Point 2 of the study shows that, to be fair, 2/3 of tweets are indeed devoted to replying to someone. However, a cursory review of the approximately 2,000 tweets written over these two years shows that city problems are rarely addressed.

References:

1. How much must a municipal councillor work? / LA - http://la.lv/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=360903:cik-daudz-jstrd-pavaldbas-deputtam&catid=72&Itemid=421
2. Ušakovs' income almost doubled last year / IR - http://www.ir.lv/2012/4/5/usakova-ienakumi-pern-gandriz-dubultojusies
3. Ušakovs blocks users he dislikes on social networks / Diena - http://www.diena.lv/latvija/politika/usakovs-socialajos-tiklos-bloke-sev-netikamus-lietotajus-13977816