Explosive Newt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:19 pm
I don't see how the railways can guarantee a pay rise and no job losses.
We're going to see this everywhere, if we're really, actually transitioning to a high skill, high pay economy: fewer workers doing more skilled jobs for more money, probably with greater automation. Or: we're not transitioning to such an economy and we persist paying people peanuts to do low skill jobs.
Lots of that. Although I don't think the "paying people peanuts" applies to many of the rail workers based on the salaries I have seen quoted.
Unions absolutely had their place in history, but IMHO that's where they belong now. In addition to employment law, company attitudes have also changed enormously. Companies want a healthy, happy workforce. They are flexible to peoples needs, include the workforce in some decisions (not all of course) and policy making etc etc etc. Look how many of us were highlighting to Beany that his previous employer was a long way from normal benchmark for this day & age.
Unions use "might is right" as a bullying tactic. I remember a friend who worked for a very large manufacturing organisation crowing at the grants they had extracted from the government via union threats, whilst I watched the small manufacturing company I worked for slip further down the tube. No grants or subsidies available for the small guys.
And the very fact that their jobs - as paid union representatives - are
entirely dependent on continued and ongoing tension/conflict between the the workforce and management/leadership is a major concern. If harmonious working is achieved - there is no need for these jobs. So they have a tendency (consciously or subconsciously) to create issues, turn mountains into molehills etc etc. I'm sure at times they correct some actual wrongs, but I suspect these are rather few and far between within the fog of distrust and disruption they perpetuate.
Meh.