OV9

ZedLeg wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 8:56 am Obviously coming from my left wing commie echo chamber but it looks like Mick Lynch had a good day making the press look silly yesterday.

Yeah, I saw a few snippets. He was quite comfortable telling people they were liars, to their face, on national television (and pointing out what they were lying about - sometimes very obvious stuff like when negotiations were ongoing and not, etc) and them pointedly and specifically not refuting that, and instead trying to talk away from the subject.

A Bad Look for the Tory backbenchers wheeled out to go up against him.

Saw the interview with Kay Burnley if that's what everyone is referring to? Wasn't impressed with either of them to be honest.

ZedLeg wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 3:47 pm Unions are good actually

I accidentally clicked on the start of this thread instead of the end and this post gave me a Student Grant flashback. Actually.

Student Grant is right actually

duncs500 wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 10:23 am Saw the interview with Kay Burnley if that's what everyone is referring to? Wasn't impressed with either of them to be honest.

Literally any interview - most of them were looking for a gotcha soundbite, and he minced them. There's a Twitter thread compilation, let me find it...

Here we go

He's certainly no Len McLuskey

It really shows up how news presenters try and push people into the answers they want. When someone keeps calm and sticks to the facts they end up looking ridiculous.

And he certainly wasn't the person getting flustered...

Swervin_Mervin wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 2:32 pm He's certainly no Len McLuskey

Sausage on a fork.

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.

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.

It's been going on for hundreds of years. It will happen at some point, which is unfortunate for those workers affected. It's always going to be tricky to resolve. It's not great that they can use the power of strikes to protect those potentially unsustainable positions, but then I can well understand why they would.

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.

The retail unions are useless. There’s a massive shakeup happening at the supermarket where my wife works, which is going to end up with quite a few redundancies and medical pay offs, but the union is nowhere in site.

The only good use for the unions I’ve ever found is during disciplinary procedures. The amount of people I know who should have been sacked or given final warnings but couldn’t be because their employer hasn’t followed legal procedures is shocking

If you’re in the service industry you’re better to join a general union tbh. The industry specific unions don’t really have enough muscle to push at companies, as you say they’re only really good for making sure that individual rights are protected when companies try and take the piss. Which they do, a lot. Service industry businesses view employees as their most disposable asset and treat them as such.

jamcg wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:56 am The only good use for the unions I’ve ever found is during disciplinary procedures. The amount of people I know who should have been sacked or given final warnings but couldn’t be because their employer hasn’t followed legal procedures is shocking

That.

My teacher mate was union rep at his school for a while. He said it mainly consisted of defending people who were totally unsuitable as teachers and who should have been fired years ago.

Currently writing an article on food inflation as we're going to see a lot of increases over the next six months.

I've been looking back at lessons to learn from the last time inflation was so high, under the Labour government in the seventies. Soaring fuel prices were also one of the causes and unions were shutting down industry calling for higher wages, which essentially made things even worse for the country. I feel that time in the country's history may have given unions a bad name.

Aye, the winter of discontent and how the Labour government dealt with it definitely helped let Thatcher in. We all know how that worked out for the unions and British industry in general.