Lets hijack the fuel protest for a general drivers strike

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
61

Wheel Nut:
Let me ask my earlier question a slightly different way. Was Henry Ford a ■■■■ Supporter?

I ask these questions just to see where the bright ones loyalties lie, he said he is neither Fascist or Communist. So I found the newspaper where he gets many of his copy and paste ideas from, here is a sample from a good Marxist newspaper of the USA booming.

75 years ago: American workers continue sit-down strike wave

A new sit-down strike shut down all nine Chevrolet plants in Michigan and Ohio on April 2, 1937. A day earlier, on April 1, a number of sit-down strikes had broken broke out in General Motors owned or controlled facilities, resulting in the closure of other production facilities relying on striking plants. The strikes were provoked by the management refusing to deal with United Automobile Workers (UAW) union in accordance with the agreement struck between the two parties in March. Chevrolet’s parent company, General Motors charged the UAW with failing to control the workforce, citing some 30 wildcat sit-down strikes by GM workers since the provisional agreement to end the first wave of Flint sit-down strikes on March 12.

Important negotiations were also under way between the UAW and Chrysler, where a March sit-down strike had pushed the city of Detroit to the verge of a general strike. “The discussion, as might have been expected, turned on the ability of the union to continue to control its members,” the London Times explained. “Mr. Chrysler is well supported in his view that any agreement with the union, may be useless, since it appears unable to force its own members to comply with an agreement already reached with another company.”

On April 4, when representatives of the Chrysler car corporation complained about the activities of socialists within the unions’ ranks, CIO head John L. Lewis pledged to “purge” those activists. On April 8, the two sides reached an agreement that established the UAW as the official union of its members, but not all Chrysler workers.

The sit-down strike wave continued. “Reports of such strikes, great and small, come from all parts of the country, and with them stories of violence,” according to the Times. In New England on April 3 jewelery workers began sit-down strikes in Rhode Island. On the same day in Lewiston, Maine police ordered the arrest of 20 strikers held responsible for strikes in shoe factories in Lewiston and Auburn. Also on April 3, Ford workers struck in Kansas City, Missouri.

I think I’ve made the point that it’s the 1960’s that are the relevant years for the point I’m trying to make concerning the US economy of the 1960’s compared to the US economy of today let alone the British one.However Ford Motor Company wasn’t exactly working for the benefit of the Germans during WW2 and what happened during the 1930’s was probably more a reflection of the times than those misguided individuals involved in the actions of both the management side and the workers’ side in the disputes that took place then.

historynet.com/henry-ford-helped … fforts.htm

Although the Americans seem to have got a bit confused about the levels of German occupation in Southern France at the time which would probably have made it a bit easier when taking stuff from Switzerland to here via neutral Spain than going through Northern France and getting a ferry from Calais would have been. :open_mouth: :laughing:

However the fact is,just like the British car workers,the UAW’S members seemed to do a good enough job of turning out more and better cars than anything that was being done by the Germans during the 1960’s and into the 1970’s.The Mustang being just one example.But it’s no surprise that leaders like Callaghan,Reagan and Thatcher started blaming those same workers for all the problems caused by those leaders themselves and their governments’ own zb’d up policies. :imp:

62

kr79:
I want to buy a mark 1 ■■■■■■ van 150 quid tops.

£150 for the strut tops these days… :laughing: :laughing:

63

Good few years ago I bought a e30 bmw325i for 4k the bloke had a fully restored msk 1 ■■■■■■ rs2000 for the same money with hindsight I know which one would have been the better buy.

64

I believe someone tried to compartment the decades separately, when the reality has been a long progression of boom and bust.

The reason America grew an industrial base was the dumbing down of the jobs on offer, put a worker on a production line counting ball bearings and that is all he will know about, to counteract the boredom, give him just enough money to buy his own ball bearings, & he can count them, as a material thing.

The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work of this character. Therefore the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work.
Frederick Winslow Taylor

Americas economy grew from huge manufacturing bases using mass immigrant labour who had previously worked in cotton fields. Germany rebuilt their war ravaged country using cheap imported labour, this time the Turkish gastarbeiter. The UK carried on with this tradition with the cotton mills and the Windrush.

In many posts on Trucknet the biggest complaint is immigrant labour and Thatchers Britain, which are at two opposing ends. Margaret Thatchers policy closely followed Enoch Powells, it was a later labour government who flooded the job market with cheap ball bearing counters and NHS staff. It was Blair and Brown who sourced ball bearings from China and now we have lots of ball bearings but we don’t need as many counters as they come ready packed.

The ball bearing factories have closed down, but we have to keep selling the ball bearings, that is done from within the service industry, the ball bearing suppliers are in Britain, the telesales staff are now kept in Bangladesh and Bombay.

If hindsight were available, the natural ministerial successor to Harold Wilson should have been Margaret Thatcher and this thread would probably not have been written.

65

Wheel Nut:
If hindsight were available, the natural ministerial successor to Harold Wilson should have been Margaret Thatcher and this thread would probably not have been written.

Probably the best comment on this thread. I presume you mean in 1970 though, not in 1974 after Heath had made a balls of the whole job?

66

gnasty gnome:

Wheel Nut:
If hindsight were available, the natural ministerial successor to Harold Wilson should have been Margaret Thatcher and this thread would probably not have been written.

Probably the best comment on this thread. I presume you mean in 1970 though, not in 1974 after Heath had made a balls of the whole job?

Definitely. Heath should have stuck to choir boys, cabin boys and pianists! :stuck_out_tongue:

67

Wheel Nut:
I believe someone tried to compartment the decades separately, when the reality has been a long progression of boom and bust.

The reason America grew an industrial base was the dumbing down of the jobs on offer, put a worker on a production line counting ball bearings and that is all he will know about, to counteract the boredom, give him just enough money to buy his own ball bearings, & he can count them, as a material thing.

The man who is mentally alert and intelligent is for this very reason entirely unsuited to what would, for him, be the grinding monotony of work of this character. Therefore the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work.
Frederick Winslow Taylor

Americas economy grew from huge manufacturing bases using mass immigrant labour who had previously worked in cotton fields. Germany rebuilt their war ravaged country using cheap imported labour, this time the Turkish gastarbeiter. The UK carried on with this tradition with the cotton mills and the Windrush.

In many posts on Trucknet the biggest complaint is immigrant labour and Thatchers Britain, which are at two opposing ends. Margaret Thatchers policy closely followed Enoch Powells, it was a later labour government who flooded the job market with cheap ball bearing counters and NHS staff. It was Blair and Brown who sourced ball bearings from China and now we have lots of ball bearings but we don’t need as many counters as they come ready packed.

The ball bearing factories have closed down, but we have to keep selling the ball bearings, that is done from within the service industry, the ball bearing suppliers are in Britain, the telesales staff are now kept in Bangladesh and Bombay.

If hindsight were available, the natural ministerial successor to Harold Wilson should have been Margaret Thatcher and this thread would probably not have been written.

The fact is Thatcher did get in just 4 years later and the rest is history.

So now you’re re writing history to say that no German worker has worked on the Mercedes,BMW,or Ford Cologne production lines and all engineering jobs just mean counting ball bearings.The fact is most engineering jobs require to just as much,if not more,alertness and intelligence than most other jobs,regardless of wether it’s production line type job or not.However that still doesn’t mean that someone who’s cut out to be a truck driver still won’t find it grinding monotony wether that be working on a metal guillotine,folding machine,press,lathe or a milling machine or fabricating/welding/bolting/fixing bits to a vehicle that’s in production.I certainly don’t remember any immigrant labour whatsoever working on those jobs in the factory where I worked although there was one of the Windrush’s lot who was employed to drive the forklift which I viewed as a lot less zb motonous than working in the factory doing all those other jobs. :wink:

Somehow I think Frederick Winslow Taylor,Reagan and Thatcher wouldn’t have wanted to tell those ex Pontiac workers amongst others that their boring monotonous jobs were too dumb for Americans to be doing so we’ll give them all to the Chinese and Mexicans instead.But as you seem to support such bs maybe you should go there and tell them instead. :imp: :unamused:

youtube.com/watch?v=02eULOTP6CA

youtube.com/watch?v=K19S0z6K … re=related

However replace that idea of a successor to Harold Wilson with Shore instead of zb Thatcher and it would have been right.

68

just to carry on from carryfasts’ claims of who does run the country, this is surprising and a bit worrying
www. blacktrianglecampaign. org/2012/04/05/dlapip-reassessments-who-is-serco-video

69

del949:
just to carry on from carryfasts’ claims of who does run the country, this is surprising and a bit worrying

blacktrianglecampaign.org/20 … erco-video

Fixed that. :wink:

70

So back to the original post, and that was to hijack the fuel protest/come out on strike. We had the poster saying he wanted his wages upped to £15 per hr, and hasnt worked for the agency since…very clever…
In the 60s/70s there were strikes, we were all on the militant side, and were as ■■■■■■ off then, as we are today, but lessons were learned by everyone.

Where are the dockers today…
Where are the print workers today
They took on the bosses and lost, and most of the jobs ended up abroad.
So to today…who is going to be the brave heart and tell his boss he isnt working on protest day, who will follow his lead, when he is told where the gate is, and who will follow number 2 out of the gate, and so on.
Times have changed since the strike days of old, no one is as militant anymore, drivers dont even want to mix let alone join a strike together. The opportunity has been missed, when we had a chance to form/join a worthwhile union, who did ? Now drivers are mortgaged, in debt, struggling to make ends meet, and yet expected to down tools…no way…and dont expect it anytime soon…nice dream, but it aint gonna happen…and as for £30 grand a year, there are drivers on a lot more than that…so change jobs, by the way, i do agree that drivers should be on a decent wage across the board, but sometimes you have to climb ladders to get what you want, or at least sacrifice something in return.

71

dockers and print workers were a different kettle of fish altogether.
They were fighting against progress. i.e. containerisation and new printing technology
Drivers today would not, even if going on strike , be fighting against progress.

Driving remains basically the same job it has always been , albeit with a lot of the work involved being removed and it’s hard to see how progress could make any major changes…well not until the trucks follow signals in the road etc., or is radio controlled

72

Why is everyone talking about the 70’s and Thacher, the world is now a very different place, most of us work for multi national companies who want to pay us as little as possible and have no responsability for drivers, drivers are treated as just a comodity. The only way to lift standards and pay is to force the issue.

73

darren1000:
Why is everyone talking about the 70’s and Thacher, the world is now a very different place, most of us work for multi national companies who want to pay us as little as possible and have no responsability for drivers, drivers are treated as just a comodity. The only way to lift standards and pay is to force the issue.

Because Geoff always harks back to the 70’s and the great American dream when he posts something.

74

darren1000:
Why is everyone talking about the 70’s and Thacher, the world is now a very different place, most of us work for multi national companies who want to pay us as little as possible and have no responsability for drivers, drivers are treated as just a comodity. The only way to lift standards and pay is to force the issue.

if you want better wages for drivers, then stop being a driver, go and do something else. every man and woman of driving age roughly set the driver wages

of course companies want to pay as little as possible but enough to have the quality and lack of turn over that they are happy with. the same as you when you go shopping, some people buy the cheapest brands, some prefer to pay more with the notion of better quality

no responsibility for drivers? what do you mean by that?

drivers are treated as a commodity? in what way?

75

Carryfast:
The fact is Thatcher did get in just 4 years later and the rest is history.

So now you’re re writing history to say that no German worker has worked on the Mercedes,BMW,or Ford Cologne production lines and all engineering jobs just mean counting ball bearings.The fact is most engineering jobs require to just as much,if not more,alertness and intelligence than most other jobs,regardless of wether it’s production line type job or not.However that still doesn’t mean that someone who’s cut out to be a truck driver still won’t find it grinding monotony wether that be working on a metal guillotine,folding machine,press,lathe or a milling machine or fabricating/welding/bolting/fixing bits to a vehicle that’s in production.I certainly don’t remember any immigrant labour whatsoever working on those jobs in the factory where I worked although there was one of the Windrush’s lot who was employed to drive the forklift which I viewed as a lot less zb motonous than working in the factory doing all those other jobs. :wink:

Somehow I think Frederick Winslow Taylor,Reagan and Thatcher wouldn’t have wanted to tell those ex Pontiac workers amongst others that their boring monotonous jobs were too dumb for Americans to be doing so we’ll give them all to the Chinese and Mexicans instead.But as you seem to support such bs maybe you should go there and tell them instead. :imp: :unamused:

youtube.com/watch?v=02eULOTP6CA

youtube.com/watch?v=K19S0z6K … re=related

However replace that idea of a successor to Harold Wilson with Shore instead of zb Thatcher and it would have been right.

I don’t doubt an engineers job is more skilful than counting ball bearings, which I used as an example, not an actual job :open_mouth: . What I mean is that it is easier to keep them in the dark on a production line and feed them with fertiliser, than to expect every man and his dog to become the manager which has happened globally, we have had more chiefs then Indians to count the ball bearings. A man who fits doors to new cars will be the best you can find as a car door fitter. But he cannot build a car.

I didn’t say there were no Germans working in Stuttgart or Cologne because I knew several. I know three lads from Bestlog who were on the Ford production line and became bored and went driving for less money. what I said was that Germany used gastarbeiters to rebuild the place after the war because they were cheap.

My choice of Prime ministers would have been Wilson, Thatcher, Smith, and leave Peter Shore without portfolio or better still without a job. Didn’t Wilson compare him to Becket? Thomas, not Margaret :stuck_out_tongue:

76

Lots of lengthy comments but we still have the puncture and no idea’s yet how to fix it and no…a strike is not even a starter.I did suggest a long time ago when Labour and the Con.s were short of money that the RHA and the FTA who had the funds buy both party’s.The response from the RHA was that their members would not want their money wasted that way,noticed derv today at £1.55 expect a few wish our trade associations had more balls and business acumen.A lot of wise heads on here so come on…how do we fix the puncture…permanently.

77

Wheel Nut:

darren1000:
Why is everyone talking about the 70’s and Thacher, the world is now a very different place, most of us work for multi national companies who want to pay us as little as possible and have no responsability for drivers, drivers are treated as just a comodity. The only way to lift standards and pay is to force the issue.

Because Geoff always harks back to the 70’s and the great American dream when he posts something.

And I make no apology for doing it.The fact is the 1970’s were the identifiable turning point between two different worlds.Before then the Fordist type industrial system which was the backbone of the British and US economies and after the global free market which is just based on cheap labour.The US economy of the 1960’s was no dream it was reality and the peak of that former type system which was then gradually dismantled from the 1970’s onwards in favour of the latter.

It’s difficult to see how any workers in any of the remaining industries can keep the terms and conditions of the former type economy in the latter and that includes truck drivers.Because everyone’s wages are all interdependent on the spending power available in the economy in general.It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the spending power,in real terms, in the 1960’s US economy was a lot more than in the 2012 one.The same applies in regards to the British one.In the global free market economy the only way is down.

78

Carryfast:

Wheel Nut:

darren1000:
Why is everyone talking about the 70’s and Thacher, the world is now a very different place, most of us work for multi national companies who want to pay us as little as possible and have no responsability for drivers, drivers are treated as just a comodity. The only way to lift standards and pay is to force the issue.

Because Geoff always harks back to the 70’s and the great American dream when he posts something.

And I make no apology for doing it.The fact is the 1970’s were the identifiable turning point between two different worlds.Before then the Fordist type industrial system which was the backbone of the British and US economies and after the global free market which is just based on cheap labour.The US economy of the 1960’s was no dream it was reality and the peak of that former type system which was then gradually dismantled from the 1970’s onwards in favour of the latter.

It’s difficult to see how any workers in any of the remaining industries can keep the terms and conditions of the former type economy in the latter and that includes truck drivers.Because everyone’s wages are all interdependent on the spending power available in the economy in general.It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the spending power,in real terms, in the 1960’s US economy was a lot more than in the 2012 one.The same applies in regards to the British one.In the global free market economy the only way is down.

Can we have a “yawn” smilie as well as a thumbs up button?

79

Wheel Nut:

Carryfast:
The fact is Thatcher did get in just 4 years later and the rest is history.

So now you’re re writing history to say that no German worker has worked on the Mercedes,BMW,or Ford Cologne production lines and all engineering jobs just mean counting ball bearings.The fact is most engineering jobs require to just as much,if not more,alertness and intelligence than most other jobs,regardless of wether it’s production line type job or not.However that still doesn’t mean that someone who’s cut out to be a truck driver still won’t find it grinding monotony wether that be working on a metal guillotine,folding machine,press,lathe or a milling machine or fabricating/welding/bolting/fixing bits to a vehicle that’s in production.I certainly don’t remember any immigrant labour whatsoever working on those jobs in the factory where I worked although there was one of the Windrush’s lot who was employed to drive the forklift which I viewed as a lot less zb motonous than working in the factory doing all those other jobs. :wink:

Somehow I think Frederick Winslow Taylor,Reagan and Thatcher wouldn’t have wanted to tell those ex Pontiac workers amongst others that their boring monotonous jobs were too dumb for Americans to be doing so we’ll give them all to the Chinese and Mexicans instead.But as you seem to support such bs maybe you should go there and tell them instead. :imp: :unamused:

youtube.com/watch?v=02eULOTP6CA

youtube.com/watch?v=K19S0z6K … re=related

However replace that idea of a successor to Harold Wilson with Shore instead of zb Thatcher and it would have been right.

My choice of Prime ministers would have been Wilson, Thatcher, Smith, and leave Peter Shore without portfolio or better still without a job. Didn’t Wilson compare him to Becket? Thomas, not Margaret :stuck_out_tongue:

You had two out of three of your choices because Wilson got his way in sidelining Shore and gave us Callaghan instead and surely you should have been just as happy about getting the bonus of another Thatcherite (Blair) after the iron lady and all her followers,none of who were able to make any more sense,of the zb’d up system she’d created,than she could herself,either. :open_mouth: :smiling_imp: :laughing:

80

After reading some of the more defeatist attitudes of some drivers on this forum no wonder you are treated the way you are.
If everyone did what the “If you don’t like it, find another job” brigade ignorantly advised most of the workforce in Britain and the rest of the world be out of work. Then what would happen? ffs.