Juddian:
Well i’m in a unionised job, every good job i’ve had and the current one is the best of all have been unionised, thats over a period of 37 years, my first job was unionised even then.
Yes unions have changed but on the shop floor level nothing has really changed.
The most important decison you will make as a collective is who is to be your spokesperson/shop steward, take time over that one for your majority terms and conditions are at stake.
A good steward has to wear two hats, one to negotiate strongly but fairly with the management, this means having the balls to stand up for whats right yet unable to be bought/bribed by being fed the right work to keep himself sweet.
The other hat is required to keep discipline in the ranks, once you negotiate (full sick pay for example) benefits then there is a sizeable minority too stupid not to take adavantage and milk the situation, which will eventually destroy the job from within.
This other hat is also needed to stop silly demands from ever reaching the ears of the management, you simply are not going to get a 20% raise in one hit combined with 20% reduction in hours, get real.
Choose a steward who is principled and has the majority of the members at heart not just themselves and their merry mates, i cannot stress this highly enough.
I’m really not interested in the political slant of the union bosses, they with certain exceptions are far removed from the workers they might once have been or presume to represent.
In many cases they have assisted the Blair govt in particular (the o present cabal no better) into unlimited immigration which has systematically and ironically destroyed millions of working peoples livelihoods, though they themselves like turkeys voted for their own Christmas and still do.
It is worth establishing a good union where you work, you only have to look at the RMT train drivers who have never allowed their jobs to be undermined like ours have over the last 25 years, they have stuck together and earn around £40/50k for a 40 hour week.
Oddly enough the companies concerned haven’t gone bust and they haven’t brought in thousands of often incompetent underskilled flip flops to take over as and where necessary because the union boss and his members put the members first, makes sense to me.
I have to agree with the above, It is a hard and thankless job being a shop steward .
You can’t please all the people all the time or for that matter you can’t please some of the people any of the time.
The trouble is that the working man is his own worst enemy , he fears retribution if you ask him to support you. I will say now that the majority are spineless cowards or to thick to know they have employment rights. They never look at or read employment law. I am sorry if I have hit a raw nerve but the truth always hurts.
I have been a steward twice, once in the seventies and the other a few years ago both times when I asked for support they all backed away. I am not what you could call a unionist, I only believe in that which is just and fair.
To prove my point ask people to look at and sign, you gov e-petitions and you will get the stock answer " They don’t do anything "
Final point, people should think for themselves and stop reading the tabloid press as this is the rich mans way of control in this day and age.
Juddian:
Well i’m in a unionised job, every good job i’ve had and the current one is the best of all have been unionised, thats over a period of 37 years, my first job was unionised even then.
Yes unions have changed but on the shop floor level nothing has really changed.
The most important decison you will make as a collective is who is to be your spokesperson/shop steward, take time over that one for your majority terms and conditions are at stake.
A good steward has to wear two hats, one to negotiate strongly but fairly with the management, this means having the balls to stand up for whats right yet unable to be bought/bribed by being fed the right work to keep himself sweet.
The other hat is required to keep discipline in the ranks, once you negotiate (full sick pay for example) benefits then there is a sizeable minority too stupid not to take adavantage and milk the situation, which will eventually destroy the job from within.
This other hat is also needed to stop silly demands from ever reaching the ears of the management, you simply are not going to get a 20% raise in one hit combined with 20% reduction in hours, get real.
Choose a steward who is principled and has the majority of the members at heart not just themselves and their merry mates, i cannot stress this highly enough.
I’m really not interested in the political slant of the union bosses, they with certain exceptions are far removed from the workers they might once have been or presume to represent.
In many cases they have assisted the Blair govt in particular (the o present cabal no better) into unlimited immigration which has systematically and ironically destroyed millions of working peoples livelihoods, though they themselves like turkeys voted for their own Christmas and still do.
It is worth establishing a good union where you work, you only have to look at the RMT train drivers who have never allowed their jobs to be undermined like ours have over the last 25 years, they have stuck together and earn around £40/50k for a 40 hour week.
Oddly enough the companies concerned haven’t gone bust and they haven’t brought in thousands of often incompetent underskilled flip flops to take over as and where necessary because the union boss and his members put the members first, makes sense to me.
I have to agree with the above, It is a hard and thankless job being a shop steward .
You can’t please all the people all the time or for that matter you can’t please some of the people any of the time.
The trouble is that the working man is his own worst enemy , he fears retribution if you ask him to support you. I will say now that the majority are spineless cowards or to thick to know they have employment rights. They never look at or read employment law. I am sorry if I have hit a raw nerve but the truth always hurts.
I have been a steward twice, once in the seventies and the other a few years ago both times when I asked for support they all backed away. I am not what you could call a unionist, I only believe in that which is just and fair.
To prove my point ask people to look at and sign, you gov e-petitions and you will get the stock answer " They don’t do anything "
Final point, people should think for themselves and stop reading the tabloid press as this is the rich mans way of control in this day and age.
Hear, hear, bloody hear. Exactly the same reason I used to be a steward, exactly the reason I try to dissuade people from reading tabloids/watching trash TV/having anything to do with supporting football teams/Fcb**k/etc etc etc. Ever since there has been more than one person on this planet, one has sought to control the other. People forget thet there is nothing new under the sun, all these media are just variations on a theme.
My union Usdaw got mne a few thousand back off the tax man and then I got a new tax code so I don’t pay as much tax as I did as well as my the subsidiaries I get through my company unions work if we are prepared to show solidarity remember 50% + 1 is all you need for a union to represent you all and sit down and discuss your terms and conditions you all need to be in the same union or two unions need to agree that one is the strongest and the will work on the others behalf if the tuc agrees
Or if the company (or it’s directors/investors) support a party you don’t, shop elsewhere!!! Simple.
If a certain company is involved in the supply chain of anything I want to buy, I don’t! They don’t have ethics or morals so they don’t have my business either.
drivergraham:
My union Usdaw got mne a few thousand back off the tax man and then I got a new tax code so I don’t pay as much tax as I did as well as my the subsidiaries I get through my company unions work if we are prepared to show solidarity remember 50% + 1 is all you need for a union to represent you all and sit down and discuss your terms and conditions you all need to be in the same union or two unions need to agree that one is the strongest and the will work on the others behalf if the tuc agrees
But how much would you have got if you had rung the tax man up yourself?
Slackbladder wrote:
'… why does part of your union subs go to the labour party…?
‘…mainly because … the fact remains that a viable opposition is essential to keep some control over the government … but when shopping you have no option if the company decides to donate to the conservatives…’
An amount of over £50 million/day is paid to the EU by all three of the (so-called) ‘main partys’ which explodes the myth that any of them really opposes the other two in any meaningful way; so a few coppers going to parties here or there is largely irrelevant
Real opposition to this undemocratic abomination would surely query the worth of the EU - which we have been promised a voice over (yeah, right) by the Tories
That’ll possibly happen in about three years time (yes, it’s a farce negotiated via Merkel et Le Frogs) on condition that they get in next time and carry on with their peeing on our democracy as per what was not agreed when the (Former) UK entered the hypnotically misnamed ‘Common Market’.
The Lib’s & Lab’s however don’t give a stuff or pretence to ask the electorate anything - because being in the EU suitably ascribes to their conjoined Marxist principles of not asking those who pay for their cop-out/junketting (ie, us)
If that’s right then they never would have been needed in the first place.I think the average worker’s standard of living and working terms and conditions would still be where they were in the 1920’s/30’s if it wasn’t for strong unions.No surprise that things are going backwards since the unions were weakened to the point of being as you rightly say useless now.However it’s that government policy of weakening the unions to that point that did it not the idea of unions.
Carryfast:
‘… things are going backwards since the unions were weakened to the point of being … useless now…’
I sadly agree and argue that my union - despite being numerically vast continues to weaken itself with every vitriolic distortion it presents.
I recently received my Unite Union magazine with seemingly every story spewing an anti-government sentiment: Nowt new there then
However, when workers (too often) get a bad deal, it’s often because the UK government is kow-towing to EU diktats - which ‘Unite - the Union’ too conveniently overlooks.
Eg., with privatisation of the Post Office being a pending ‘profit-only’ catastrophe instead of serving us a quality product, Unite are busy slagging off the current lot in parliament without a peep to acknowledge that privatisation of all EU postal systems is an EU requirement
Even though I spend/waste £3.33 per week on my Unite sub’s, I can see that since the Labour Party adores the EU and 21st century unions too blindly adore the trappy but clearly hypocritical Labour Party - how can such hypocrisy make unions even half useful as leaders of workers or ever be likely to achieve any meaningful strength with integrity
Happy Keith: However, when workers (too often) get a bad deal, it’s often because the UK government is kow-towing to EU diktats - which ‘Unite - the Union’ too conveniently overlooks.
Sorry mate this is incorrect as it is the privately owned IMF, World Bank/Federal Reserve Bank who dictates the national policy of any government.
Happy Keith: However, when workers (too often) get a bad deal, it’s often because the UK government is kow-towing to EU diktats - which ‘Unite - the Union’ too conveniently overlooks.
Sorry mate this is incorrect as it is the privately owned IMF, World Bank/Federal Reserve Bank who dictates the national policy of any government.
THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD-FOLLOW THE MONEY HONEY…so on that note it is worth tuning up the pressure on them to “STRIKE” a better deal for all us lorryists?
Happy Keith:
‘…However, when workers (too often) get a bad deal, it’s often because the UK government is kow-towing to EU diktats - which ‘Unite - the Union’ too conveniently overlooks…’
‘…Sorry mate this is incorrect as it is the privately owned IMF, World Bank/Federal Reserve Bank who dictates the national policy of any government…’
It matters not who may or may-not have pots of gold - and my point stands since the EU enables such fiasco under their devious guise
Unless one is a rabid pro-EU puppet, what’s the point in splitting hairs
it’s often because the UK government is kow-towing to EU diktats - w
these would be the same diktats that give you workers employment rights, holidays max working times and maternity pay etc.
Almost all employment rights are enshrined in EU laws, otherwise the current governement would have already abolished them.
Camerons latest blurb about cutting the red tape that employers face through EU legislation is a thinly disguised attack on those workers rights.
Whilst I am no way a Europhile, I do recognise that there are some benefits to being a member.
it’s often because the UK government is kow-towing to EU diktats - w
these would be the same diktats that give you workers employment rights, holidays max working times and maternity pay etc.
Almost all employment rights are enshrined in EU laws, otherwise the current governement would have already abolished them.
Camerons latest blurb about cutting the red tape that employers face through EU legislation is a thinly disguised attack on those workers rights.
Whilst I am no way a Europhile, I do recognise that there are some benefits to being a member.
That view would of course have to totally wipe from history the anti EU movement within,what was,the Labour Party and the fact that sector of the Labour Party ( rightly ) had plenty of support from within the unions.Also the fact that our membership of the EU originates from the alliance of the Wilson led Labour government and Thatcher’s support of Heath’s EU project.On that note just like Wilson,Callaghan and Thatcher,I don’t think the average German banker,or worker who the EU is really there for,gives,or gave,a zb about the fate of the average British worker.
The fact is the unions are (much ) weaker and have less rights to date since we joined the EU,than before we joined it and we didn’t need the EU for the unions to get us where they got us in the early 1970’s compared to the 1930’s and we don’t need the EU now just as we didn’t need it from 1973 on.The only way that the unions will ever be able to maintain workers terms and conditions is by fighting the employers and their cronies in the government,just as has always been the case throughout history.It’s no good relying on ze Germans who run the EU to do that for them because,as we’ve seen,it won’t work.
and we didn’t need the EU for the unions to get us where they got us in the early 1970’s compared to the 1930’s and we don’t need the EU now just as we didn’t need it from 1973 on.
I agree with the first part, but that was a time when we had full (or nearly) employment.
QWorkers could afford to take on the bosses as they ahd strength, not through the unions as such, more because workers were needed. We were still a manufacturing nation then.
As to wether we need the EU now, I disagree a bit.
If we ditch the EU then I am fairly certain that the likes of Nissan, Toyota and Honda will move to countries within the EU in order to maintain duty free exports to these countries.
I am equally certain that they will be offered big ‘incentives’ to move
This by no means alters my belief that the EU needs major and ongoing reforms to its financial structure and its political reach.
Given a referendum I would hope for the option " stay in but with massive immediate reforms".
or “stay in on the agreements voted for in the original referendum”, I.E. membership of the EEC, maintaining our own government and independance as regards our borders and benefits.
