DonutUK:
2 things have struck me from this discussion:
No wonder the pay & conditions for the vast majority of drivers in this country are poor, and with the cowardly, “i’m all right jack” attitudes displayed here, it will NEVER get any better. NEVER. Do all the epetitions you want, unless drivers can learn to stick together and support each other nothing will ever change.The employers know this, the government know this, and the unions know this. Which is why they continually worsen pay rates & conditions, do nothing to force employers to better conditions and why they aren’t interested in representing drivers, respectively of course.
God help us all when the Police go out on strike! I have no doubt the Army will be used to enforce law & order.
^^+1
It amazes me how so many drivers resign themselves to the way they are treated in the workplace.
Why do you put up with it?..and please don’t say you have no other choice. You have always got a choice. Even if it’s a last resort … join a Union…stick together…and be a strong workforce as you were in the past. If you do then eventually companies and governments will have to listen to and act on your grievances.
interlog:
What I was trying to say is, when you’re on a good number, you keep quite, very quite. You just get on with stuff and keep in the background.
It is not that they are expected to take a wage reduction now isn’t it?
If it’s such a ‘good number’ and terms and conditions aren’t being reduced then why the zb would anyone with any sense want to risk all that and blow all their wages by voting for strike action.Considering the general reliability and safety of the service the industry has provided so far they aren’t exactly a bunch of idiots who’d take such a decision for no reason.
Unless I’ve got it all wrong.
You see Carryfast, the problem is that the Germans ARE worth the money they get paid, they go out to work and do a high quality service for their employers (look at their car industry).
The Brits on the other hand (in the car industry were all called Daryll, Daryll do…) they thought they could sit on their arse all day, produce crap when they could be arsed to do anything and still get paid top dollar for turning up for the day. When the companies they worked for started losing money and needed to reduce costs the workers went on strike, hence no jobs.
I’ve now been in the trucking industry for a very few years, but see the same crap ideals from most of the drivers I meet, no wonder we’re being undermined by the foreigners they come in and do the same crap job as most of us and don’t expect too much money.
What we need is for British truckers to pull up their pants and start taking a pride in what we do, then we will see wages rise all round, not just for the tanker drivers.
In some countries, like the USA, the workers have virtually no role in management of companies, and in some, like Germany, their role is more important. The first serious co-determination laws began in Germany. At first there was only worker participation in management in the coal and steel industries. But in 1974, a general law was passed mandating that worker representatives hold seats on the boards of all companies employing over 500 people
Britain being what it is…run by Major Shareholders, Corporations, City of London Financial Institutions and their Super-Rich individuals… would fight such a concept. And it’s easy to understand why when you look at the simplest equation:
More wages for the workers = less profit for the lazy Fat-Cats. That is a No-No.
Simples.
Britain being what it is…run by Major Shareholders, Corporations, City of London Financial Institutions and their Super-Rich individuals… would fight such a concept. And it’s easy to understand why when you look at the simplest equation:
More wages for the workers = less profit for the lazy Fat-Cats. That is a No-No.
Simples.
I know I was just replying to Schrödinger’s cat to show him why Germans are so different.
interlog:
What I was trying to say is, when you’re on a good number, you keep quite, very quite. You just get on with stuff and keep in the background.
It is not that they are expected to take a wage reduction now isn’t it?
If it’s such a ‘good number’ and terms and conditions aren’t being reduced then why the zb would anyone with any sense want to risk all that and blow all their wages by voting for strike action.Considering the general reliability and safety of the service the industry has provided so far they aren’t exactly a bunch of idiots who’d take such a decision for no reason.
Unless I’ve got it all wrong.
You see Carryfast, the problem is that the Germans ARE worth the money they get paid, they go out to work and do a high quality service for their employers (look at their car industry).
The Brits on the other hand (in the car industry were all called Daryll, Daryll do…) they thought they could sit on their arse all day, produce crap when they could be arsed to do anything and still get paid top dollar for turning up for the day. When the companies they worked for started losing money and needed to reduce costs the workers went on strike, hence no jobs.
I’ve now been in the trucking industry for a very few years, but see the same crap ideals from most of the drivers I meet, no wonder we’re being undermined by the foreigners they come in and do the same crap job as most of us and don’t expect too much money.
What we need is for British truckers to pull up their pants and start taking a pride in what we do, then we will see wages rise all round, not just for the tanker drivers.
Absolute load of total bs and if you really believe all that then you weren’t there.What actually happened is that unlike the German Government Callaghan allowed Gavyn Davies and the bankers to dictate economic policy which was the total opposite to Fordism.Lower wages meant lower spending power which meant recession.Co incidentally exactly the same thing was said about American car workers during the 1970’s who only a few years previously had been producing more and better cars than the zb Germans even knew how to design let alone produce for the price.
As for the Germans v British workers the Germans would have won WW2 if it hadn’t have been for the British engineering industry turning out stuff like components for Merlin engines and the aircraft they went into.If British workers had actually been the lazy useless zb’s you seem to be accusing them of being around 30 years later then Hitler would have won.
But yeah right useless lazy British zb’s who turned out loads of Jags,Zephyrs,Zodiacs and Cortinas amongst others during the 1960’s just like American workers who’d been turning out Mustangs amongst others.Suggest you check out all the production numbers and sales of all those compared to the zb overpriced products that the Germans managed to turn out at the time and even into the 1970’s considering the (massive) price difference between something like a 3 Litre BMW compared to a V12 Jag.So what the zb was it that changed here and in the States in around the 10 years between 1965 and 1975 compared to zb Germany.Here’s a clue plenty of the same factories still employed plenty of those same workers at that time who were the same workers who were training up the new generation of British and American factory workers like myself.
In some countries, like the USA, the workers have virtually no role in management of companies, and in some, like Germany, their role is more important. The first serious co-determination laws began in Germany. At first there was only worker participation in management in the coal and steel industries. But in 1974, a general law was passed mandating that worker representatives hold seats on the boards of all companies employing over 500 people
It’s all about wages nothing more nothing less.The American economy made the German one look stupid during the 1960’s.Fordism in action.High wages = high demand = high employment=higher wages=higher demand.The Germans just copied what the US was doing and then the US lost the plot,like us in the mid 1970’s,in going for a ‘post’ Fordist economy.
Britain being what it is…run by Major Shareholders, Corporations, City of London Financial Institutions and their Super-Rich individuals… would fight such a concept. And it’s easy to understand why when you look at the simplest equation:
More wages for the workers = less profit for the lazy Fat-Cats. That is a No-No.
Simples.
I know I was just replying to Schrödinger’s cat to show him why Germans are so different.
Sorry mate I wasn’t having a pop at you. In fact I think Co-Determination is a good idea.
Germanys not so different and thing are changing for the worst as they try to compete with low wage economys.
The bleak picture some talk of this country and economy is not my experience. I find life hear in the uk very easy and would’nt want to live anywhere else as a lorry driver.
Sadly it’s even worse than that.
The majority of non supporters do not seem to actually claim that they are alright.
They mostly claim “I’m not alright and want to bring them down to my level”.
Not surprisingly after years of government indoctrination of the workforce from school age concerning those ‘bad’ old days of the 1970’s when the ‘greedy’ unions supposedly had too much power when it was actually more hours for less pay that was/is the right way to go.
pavaroti:
Germanys not so different and thing are changing for the worst as they try to compete with low wage economys.
The bleak picture some talk of this country and economy is not my experience. I find life hear in the uk very easy and would’nt want to live anywhere else as a lorry driver.
That’s because the ‘original’ idea of Fordism which is,like the US economy of the 1960’s,what put the German economy where it was,is based on high wages,being spent on goods,produced by the domestic industries not imports.There’s no need to import anything that can be produced domestically.Trying to compete with low wage economies is what is bringing the developed western economies down,both by reduction in wage levels,which reduces demand in the domestic economy,and the resulting trade deficits.
If you think that your personal easy life in the UK can continue in the long term you’re living in a fools paradise.The first thing that we need is a (very) large increase in interest rates to stop the situation whereby savers are effectively being taxed on the returns of their investments to subsidise low wage employment.Which effectively reduces those returns to less than inflation let alone a bit more.
Maybe your easy life wouldn’t look quite so easy then.
Germany had a good head start after the war when cleared of all debt unlike ourselves only just finished paying for the war. Also she has’nt had to pay for more war and fancy aircraft carriers. Germanys lavish welfare state is a more recent burden unlike ourselves.
The goodlife will continue I believe and will be better for our children.
pavaroti:
Germany had a good head start after the war when cleared of all debt unlike ourselves only just finished paying for the war. Also she has’nt had to pay for more war and fancy aircraft carriers. Germanys lavish welfare state is a more recent burden unlike ourselves.
The difference is after the war the mug British allowed the government to give what money we had left in the bank to Germany to re build their country while starving our own industries of cash.You’re right the difference in defence spending after WW2 didn’t help either.
However none of that explains the difference between where the British economy stood at the end of the 1960’s compared to where it was at the end of the 1970’s and during the 1980’s considering that North Sea oil wasn’t on line during the 1960’s and the even larger discrepency that applied in the US in those same years and then compared to the situation at the same points in time within the German economy.The fact is the British and American governments went for reductions in workers wages and terms and conditions and their domestic industries and then opened their markets to and bought massive levels of of cheap imported manufactured goods instead while the Germans didn’t.
Not surprisingly though you seem to have relied on the typical British idea of undercutting of social security provision as being a positive and the right way to remain competitive in a global free market economy in just the same way as that same British attitude apllies in regards to wages.
Whereas what’s needed is protectionism of domestic industry from cheap foreign imports thereby removing the pressure and the need for undercutting in just the same way that the tanker drivers are asking for equalisation of terms and conditions standards in the industry to stop the idea of one contractor winning work from another by cutting drivers incomes,terms,and conditions.
It’s a bit difficult to understand how it is that you could possibly think that the country will get richer,living standards improve and the economy grow by importing stuff that we can make for ourselves thereby producing a trade deficit and/or paying people less wether they are employed,sick,redundant,or retired thereby reducing spending power in the economy.
The fact is the British economy as it has stood since the mid 1970’s is the failed result of a change in economic ideology from that of a Fordist economy to a so called ‘post Fordist’ one and the greedy zb bankers won’t admit it because for them the change has meant more money while for the workers it’s meant less.
So obviously we got manufacturing right and the Germans got it wrong?
Don’t get me wrong I think this country ■■■■■■ up its manufacturing industry and went wrongly in the direction of “services”. The reason we went that way though was because the unions (and our lazy attitude to work) ruined it for everyone by being greedy. It gave Thatcher the excuse to ruin our industries and give more power to the fat cats in the financial sectors.
By the way New Labour were only slightly to the left of Hitler in their policies and as such who the hell should run this country? Definately not the Liberals as they would jump into the Euro with all our feet at the same time and ruin us even more.
So obviously we got manufacturing right and the Germans got it wrong?
Don’t get me wrong I think this country [zb] up its manufacturing industry and went wrongly in the direction of “services”. The reason we went that way though was because the unions (and our lazy attitude to work) ruined it for everyone by being greedy. It gave Thatcher the excuse to ruin our industries and give more power to the fat cats in the financial sectors.
By the way New Labour were only slightly to the left of Hitler in their policies and as such who the hell should run this country? Definately not the Liberals as they would jump into the Euro with all our feet at the same time and ruin us even more.
How the zb can the British have had the laziest attitude to work and have been greedy when they were putting in more hours for less pay than the Germans.
As I’ve said we went wrongly in the direction of services etc because the bankers decided (rightly) that ‘they’ could earn more from a post Fordist economy than a Fordist one.So who were the zb greedy zb’s.It was the bankers not the workers.
The idleness regime was strongly connected to the strength of the union you were part of and the weight it thought it had. Look at the dockers from certain ports. You will find it hard to meet a bunch of folk who had such a grossly over inflated opinion of their worth and the end result was that the ports that had the militant unions are now empty desolate wastelands and other, more reasonable ports, took their work.
My home town had a massive engineering background, the workers didn’t all suddenly die or out-price themselves from the market place. They were thrown on it by the EU’s policy of helping a certain geographic area with benefits and packages to artificially stimulate that area over another and instead of a centre of excellence for engineering by history, you get one with no experience but grants and packages and price.
Printing has been literally handed to one area and anyone who paid millions of pounds on top spec equipment just prior to this has by now, gone bust as you couldn’t compete with printing companies who don’t have to pay for their equipment! All the EU intervention does is swap the wastelands from one place to another. That happened 30 yrs ago in the UK with enterprise grants.
The good news is that the UK must be getting close to being on the receiving end soon as the 4th world country it’s becoming.
interlog:
What I was trying to say is, when you’re on a good number, you keep quite, very quite. You just get on with stuff and keep in the background.
It is not that they are expected to take a wage reduction now isn’t it?
If it’s such a ‘good number’ and terms and conditions aren’t being reduced then why the zb would anyone with any sense want to risk all that and blow all their wages by voting for strike action.Considering the general reliability and safety of the service the industry has provided so far they aren’t exactly a bunch of idiots who’d take such a decision for no reason.
Unless I’ve got it all wrong.
You see Carryfast, the problem is that the Germans ARE worth the money they get paid, they go out to work and do a high quality service for their employers (look at their car industry).
The Brits on the other hand (in the car industry were all called Daryll, Daryll do…) they thought they could sit on their arse all day, produce crap when they could be arsed to do anything and still get paid top dollar for turning up for the day. When the companies they worked for started losing money and needed to reduce costs the workers went on strike, hence no jobs.
I’ve now been in the trucking industry for a very few years, but see the same crap ideals from most of the drivers I meet, no wonder we’re being undermined by the foreigners they come in and do the same crap job as most of us and don’t expect too much money.
What we need is for British truckers to pull up their pants and start taking a pride in what we do, then we will see wages rise all round, not just for the tanker drivers.
This, is absolutely spot-on. ^^ Remember British Leyland and it’s oh-so apt logo? The world doesn’t owe anybody anything, least of all a living.
interlog:
What I was trying to say is, when you’re on a good number, you keep quite, very quite. You just get on with stuff and keep in the background.
It is not that they are expected to take a wage reduction now isn’t it?
If it’s such a ‘good number’ and terms and conditions aren’t being reduced then why the zb would anyone with any sense want to risk all that and blow all their wages by voting for strike action.Considering the general reliability and safety of the service the industry has provided so far they aren’t exactly a bunch of idiots who’d take such a decision for no reason.
Unless I’ve got it all wrong.
You see Carryfast, the problem is that the Germans ARE worth the money they get paid, they go out to work and do a high quality service for their employers (look at their car industry).
The Brits on the other hand (in the car industry were all called Daryll, Daryll do…) they thought they could sit on their arse all day, produce crap when they could be arsed to do anything and still get paid top dollar for turning up for the day. When the companies they worked for started losing money and needed to reduce costs the workers went on strike, hence no jobs.
I’ve now been in the trucking industry for a very few years, but see the same crap ideals from most of the drivers I meet, no wonder we’re being undermined by the foreigners they come in and do the same crap job as most of us and don’t expect too much money.
What we need is for British truckers to pull up their pants and start taking a pride in what we do, then we will see wages rise all round, not just for the tanker drivers.
This, is absolutely spot-on. ^^ Remember British Leyland and it’s oh-so apt logo? The world doesn’t owe anybody anything, least of all a living.
Think both yours and DoYouMeanMe’s posts have missed (more like ignored) the inconvenient truth of the fact that the same workers who you’re both (trying to) condemn,had only a few years before been part of the 1960’s economic boom although it never reached the same levels here as in the US because as usual wage levels weren’t allowed to rise in line with production levels and cheap imports became a factor sooner than in the States.
You’ve both also conveniently ignored all those posts which I posted regarding the comparison with the US car manufacturing industry which has gone exactly the same way as ours with idiots coming out with the same type of bs as you are to justify the situation.
When all the evidence from the way things stood both here and there during the 1960’s,compared to Germany’s output,and the value for money of it’s products by comparison,proves you all wrong.Although it’s my bet that neither of you have even seen the inside of a British factory during the time in question let alone zb worked in one
The boom and bust era’s are all about making something as cheap as possible, selling it for as much as possible and hiding before it comes back to bite you. Steady economic growth needs a decent product, sold for a reasonable profit and a gentle year on year increase in the wealth of the company/nation.
Regarding not being in a UK factory, I have and was running them for years. I saw chalked on the tank of the new 750 Bonneville’s the words, “NOT FIT FOR EXPORT”. That summed it up nicely for me, keep the crap here, they are too stupid to notice the difference!
So many people who worship the Thatcher years because ‘we’ made big money with the house prices rocketing and they actually think they are rich. Whilst I agree it is of paramount importance that house prices should continue to increase at a reasonable (preferable just above inflation) rate, when a house goes from 30K to 90K in 4 yrs all you are doing is robbing the next generation, your own kids!
I was just replying to Schrödinger’s cat to show him why Germans are so different.
