Hardly worth a comment. That ridiculous 80s view died with the yuppie and the 80s.
Companies imposed unfair and bad practice all the time. Working hours changes, pension changes. Working hours directive opt outs in contracts.To think otherwise is either nieve or purposefully blinkered.
You should watch the Armstrongs, you probably think they are roll models.
Your "be glad for what you get" attitude would lead to sweatshops and child labour with people thinking they where lucky if they could afford to at.
Grow up. I hope your simply trying to be atagonistic. If you actually believe that twaddle then sadly impaired man in need of education or a few weeks in a factory on mimimum wage. I guess daddy would allow that though. It s the kind of retoric spouted by people who have never had to fight for there rights.
For something hardly worth comment, you seem to have commented quite comprehensively.
You make a lot of assumptions. I don’t know what the Armstrongs is – I watch TV for news, films and documentaries but avoid the brain-sapping soaps and most of the rubbish that is broadcast.
As I said – quite clearly – there are regulations overflowing from the nanny state which prevent employers from putting unreasonable conditions on their workers, so a return to “sweatshops and child labour” is hardly on the cards. Much though I personally think it would be a great way of dealing with the work-shy benefit-dependent parasites that populate our council estates, I sadly have to accept that it’s just a pipe dream.
I’m not being antagonistic, but I do love the way that people can’t even listen to views that differ greatly from their own. I have worked in a factory on much less than minimum wage, and done other work on less than minimum wage before one was introduced, all when I was younger and studying. I’ve also been between jobs but kept it that way – I made sure I found another job pretty damned quick, even though it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. ‘Daddy’ is a working class man, a miner’s son, who himself worked long and hard in the steelworks so I regret that I cannot turn to him for financial assistance.
Low-skill jobs requiring low-calibre employees should command a wage commensurate with the value of that individual to the firm – there should be no minimum wage to damage industry and ruin our chances of competing in the international markets. Low-skilled workers should accept their lot, and understand that TV, DVD, satellite, nights out, cars, fashion clothes, fitted kitchens, new carpets and trendy trainers are luxuries which come to reward ability and effort. Those who have not striven to better themselves should realise that if they have a roof, heat, food and clothes they are surviving comfortably.
I have never ‘fought for my rights’, though I have written to my MP a couple of times, and I have seen legislation come through which I have found to be most inconvenient for me. As a member of this democracy, I have accepted it.
I have fought (literally) for other things, and lived for months at a time in other parts of the world in conditions that make our ‘poor hard done by workers’ look like kings, so I put things into a broader perspective than most people, with their limited (or zero) experience of the truly unpleasant corners of this world, are able.
And having seen and experienced real hardship, suffering and prejudice across the globe, I have no sympathy for the whining grabbing masses in this country who want more than they are worth, and are envious of those who achieve more.
Can't be bothered with you and this is nothing to do with the thread. Like many on this forum i will not enter into anymore dialogue with you, but then i guess that is a effect you are used to in life.
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Can't be bothered with you and this is nothing to do with the thread. Like many on this forum i will not enter into anymore dialogue with you, but then i guess that is a effect you are used to in life.
I guess that means you can't come up with a sound argument to counter what I say?
Employees should be glad of their wage and their job, and realise their place, which is to do a job in exchange for a wage. They took on the job and the wage, and of they no longer like it, they should look elsewhere.
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bartfarst,i have agreed with you on many posts but sadly not on this one. the forelock tugging ,bowing and scraping went out after the first world war when the common man realised he had fought a war,not for the better of britain,but for the rich and powerful who live the good life and never get their own hands soiled, i have never have been a unionist but believe they do/did serve for the working mans benefit, for every pound an employer gives to a worker,the employer is making treble, its simbiotic( sp ?) one needs the other, but i and thousands more would never go cap in hand to an employer, a fair days pay for a fair days work is what i have always worked to, i have shown loyalty and been crapped on for it,on the other hand i have worked for nothing until the job got sorted out, mainly because i called my boss a friend,he also in return looked after my interests when things picked up
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i am not a number, i am a man, a person
a fair days pay for a fair days work is what i have always worked to, i have shown loyalty and been crapped on for it,on the other hand i have worked for nothing until the job got sorted out, mainly because i called my boss a friend,he also in return looked after my interests when things picked up
And that's how I see it - a fair exchange, not a system whereby unions can control the company, devastate outputs through strikes and end up putting people out of work through the damage the industrial action does.
And that's how I see it - a fair exchange, not a system whereby unions can control the company, devastate outputs through strikes and end up putting people out of work through the damage the industrial action does.
i see your point,if a man has built up a company and put his life into it,then i agree that it would be wrong for the union to run it,but there were times that unscrupolous employers were taking advantage, i have myself been asked if i was a union member when applying for jobs,one made it quite clear he would rather pay over the going rate for a worker who was not a union member,as a contractor i have been hounded by union reps in large companies such as british steel to produce a union card,even though my job had nothing to do with them, i have had electricians threaten to go on strike because we, thats two of us,did work in three days that took the company men ten days to do, but i would have refused to do it if these men had been threatened with the sack,not through unity,but through common decency
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i am not a number, i am a man, a person
i see your point,if a man has built up a company and put his life into it,then i agree that it would be wrong for the union to run it,but there were times that unscrupolous employers were taking advantage, i have myself been asked if i was a union member when applying for jobs,one made it quite clear he would rather pay over the going rate for a worker who was not a union member,as a contractor i have been hounded by union reps in large companies such as british steel to produce a union card,even though my job had nothing to do with them, i have had electricians threaten to go on strike because we, thats two of us,did work in three days that took the company men ten days to do, but i would have refused to do it if these men had been threatened with the sack,not through unity,but through common decency
Exactly. If I believed that the laws didn't prevent employers from doing inappropriate things, I might support the continued need for unions, but that is long gone. The examples you quote are far from uncommon, especially when it comes to piece work and the way the unions mindlessly defend unreasonable output rates.
The example you quote of a 10 day job that can be done in 3 days. If that was your firm, with you struggling to make a profit, keep the bank from the door and pay your staff, but you knew that your electricians were stretching a 3 day job out to 10 days, would that be something you could tolerate? Should people take 10 days (and a lot of tea drinking and newspaper reading) to do a 3 day job when they can do it in 3?
I would have to say that by dragging a 3 day job out to 10 those men were effectively defrauding their employer every day they went into work, and I’m afraid that my hard line view is that they deserved the sack.
It's madness, but I've seen it myself many times, and I can remember as a teenager doing summer jobs being threatened by union reps because I was hand grinding big tamper bars and doing 12 in a day – working at a fair rate but not killing myself - when the rest of the team had been doing 6 or 8. I knew I was only there temporarily and didn’t mind being ostracised for working hard, and cared not a fig for the physical threats which would have been unwisely attempted, but it was an early lesson for me in the ‘British disease’.
I also had an uncle who did very well by his union on foundry work, when new equipment was introduced to massively speed up ingot production but the union negotiated on his behalf (and that of the other men in his section) to keep them on the same piece rate, with the result that the wages were nearly trebled and the new equipment the company had put in ended up actually increasing the overall production cost because of the union’s interference.
Exactly. If I believed that the laws didn't prevent employers from doing inappropriate things, I might support the continued need for unions, but that is long gone. The examples you quote are far from uncommon, especially when it comes to piece work and the way the unions mindlessly defend unreasonable output rates.
The example you quote of a 10 day job that can be done in 3 days. If that was your firm, with you struggling to make a profit, keep the bank from the door and pay your staff, but you knew that your electricians were stretching a 3 day job out to 10 days, would that be something you could tolerate? Should people take 10 days (and a lot of tea drinking and newspaper reading) to do a 3 day job when they can do it in 3?
I would have to say that by dragging a 3 day job out to 10 those men were effectively defrauding their employer every day they went into work, and I’m afraid that my hard line view is that they deserved the sack.
It's madness, but I've seen it myself many times, and I can remember as a teenager doing summer jobs being threatened by union reps because I was hand grinding big tamper bars and doing 12 in a day – working at a fair rate but not killing myself - when the rest of the team had been doing 6 or 8. I knew I was only there temporarily and didn’t mind being ostracised for working hard, and cared not a fig for the physical threats which would have been unwisely attempted, but it was an early lesson for me in the ‘British disease’.
I also had an uncle who did very well by his union on foundry work, when new equipment was introduced to massively speed up ingot production but the union negotiated on his behalf (and that of the other men in his section) to keep them on the same piece rate, with the result that the wages were nearly trebled and the new equipment the company had put in ended up actually increasing the overall production cost because of the union’s interference.
Sheer lunacy.
looks like we agree on this bit,on a lighter note,i once new a companywhere the union rep went in for a pay rise for the workers,when he came back from lunch,the workers owed the company six pence an hour and that is true.......
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i am not a number, i am a man, a person
When I was a young man, probably about 20, I was working in a Metallurgical Laboratory doing Metallography within a large local steelworks. I was on shift working. I decided to join the one and only Union I ever had an association with in my life..... the Association of Scientific Workers (AScW). I think Clive Jenkins was the top man in the Union at that time.
The Metallurgical Laboratory was on the 1st Floor, the Chemistry Lab was on the Ground Floor.
I had been a Member of the Union only about 6 weeks, and the Shop Steward, working in the Chemistry Lab decided to require me to do something with which I could not accept, to do with work, of course, I forget all the details now but I know it was something which went against my conscience as an employee, still in training.
I offered the guy "outside" the Company premises for a "Scrap", although I have never been a violent person. Needless to say, he turned down the invitation.
I resigned from the AScW on the spot, and never contemplated joining one again............ In my view there were 2 wise decisions that evening...one was the Union Representative refusing the "Scrap", and the second was my decision never to join a Union again.
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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Einstein
and that is true.......
