Trade Unions! Do They Still Have A Role To Play?

[angle20 10]

There could still be a role for trade unions but at the moment they seem more concerned with brown nosing the bosses in their quest for cheap labour . As Jack Dromey of the T&G said to the TUC conference in 2004: "Our task is not to fear migrant workers, but instead to welcome them to our shores".

 

Amongst the leftists only Polly Toynbee has had the decency to speak up on behalf of native workers. In a Guardian article last year she commented, for example [following the Gate Gourmet affair]:

"This is what globalisation does, widening the gap between rich and poor. Cheap labour provides more cheap services for the rich to get their lifestyle at a premium while nailing an ever-larger swath of the workforce to the minimum wage floor. The greatest job growth is in rock bottom jobs".

 

The conservative commentator (and former Daily Telegraph editor) Max Hastings took up a similar theme in another Guardian article at around the same time:

"For sure, however, there has never been a better time to be rich...The haves' most powerful weapon is globalism. Once one passes a certain corporate threshold, taxation becomes voluntary, as Rupert Murdoch's accountants can testify...But, until our world changes out of recognition, this looks like the perfect age and place to be a fat cat".

[redrobbo 10]

No, because I know from experience that an employee can pick any one person to represent her at hearings. Why wouldn't the shop steward be her representative?

 

No shop steward represented union members in this official dispute. Full time union staff dealt with the matter, as jobs were at stake.

 

I was not referring to a disciplinary hearing or a hearing of any kind, but employer-union negotiations over potential job losses. Your experience seems to be somewhat limited if you failed to understand and differentiate between an official union dispute and shop steward representation.

[fr8neck 10]

Clearly the utterings of an embittered under-achiever who never achieved a managerial post and supects within himself that he never shall.

 

Why so personally offensive?

This 'dismissive of any argument by personal attack' mentality is pretty much the characteristic of 'British Management'.

 

I am not 'embittered': I'm indifferent to what I do as it's just something I do for money. Management nonsense is simply a form of psychological-warfare that I view as a game. I happen to be in the position of being able to leave and easily find work elsewhere: most people are not and they must fight constantly to protect themselves.

 

What exactly do you do and what do you mean by 'achieve a management position'?

I could take up a 'management position' in my industry whenever I like but the pay is worse and the job consists largely of lying to people on the phone, with a little bit of crawling and a little bit of bullying: It's just not me.

[fr8neck 10]

In life, it can be said that you need to work a little higher up the tree before you can see very far. Until then, your vision is limited, as is your understanding of what's going on around you.

 

Is this supposed to be philosophy?

If management ideas are sensible and useful for anything beyond their own narrow self-interest they would share the data upon which their decisions are made and get a consensus of agreement.

[basshedz2 10]

If it were to exchange a day's work for a fair day's pay, representative of his skills and the demand for those skills in the international market, we would still have our car, steel and coal industries today.

 

Rubbish! We dont have our coal and steel industries because we _cant_ compete with China (and Taiwan, etc) on wages due to the cost of living here. A fair days work for a fair days pay is great, but a fair days pay _must_ be enough to live on.

 

The last vestiges of our automobile manufacturing industry were destroyed the gross mismanagement of Rover by the Phoenix group - not by worker greed or the unions.

[KenH 10]

In the past unions have done good things, but also very many stupid things. Their time is long past and they need to be replaced by some new organisation which protects the rights of the worst paid (and treated) workers, without living in the 1970's. Perhaps worst amongst the evils of the unions is collective bargaining which means that many people get the same pay as the idle person sat next to them.

[donkey 10]

During the Thatcher years, the marketing men and their allies in the press did a very good job selling the idea that the unions were responsible for all the countries economic woes.

 

Although excessive union demands in the 70s did exacerbate the economic meltdown, it has to be remembered the unions only exist as a reaction to the exploitative greed of the industrialists, who would have been quite happy to keep the workers in medieval serfdom indefinitely.

 

A lot of people suffered in the struggle to improve the conditions of workers from which we all benefit today, yet it has become very fashionable to sneer at the unions, even by those who benefit from the sacrifices which were made.

 

Unions will always be needed, whilst there are employers and workers.

[NorbertColon 10]

The management will always and ever try to shaft you, it seems rational to them, and if they are not effectively resisted then any stupid idea will become a fact of your life.(and they are replete with stupid ideas)

Bosses hate unions because they can (but not necessarily do ) constitute a check on their bullying and thievish ways.

Clearly the utterings of an embittered under-achiever who never achieved a managerial post and supects within himself that he never shall.

Why so personally offensive?

This 'dismissive of any argument by personal attack' mentality is pretty much the characteristic of 'British Management'.

I am not 'embittered': I'm indifferent to what I do as it's just something I do for money. Management nonsense is simply a form of psychological-warfare that I view as a game. I happen to be in the position of being able to leave and easily find work elsewhere: most people are not and they must fight constantly to protect themselves.

What exactly do you do and what do you mean by 'achieve a management position'?

I could take up a 'management position' in my industry whenever I like but the pay is worse and the job consists largely of lying to people on the phone, with a little bit of crawling and a little bit of bullying: It's just not me.

You seem content to attack any ‘management’ with accusations of shafting people, stupidity, bullying and theft – are they not offensive terms?

 

If there are positions that you describe as ‘management’ oppositions which involve less pay than driving, then I would question their nature as managerial posts. Office boys perhaps, but not true management. It would seem that your negative experiences have been with working people who just happen to be white-collared and therefore satisfy your need to have a ‘them and us’ culture.

 

Too often, the shop floor do little but whine and complain, with no understanding of the constant efforts made by their management (by which I mean senior managers and directors) to keep a business afloat and keep the staff employed. They look with unguarded jealousy at company cars, and with no understanding whatsoever of business, commerce or production planning, decide in their little minds that the ‘management swines’ get something for nothing, that anybody could swan in and out of a comfy office in a suit, and that it should be the shop floor on the big bucks, not the suits. Well, life’s a little more complex than that. Those jealous left-wingers on the shop floor would have been well advised to work a little harder in education, leave school with a bit more than a black eye and somebody else’s coat, and develop a qualified profession.

 

Then, and only then, would they be able to begin to understand what is actually involved in running a company, and why keeping a bunch of whining workers content is a thankless and very difficult task fraught with external constraints for which those workers seek to blame the very management that attempts to shield and protect them.

[NorbertColon 10]

Is this supposed to be philosophy?

If management ideas are sensible and useful for anything beyond their own narrow self-interest they would share the data upon which their decisions are made and get a consensus of agreement.

Their ideas and decisions are based on company interest - it is the workers who can see no further than self-interest. If the appropriately qualified and experienced managers of our industries went out to the workforces for decisions we'd be in a fine mess. The workers do not have the training, education, experience or, in some case, brain cells to make important decisions about how a company is run. Sadly, some of them are deluded enough to think the opposite.

 

There is a not uncommon but desperately naïve view among many of the lower working classes that ‘management’ are an enemy, no good at what they do, useless, selfish . . .the list goes on.

What those workers do not realise, immersed as they are in the cerebral challenges of turning their steering wheel or packing a box, is that any of the management are capable of doing those basic shop floor tasks, while the challenges of management and leadership are far beyond even the basic comprehension of most on the shop floor, and it is this complete inability to understand the complexity and the demands of administering a company that brings about these small-minded, and ignorant ‘anti-management’ views.

[artisan 10]

Their ideas and decisions are based on company interest - it is the workers who can see no further than self-interest. If the appropriately qualified and experienced managers of our industries went out to the workforces for decisions we'd be in a fine mess. The workers do not have the training, education, experience or, in some case, brain cells to make important decisions about how a company is run. Sadly, some of them are deluded enough to think the opposite.

 

There is a not uncommon but desperately naïve view among many of the lower working classes that ‘management’ are an enemy, no good at what they do, useless, selfish . . .the list goes on.

What those workers do not realise, immersed as they are in the cerebral challenges of turning their steering wheel or packing a box, is that any of the management are capable of doing those basic shop floor tasks, while the challenges of management and leadership are far beyond even the basic comprehension of most on the shop floor, and it is this complete inability to understand the complexity and the demands of administering a company that brings about these small-minded, and ignorant ‘anti-management’ views.

The point is Norbert, that all members of the Working Class are vital.

Some people are only fit as factory fodder, some are fit for management, etc, etc.

Everyone has a role to fill.

The fact that someone may not have the intellect of yourself, does not mean he is a lesser man.

If he is a contributing member of society, then he is equal to you or me.

I firmly believe in the philosophy of,

From each, according to his ability

To each, according to his needs.

 

If we were civilised enough to accept this rule, then peace in the world would be assured.

[DIVA 10]

Really? Which company did she run?

 

I thought she ran all of them. Like she ran all of the hospitals, schools, ... basically the national infrastructure....into the ground.

[DIVA 10]

In life, it can be said that you need to work a little higher up the tree before you can see very far. Until then, your vision is limited, as is your understanding of what's going on around you.

Yepp! And the higher the monkeys climb the trees, the more we can see their arses!