Lynch and Dempsey are excellent at shutting down media personalities who are trying to frame the issue in a pro-government way. People are starting to see through all the ******** being spun by the tax avoiding, billionaire press barons. You love to see it.
Can only speak from my own experience. I have an adult conversation with my boss if I feel I deserve a rise. Sometimes I get it sometimes I don’t. I always have option of moving to a competitor.
But seriously, I really don’t think life is like that for a good number of people. Whether or not you approve of the strikes, how easy is it for some tracklayer working for Network Rail to “have an adult conversation with their employer”? Or a nurse working for the NHS? That’s precisely why unions were created, to offer some degree of equality between the remote, unaccountable bosses, and the low grade workers who woukf otherwise be forced to take it or leave it. That’s not to say that unions haven’t sometimes wielded too much power, or that they have always played things right strategically. But the rationale for their existence is still valid, and will remain so unless and until we all become bitcoin millionaires.
But you do have option of leaving it. If your current skills can attract a better wage elsewhere then you can move. Seems a fair deal to me.
So a nurse who has spent years training to be a nurse, and has always wanted to be a nurse, should suddenly give up her vocation to work in a call centre because the money in the NHS is lousy, and she has no way of having “an adult conversation with her employer” in the absence of a union to support her? Not only is that extremely harsh on a personal level, it’s also not good for society.
I can see the value of a union in holding a discussion on behalf of their members in a large organisation. It’s the strike part I find childish. Which I guess doesn’t apply to nurses as they don’t strike every other month as far as I am aware.
Simples - everyone's a member of a single trade union that has close links to the government who can facilitate direct links with industry, I mean it has a precedent that worked 'ideally'*. *TBF to the DAF, one of its bits, KdF, was very successful and was very popular with the 'working class' offering them access to heavily subsidised, what we term today as package holidays.
And if the bosses' goal does not include giving 'the workers' a fair share of the benefits, what then?
So, because there is some sort of objection to collective organisation (and I am not at all clear what that is supposed to be), workers may just have to put up with ending up on the dole, with all of the negative consequences that that entails both on a personal level and for society as a whole. Yep, sounds fair. If we are living in the early 19th century.
Well I’ll credit you with at least recognising that workers and bosses have opposing interests. But your argument is half Norman Tebbit, half Marie Antoinette. You must be aware that many workers don’t have the same choices as people higher up the ladder and that where they do choose to move employers, they may well encounter the same conditions from one call centre, delivery company, food processing plant to another?
Ive already said I understand the value of collective organisation for discussion. But, yep, being averse to strikes is early 19th century. Conversation over. A welcome reminder not to step into this area.
I'm surprised to see you shy away from a discussion in this way. I think we are all, fundamentally, 'averse to strikes', and that includes those going on strike. But sometimes there comes a point when 'discussion' offers little or no possibility of progress. Do you think 'the workers' in that situation should just shrug their shoulders and simply say 'well, we tried, but got nowhere, so we'll just accept whatever hitherto unacceptable proposals have been presented to us'?
Bit of a thread drift, but I've just been mesmerized by BBC R4's "Moving Pictures" which this week featured the extraordinary "Detroit Industry Murals of Diego Garcia". Normally the shows focus on the work of the artist but this one looked primarily at the artist and the subject (from a socio-economic perspective) he was painting. As an aside I very nearly went into immediately after graduating what's shown on the South Panel of the murals mentioned as an afterthought/personal anecdote by Cathy Fitzgerald, as GM/Vauxhall were recruiting chemists to work in their paint department...
More rousing speech making by Mick Lynch. Labour take heed. https://twitter.com/rmtunion/status/1588131559298801664?s=46&t=iOmsH0p4loGUwc78mwXEpQ
Short memory mate. Unless you are saying that the police won in Bristol and London because they were part of the BLM riots. Coulston statue toppled and dumped (not complaining, just stating a fact), police filmed running away from BLM protesters in London, not even engaging in street riots despite women imploring them in intercede, and, when engaging certain protesters, not even equipped with proper riot gear. So sorry, but I'm giving this last paragraph 2 out of 10. I wouldn't disagree that things in China are being exagerated, but lets face it, protesters in the UK can often find themselves indulged by policemen taking the knee (a strategy I understand, but do not consider effective), but in China that is not often the case. So if people are protesting there, it is something that should be given serious consideration, and not simply dismissed as propaganda. Your communist devotion to totalitarian authoritarian government is well known. But to me it is an unquestionable form of fascism (no offence meant, you are open about your views, and unquestioning support of a totalitarian government is pretty much the definition - I am not calling you a nazi), and a sign that such things do not work, particularly when a proponent's first instinct seems to be to defend the regime, rather than discuss the people's concerns about the regime. So it would be interesting to hear a little sympathy for people who have concerns about regimes, which they live under, that you, despite every oportunity and chance, and ideological imperative, have very carefully chosen to avoid taking up residence in. Calling protesters worms is a fair opinion, particularly if you have insight, but dismissing all descent because it disagrees with the state is unhealthy for 'the people,' in my opinion, and only of use to government.
Scarcety of Labour works wonders for working conditions. Flooding the workplace with cheep Labour tends to have the opposite effect. Workers rights and proper pay was kicked off by the scarcety of skilled workers caused by the Black Death, after which land owners had to stop charging people for their work, and start actually paying them. That's why I complain about the gammons on here insisting we need to exploit low paid workers in other countries, rather than give a fair days pay for a fair days work. And why they complain about me repeating their own words to them. It is literally just simple maths, proven through the history of this country, and many others. Why else would corporations, and left wing gammons, support freedom of movement? Just look at the state of the arguments on here. People complaining that workers aren't paid enough in the UK, whilst arguing for a continuation of mass immigration to manage the fact that Britons won't do s**t jobs for low wages (which are being kept low by a constant flow of people who are willing to accept them). In a sane world, someone might notice that the two situations are mutually exclusive, but instead they are two of the great causes of the modern left wing.
Queue the standard elitest argument on here, regularly put forward by lefties, that the best model is low paid immigrants doing menial jobs, whilst us well paid Brits do the cushy jobs. I will compare any such view to that of extreme nationalist right wing economics, with a built in under class. Anyone for gammon?
Some more late night word salad and some cracking twisting of definitions there. (What exactly is leftie gammon?!) Almost time to call 'full house'. The inconvenient fact that rides a coach and horses through the 'we voted Brexit because we wanted to end the reliance on cheap labour' argument is that across multiple industries there is absolutely no indication whatsoever that the current government is going to do anything to ensure or even encourage wages rise. In fact, the fix is well and truly on to convince people that nurses, transport workers and postal workers (to name just three) are completely out of order for requesting wage rises to match inflation. Nothing is being done to curb the excess profit at private companies that pay a pittance for low quality jobs either. This government is not going to raise the wages it has the power to raise and it is not going to improve economic conditions to encourage the private sector to raise wages. And the reason is because it does not fundamentally believe in any of those things. It simply manipulated people to believe that Brexit was going to solve multiple ill-defined and ill-understood issues while their primary goal to strengthen the positions of a tiny elite. Brexiteers who voted Brexit to end the reliance on cheap labour trusted their great project to people who literally don't share a single strand of the vision of a better deal for working people. Faced with staff shortages that should, according to the capitalist handbook, ensure wage rises all we're getting is a sustained campaign to ensure public opinion labels those asking for wage rises as greedy and/or unrealistic.
Exactly. And if they wanted to ensure those at the very bottom are getting a living wage then the easiest way to do that is to raise the minimum wage. The amount of people that are forced to claim in work benefits because they don't receive a wage that can sustain them is a national scandal imho.
Well, I thought you were talking about me when you said word salad, but hats off to you. Introducing your own post in such a way is very brave. And you still missed the point by a few dozen yards. Can we assume that, because you chose to ignore my comments about scarcety of Labour v floods of cheap Labour, you simply wanted to slag me off in a post that had, I think it is fair to say, absolutely nothing to do with my post that it purports to be responding to. Your little wafflings are like stray lambs on a montain side (trying to keep Moose's burgeoning greetings company going here), and your evasion of the thread subject pretty much confirms that you either haven't got a clue what you are talking about, or you haven't got a clue how to defend your contradictiry opinions on the subject. A leftie gammon is the same as any old gammon. That is my point. Encouraging immigration so poor foreigners can do the dirty jobs is about as gammon as it gets in my book. The only difference is that the lefties think they are being virtuous when they say it. But all political gammon tastes exactly the same.
Which I haven't done, and I'm not sure anyone on this thread has advocated doing either! But nice of you to add some word salad dressing to your original word salad. Nom-nom-nom! (Just some gentle joshing, Hooter old chap!)
I think you need to read this political thread again mate, but this time with your eyes open. What is the point of freedom of movement? The EU itself has said it is to mitigate the short comings of the Euro zone, allowing local exploitation of cheap Labour because fiscal easing is impossible unilaterally, when you have a universal currency. Sorry, but there is coffee for the smelling, if only you are prepared to have a sniff. I don't know about you, but plenty on here have decried the loss of freedom of movement specifically because there is no cheap labour to pick the fruit, for example. And if you can't see that the current union activity is an example of leveraging scarcety of Labour, that is not my fault.
The fact is, this Government with this ideology will fight tooth and nail to do everything possible to avoid paying people more, as we are seeing very clearly at the moment. It staggers me that anyone would have thought it would be any different. They would rather the fruit and vegetables rotted than pay more. They'd rather explore the idea of flying in non-EU staff for the NHS and other essential services than offer to pay more. They'd rather the public transport system ground to a halt rather than pay more. Brexit was a blunt solution to a valid problem but it was a bit like chopping off the patient's leg because of a broken toe. Even if, in the longer term, the idea of starving the workforce of numbers does force up wages, the net result will be higher costs all round. And that would be absolutely fine in a thrusting, dynamic, go-ahead country plugged into the global economy. But, like the patient with one leg, Brexit means Britain is destined to be hobbling around on crutches for the next few generations. Long story short: Brexit wasn't designed to help you or me or fruit pickers or train drivers or anyone other than a small number of already very wealthy types. That was not its purpose. I do kind of admire the way you've identified one way in which it *could* be of benefit to the masses and continue to faithfully stick to the belief that that was what it was all about. But then I remember your frequent comments about how it wasn't about the economy at all, but about sovereignty and other such intangibles.
But this isn't a Brexit thread, and I am not talking about Brexit. I am talking about the effect of freedom of movement on employment, whether it be EU, illegal or any other form of free movement. Yes, I have compared the views of some on here with regards to the exclusivity of "more pay" v "cheap Labour", as a response to Folkestone's post, and I have highlighted what I see as the absurdity of arguing for higher wages whilst supporting the thing that ensures most that raising those wages will be more difficult to achieve. You have completely ignored the point that scarcety of Labour creates demand, and pushes up wages and conditions, and how introducing cheap Labour counter acts that. You have made no explanation of how the two can practically exist together. You are also blissfully unaware, I must assume, that that I am a Union Rep in the NHS, which has been much discussed on here in the past.
Maybe some genius could devise a system whereby the government imposes a minimum wage that pays enough to enable working people to have a reasonable standard of living whilst at the same time embracing freedom of movement. I'm a bit surprised at the belief in 'the market' regulating such matters implicit in your references to the impact of scarcity of labour on wages. A caring government could achieve the required results through legislation. But that would obviously be contrary to the interests of the current one's true constituency. Would you like egg or pineapple with your gammon?
