Strikes???

[cee-dee]

What's your opinion on strikes and striking?

Mine? I've never been in favour of strikes, you never get back the money you've lost after you've had a shortfall in wages because of it. Any increase eventually won is only marginal compared to what you've lost.

I have always said that strikes are called for by those who've failed to properly negotiate on members behalf. Those union "officials" have enjoyed a favourable salary and when the time came to negotiate, they failed miserably and ended up causing disruption not only to the business which was having labour withheld but disruption also to the lives of the union members.

It's often seemed to me that some union "officials" act more like anarchists rather than skilled negotiators and whoever it was that hijacked the old saying from the first world war that the strikers were Lions led by Donkeys wasn't far wrong.

[cee-dee]

Hmmmm, no-one got anything to say?

Looking at the proposed upcoming rail strikes and taking in to account what's already on offer, they'll never pull back what wages they've lost by getting whatever extra they might eventually get.

I know they're also on about "conditions" and "job security" (= redundancies) but losing so much money at such a time is extremely foolish and any strike pay is nowhere near enough.

As I mentioned in my OP, at times I think some union "leaders" appear to hate buisinesses and adopt almost anarchistic over-militant actions. I think some criticism by the "workers" ought to be re-directed at those "leaders" and their failure to achieve an acceptable solution without causing the union members to lose so much money at such a time.

[pete5454]

HI, Agreed - most wage negotions are sorted amicably - no strike action - Though goverment workers are subject to the catch all clause ' ie. if its affordable '  Suprisingly bosses of large organizations do not have this problem. They generally award themselves what they would like - or alternativley get their mates to vote them rises & then recipricoate,  as directiors of companies etc. MPs wages are linked to the upper quartile of national wage increases - in reality they should be linked to the working minimum wage rise.  Workers & Unions are getting smarter & now do sporadic strikes - I would like them to get smarter & do cascading strikes City by City or County by County. Minimum disruption for max news impact.  Strike action Is the only leverage workers have. Lest we forget how and why the Unions were founded. Now we have zero hours contracts & wages that require many people to be on work related benefits. How come,  we the tax payer have to continualy support the free market economy. To be political its actually what the Tory party are designed for, to sequastrate tax payers money into the private sector - hence the Health Service - the Crown Jewels of the Uk is now 75 % privatized - meaning 30 % every tax payers penny spent goes to share holders / directors pay & bonuses etc. Hence the £20 to £30 billion right down of ppe fraud & loans during COVID. Another long ago disgrace was in 2012 the new head Stephen Hester of Royal Bank of Scotland - who had a million pound bonus award - while the bank was bailed out by the tax payer & was still loosing money. Mr Hester’s shares-only bonus payment was worth around £963,000, but it emerged that he could pocket as much as £39million in total during his time with RBS. Do we know how many billions of tax payers money was lost propin up the banks & paying these mega salaries - the free market with minimum regulations at its best. The bank had already set aside £3.3million for Mr Hester’s bonus the year after in 2013.  We seem to overlook the real villans in the pay wars,  The workers need to stick together, wherever possible - ideally we need a law that the has workers with a true stake in the company they work for eg. profit share / representation on the board etc. A law that states no one peron can earn more than 5x to 10x the lowest worker. Remember when we owned the electric & water & gas companies & their profits helped to keep taxes down. Peter

note - the goverment takes our taxes - gives us some back to help us with energy - then we give it straight back to eg. France EDF etc. and all the other private companies making mega money due to the shortage of gas. These energy companies costs have not gone up - it is simply due to a shortage and the hiking of prices.

[cee-dee]

Strikes are not the answer except I'd go so far as to say a sit-down strike has some effect on management without 1/harming the pocket of the worker and 2/harming the business.

I'll never forget around 1966/67 when there was some protracted wage negotiations at Rolls Royce, a union representative (it might have been the convenor) came back from a meeting and told us that a member of management had said "You're pricing yourselves out of a job, we're going to automate you."

After that, the first (primitive!) computer controlled machines were brought in. Although there were already mechanical automatic machines at work, the new machines were capable of more complicated jobs enabling one person the "look after" several at once.

Today? What do we see? Some absolutely amazing machines producing incredible work and they don't stop to chat to their mates about football/horses/gambling, take umpteen tea breaks or slope off the read the newspaper in the toilets for half an hour!!!

[quatrocinq]

Seems like everyone's on strike these days.

In the 70's, the Soviet Union was aiding UK strikes, it makes me wonder if some schenanegans are afoot once more!

With Royal Mail, my experience is of a very expensive, and very poor service. It may of course just be a local issue, but, they treat the customers down here with utter contempt.

My local postie doesn't bother getting out his van to deliver the mail (I live in a rural area, so, they have to drive to me). I have an external post box on the house, it was fitted in the 1920's I think. About the right height to put the mail in if you're on a horse. He's in a van.

So far, he's demolished several plant pots, ripped the lid off the post box, knocked his mirror off on my porch corner... so, he favours delivering my mail to my neighbour (A mile away).

The sorting office staff are arrogant and entitled (Again, locally). Rude to say the least - not just to me, I've had to intervene with the way they engage with older customers at the counter.

They regularly lose packages, their compensation scheme needs a DNA sample to apply for...

So, no sympathy with their strike.

NHS staff however - they're up against it. Although the issues here are far more complex than Royal Fail.

[cee-dee]

The saying "Lions led by donkeys" applies to the Royal Mail strikers. The union "leaders" have absolutely no idea about beneficial strategy. By prolonging the issue instead of seeking a realistic settlement, what they're actually doing is playing right in to the hands of "alternative" delivery companies. By so doing, they'll not only price Royal Mail off the market, they'll end up putting loads of workers out of a job! Those that are left will have lost a considerable amout of money by following the union line and for what?