Unions protest because contractors are using foreign workers at power station.

mewbie_2

And back to topic. The principled stand by the Unions - oh sorry can't say that as it's an illegal action - er. by the workers with Union approval - the principled stand has been bought off with the offer of 101 or 102 British (possibly temporary) jobs for British workers. A nice fudge all round involving government, Total and the unions.

I must say as an ex Scargill supporter (I was young) that it gladdens the heart to see so many varied people supporting striking and secondary picketing. And I thought Socialism was dead. I guess there will be a lot more voting Labour at the next election then.

Mixed messages? Very much so.

omelette451

dinoyoung wrote: »

The UKs embrace of capitalism has already led to practically all of our forests being cut down

Yes, but the UK's forestland coverage is now growing faster than it has ever done before, so something is being done right.

omelette451

mewbie wrote: »

And back to topic. The principled stand by the Unions - oh sorry can't say that as it's an illegal action - er. by the workers with Union approval - the principled stand has been bought off with the offer of 101 or 102 British (possibly temporary) jobs for British workers. A nice fudge all round involving government, Total and the unions.

Indeed. The question of British people supposedly being forbidden from applying for a job in Italy has been 'solved' by creating 102 jobs for which foreigners will be forbidden from applying (including those who are legally entitled to do so). Double standards anyone?

leveller2911

omelette451 wrote: »

Yes, but the UK's forestland coverage is now growing faster than it has ever done before, so something is being done right.

Its going in the right direction, planting thousands of acres of Pines trees, all regimented in neat rows,99% of which goes into the making of paper and sadly do almost nothing in catching carbons unlike Oaks and Ash .We should be planting Oaks,Ash,Elms and Beech.
Its better than nothing agreed as I creates jobs, but its far from what we should be doing.

Dylanwing

I thought that Total and the Unions conducted themselves pretty well, regardless of any personal opinions about the rights and wrongs of the dispute. Sadly the same cannot be said of Mandelson who did his best to make things worse, and Bottler Brown who hid under the stairs!

Generali

dinoyoung wrote: »

The problem with Capitalism is that it places no value on essential things in life e.g. the Brazilian Rain Forest - that is unless you cut it down for wood, dig up its resources and use it for farming.
The UKs embrace of capitalism has already led to practically all of our forests being cut down and the UK continues to concrete over its green belt whilst telling Brazil to protect theirs:mad:.
I'm not against Capitalism, I'm just saying a more ethical and sustainable view sometimes needs to be taken.

The jargon word for that sort of thing is externality and it is things like having to breath a smokers second hand smoke or getting run down as a pedestrian as a result of someone using a car.

In theory it is possible to set a tax to put a cost to an externality - you can chop down some rain forest but it'll cost you so you have to at least consider the alternative of planting trees to cut down in 20 years instead.

My opinion is that taxation of externalities should form the majority of Government's income. Taxing labour and savings seems a bit daft - in the early 90s I earned about GBP120/week and paid almost GBP20 in tax and NI (NI is tax despite the claims of the Government). Employers NIC is the most crazy tax of all - a tax on employing someone! We want people to be employed!!!

omelette451

Back to topic... It now seems that the Italian company involved in the Lincolnshire controversy employs 26 British staff, recruited in the UK, at a site in southern Italy. In other words, exactly the same thing has happened in reverse, albeit with no protests. The inevitable question for the "British jobs for British workers" brigade is therefore obvious: should those 26 people be sent home? Presumably not (since we're not deporting the Italians), but should they be banned from doing the same thing again in the future?

mewbie_2

Italian jobs for British workers! A slogan for us all.

sadsadjenjen

mewbie wrote: »

Italian jobs for British workers! A slogan for us all.

oh the irony:beer::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::T