What's with all the strikes?

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Today I was listening to 5live & the thing that gets me about the railway workers is today some spotty schoolboy company frontman was speaking & the union guy brought up safety...

Now am I seriously to believe safety won't be compromised with the loss of maintenance workers to redundancy?

Also am I seriously to believe that losing 800 staff means that the railway has been overstaffed by that much for so long?

I don't think so...

Cannon_Fodder

Generali wrote: »

A fairly recently deceased US politician whose name escapes me right now said that the way to resolve a particular strike was to draft the strikers into the Army and order them back to work.

If they refuse, shoot them for insubordination.

May 17, 1947
Truman Breaks Railroad Strike

President Truman ends a strike against the nation's railroads by threatening to take them over and draft workers into the army. His hard line is a harbinger that the nation's sympathy for unions is running out

http://www.shmoop.com/history-labor-unions/timeline.html



Also, threatened to take over the coal mines in 1952. Which appears to have been a repeat of Roosevelt being prepared to do so in 1902.
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/coalstrike.htm



May have been used by other politicians who wanted to sound tough since, and was also mentioned in 'The West Wing', as the President character was a fan of Truman.

Generali

Cannon_Fodder wrote: »

May 17, 1947
Truman Breaks Railroad Strike

President Truman ends a strike against the nation's railroads by threatening to take them over and draft workers into the army. His hard line is a harbinger that the nation's sympathy for unions is running out

http://www.shmoop.com/history-labor-unions/timeline.html



Also, threatened to take over the coal mines in 1952. Which appears to have been a repeat of Roosevelt being prepared to do so in 1902.
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/coalstrike.htm



May have been used by other politicians who wanted to sound tough since, and was also mentioned in 'The West Wing', as the President character was a fan of Truman.

It's not Truman I'm thinking of. It was an old boy who died aged about 100. He was a womaniser well into his 90s.

Actually a pretty unpleasant piece of work probably but I thought his sentiments were quite funny in being so out of line with how most people think these days.

tomterm8

Don't get me wrong, I think the current system is... odd... people should have the right to withold their labour if they want to, but the business should have the right to employ people to do the job as they see fit, and fire anyone who willfully refuses to fulfill their contract without redundancy pay. And that certainly means strikers.

custardy

tomterm8 wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I think the current system is... odd... people should have the right to withold their labour if they want to, but the business should have the right to employ people to do the job as they see fit, and fire anyone who willfully refuses to fulfill their contract without redundancy pay. And that certainly means strikers.

so in effect remove the right to strike...

tomterm8

custardy wrote: »

so in effect remove the right to strike...

Nope.You can strike if you want to. Your employer can hire another person if they want to.

nearlynew

tomterm8 wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I think the current system is... odd... people should have the right to withold their labour if they want to, but the business should have the right to employ people to do the job as they see fit, and fire anyone who willfully refuses to fulfill their contract without redundancy pay. And that certainly means strikers.

What it needs is for everyone to say "f*ck it" and go on strike and bring the system to its knees.
Then we may get the sound money and small government that we need.

While people keep fighting amongst themselves about party politics and whose job is more valuable than the others, our common enemy is laughing at us.

Our common enemy is the bank and its magic money making machine.
Its goal is to impoverish as many people as possible.

custardy

tomterm8 wrote: »

Nope.You can strike if you want to. Your employer can hire another person if they want to.

oh yeah,how silly of me
yup i can see that improving employees rights and standards of living no end

ukcarper

Mr.Brown wrote: »

I don't think people can afford to have long strikes anymore. Mortgages to pay, etc. So strikes now seem to me to be shorter, and less effective. They are more of a token arguably, a sign of anger, but from a position of less strength.

Flame me if you need to.

Wasn’t that why the Tories introduced right to buy and encourage home ownership so much.

fraser

i can't see how any the of the BA staff intent on striking sleep at night, i worked for BA and it was great fun and great pay. they are paid better and have better t&c's than their peers - the cabin staff are a disgrace and should be ashamed of drilling our national carrier into the ground - sack the lot of them and let the pilots do the cabin service whilst they recruit into the vacancies with plenty of other staff who would gladly work there