Unions in La La Land?

Jonbvn

Alan_Cross wrote: »

What an absolutely classic MSE right wing love in.

Why do all of you one eyed GB supporters only know one song?

chewmylegoff

Pete111 wrote: »

I read today that the head of the public sector union Unison has promised significant action to try to derail cuts and cost savings in coming years

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10325310.stm

I know that he would be naturally inclined to be against these measures but realistically, what other choice do we have? Under Labour, the public sector has become bloated and inefficient. Attempting to maintain it will be a giant millstone round the neck of UK PLC over the medium term and this bombastic rhetoric doesn't exactly help things...

Should be interesting to watch anyways!

personally i have no time for unions, but the unions are hardly going to support cuts are they? what did you expect them to do? help the government identify where staff cuts can be made? they're not in la-la land they're just doing what their members paid them to do.

lostinrates

Alan_Cross wrote: »

get their health care queue jumping in at Harley Street,

Instead they could take from a system that provides for the majority who don't have the option of providing private health from themselves and further add to quese and waiting lists for systems.

It seems to me if people can pay for their treatment and save the NHS something, then this is not the time to complain about it.

Andy_L

Its like any negotiation, eg buying a car, one side starts with a rediculously high demand & the other with an equally rediculously low offer, they then meet somewhere in the middle with eveyone able to claim they've won

Blacklight

Alan_Cross wrote: »

Trying to pull self-imposed blinkers from the eyes of others, when those blinkers have become so much part of the cranial architecture that they would pull out what's left of any thinking brain if disturbed, strikes me as more than somewhat futile.

I read this part of your post first and thought that you were talking about union bosses.

StevieJ

Pete111 wrote: »

I tend to agree re employee rights. I'm in HR and, for example, the hoops you have to jump through to (properly) get rid of ineffective people are quite numerous!

At the moment!

Interesting for a HR person not to notice opeing negotiation speak, although I suppose HR has morphed into just another administration dept

JasonLVC

chewmylegoff wrote: »

personally i have no time for unions, but the unions are hardly going to support cuts are they? what did you expect them to do? help the government identify where staff cuts can be made? they're not in la-la land they're just doing what their members paid them to do.

Of course they're not going to support the job cuts, but what they can do is work with the government and with local union officials to ensure that any job losses are fair, that correct procedures have been followed and to minimise job losses as much as possible but within the context of reality.

As the car manufacturer workers have found out, going on strike = plant closures whereas proper negotiation and compromises on both sides can lead to better working relations (ie, Honda, Vauxhall).

But the public sector union isn't saying this, they're saying they want a war and it will last 4 years and will be designed to hurt citizens, destroy relationships and damage the country and that no jobs will be lost.

Pete111

StevieJ wrote: »

At the moment!

Interesting for a HR person not to notice opeing negotiation speak, although I suppose HR has morphed into just another administration dept

There is opening negotiations and there is spoiling for a fight Stevie....

Pete111

chewmylegoff wrote: »

personally i have no time for unions, but the unions are hardly going to support cuts are they? what did you expect them to do? help the government identify where staff cuts can be made? they're not in la-la land they're just doing what their members paid them to do.

To be fair I did say:

I know that he would be naturally inclined to be against these measures

...and I also appreciate that in some circumstances 'going long' helps negotiations but basically threatening to drag us back into the 70's is to my mind, neither constructive nor particularly feasible in the current environment

Alan_Cross

lostinrates wrote: »

Instead they could take from a system that provides for the majority who don't have the option of providing private health from themselves and further add to quese and waiting lists for systems.

It seems to me if people can pay for their treatment and save the NHS something, then this is not the time to complain about it.

Yes, I've heard this non-argument before and it doesn't hold water.

'Aren't I doing all you little people a favour by hailing a cab and letting you move one place up the bus queue..?'

And then we notice that said taxi just happens to be driven by a bus driver moonlighting as a cabbie and owned by the same people who are [STRIKE]running down[/STRIKE] going to such great pains to run an efficient, publicly-owned bus service in competition with their taxis...