are industrial disputes ever legit?

treliac

torontoboy45 wrote: »

tube drivers decided to take the day off on boxing day due to a dispute over 'manning' levels; a day when most look forward to being away from the grindstone.....

And tube drivers (according to a news item on tv yesterday) earn an average 44k per year. :eek:

ILW

treliac wrote: »

And tube drivers (according to a news item on tv yesterday) earn an average 44k per year. :eek:

Not bad for a job that any fairly bright person could learn to do in three months.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

You mean the govt that was hell bent on closing mines and putting his union members out of work :eek:

That had already happened. Scargill at that time specifically wanted to destroy a democratically elected Government.

torontoboy45 wrote: »

thank you for the input gen. but I'm more concerned with peeps perceptions of industrial disputes a la 21st c. as opposed to the commie larks of 25yrs ago (which, arguably damaged the raison d'etre of collectivism almost fatally and without the help of employment laws).

Well like I say, there are times when, for example, employers are trying to force employees to undertake dangerous or illegal acts and so under those conditions employees can and should strike.

The old days of unions acting as monopsony suppliers of labour to an industry and so being able to use industry-wide strikes in order to force through industry-wide pay rises are rightly gone.

ILW

Generali wrote: »

That had already happened. Scargill at that time specifically wanted to destroy a democratically elected Government.




Well like I say, there are times when, for example, employers are trying to force employees to undertake dangerous or illegal acts and so under those conditions employees can and should strike.

The old days of unions acting as monopsony suppliers of labour to an industry and so being able to use industry-wide strikes in order to force through industry-wide pay rises are rightly gone.

Apart from a few of the old public sector industries. (See above)

rockitup

treliac wrote: »

And tube drivers (according to a news item on tv yesterday) earn an average 44k per year. :eek:

Before 1993 when the Company Plan was introduced (incorporating holidays like Boxing Day as a normal day) the wages on most London Underground jobs were pretty naff and staff turnover was high.

Since the effects of credit crunch, recession, job cuts and pay freezes have emerged, newspaper article comments have made people aware of the decent salaries and pensions available to Tube staff.

As a result many 000's of other workers would love to join the Tube but existing staff are not leaving in droves as used to be the case years ago.

I left LUL many years ago and would love to get back there for that £44k but there won't be any job vacancies there for some years.
Still, I don't miss the getting up at 3am in the morning for early turns, working night shifts on some grades, weekend working and getting grief from the very small minority of gobby passengers who got out the wrong side of bed and don't give themselves a little spare time to get to work.

100 year old infrastructure that had not been funded for necessary updates and maintenance for 20 years + just cannot work well all the time, hence the years of weekend improvements being carried out now.

I am living now in a country where there seems to be no unions and local workers get severely mistreated both in terms of working 11 hours a day, 6 days a week as normal and often they only get 6 month contracts with no chance of renewal........

Do you think England could become like this one day? Just a thought

ILW

Generali

Do they have the same problem with public sector unions in Oz?

Generali

ILW wrote: »

Generali

Do they have the same problem with public sector unions in Oz?

It depends who's in power.

The unions here basically have Labor in their pockets (look up the way Gillard replaced Rudd as PM for example) so Labor do what they are told so the boat remains unrocked for the most part.

The Coalition (National and Liberal Parties - Nationals represent country areas, Liberal urban for the most part) have few connections with the unions and so tend to have more problems as they don't do what they're told.

The labour market is pretty tight here most of the time so that tends to keep wages up which keeps the workers happy.

torontoboy45

ILW wrote: »

Bit confused over the manning levels issue. I thought a tube only needed one driver. Are TFL trying to use less than that?

to clarify: an agreement was struck some yrs ago re a commitment to boxing day working based on a reduced service akin to sundays.

my understanding is that most were content with this arrangement; a majority of drivers would not be req'd for work. trains running on the day would be covered on a 'round robin basis' (for fairness).

it seems the trouble started when TFL decided to increase the boxing day service, which obviously meant there was less opportunity for their drivers to take the day off (along with 99% of the national workforce).

I'm open to correction, though.

markharding557

Strikes are legit provided they are conducted within the law.
Hamish mctavish wrote

In todays world of worker protection under the law, no.

Industrial action has little use any more, beyond providing a platform for militant workers to jeapordise the viability of the company they work for. The BA strike is a good example.



Or in the case of public service strikes, to try and extort the taxpayer.

You're wrong workplaces with unions usually have better conditions than non unionised and less unfair sackings

ILW

torontoboy45 wrote: »

to clarify: an agreement was struck some yrs ago re a commitment to boxing day working based on a reduced service akin to sundays.

my understanding is that most were content with this arrangement; a majority of drivers would not be req'd for work. trains running on the day would be covered on a 'round robin basis' (for fairness).

it seems the trouble started when TFL decided to increase the boxing day service, which obviously meant there was less opportunity for their drivers to take the day off (along with 99% of the national workforce).

I'm open to correction, though.

Think your idea that 99% of the workforce getting boxing day off is way off the mark. Things have changed a lot over the last 30 years and it appears it is mainly the old unionised public sector that think they should be treated differently.
This is only anecdotal, but many of my family and friends work in Care, Retail, Police, and such things as road maintenance (gritting). Might have been a bit dodgy for many (not to mention life threatening) if they had all decided to "take the day off" as the tube drivers did.