Len McCluskey Unite

Going4TheDream

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Huddling round a candle, in a cut out baked bean tin, as the miners strike meant no electricity for lighting or anything else..

Three day working week.....

You forget rising food costs too, rubbish lining the streets, bodies not being buried as the council workers were on strike too.

Generali

Going4TheDream wrote: »

You forget rising food costs too, rubbish lining the streets, bodies not being buried as the council workers were on strike too.

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Huddling round a candle, in a cut out baked bean tin, as the miners strike meant no electricity for lighting or anything else..

Three day working week.....

I think you are adding the 1974 oil crises, the 1974 miners, steelworkers and railway strikes and the 1978-9 Winter of Discontent together.

michaels wrote: »

You see I think everyone has got it all wrong.

If you are an Italien bond trader you are expected to benefit from the external market environment - Italy has lots of bonds maturing and needs to borrow a lot? Time to raise the borrowing rate not time to 'put the national interest first'.

For the city, letting the market decide is derigour and yet for unions to spot that they have some market pricing power due to circumstances and try to exploit it is deemed unpatriotic. Different rules for different folks?

The difference is that there are hundreds of institutional bond buyers out there and in addition millions of individual investors. Unions get their strength from being a monopoly: that used to be institutionalized through the 'Closed Shop' legislation.

Jennifer_Jane

Whilst I hate what these union leaders are up to, and the hypocrisy that they are earning so much and living high on the hog, but this never gets mentioned on, for instance, Questiontime, being in a union has benefits.

I had my will done free, there was cheaper conveyancing, and when I was discontented with things at work, our representative on-site was just wonderful. He spent time with me, gave me excellent advice, especially on how to handle things, and what words to use; and it was totally confidential (unlike the Occupational Health people, who we never, ever really trusted to be on our side).

My other half doesn't have a union at work, so of course there is bullying. I have encouraged him to join a union independently, and I think there is a 3-month wait before you can use them before you can start getting advice.

So, like most insurance, if you are in a company with group union rules, then you can get advice immediately. If you do it privately, you probably have to wait.

I still hate these union leaders though, and why should we be having to worry about whether we have full tanks of petrol, worrying about whether the Olympics will be sabotaged by them, and so on.

Going4TheDream

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Whilst I hate what these union leaders are up to, and the hypocrisy that they are earning so much and living high on the hog, but this never gets mentioned on, for instance, Questiontime, being in a union has benefits.

I had my will done free, there was cheaper conveyancing, and when I was discontented with things at work, our representative on-site was just wonderful. He spent time with me, gave me excellent advice, especially on how to handle things, and what words to use; and it was totally confidential (unlike the Occupational Health people, who we never, ever really trusted to be on our side).

My other half doesn't have a union at work, so of course there is bullying. I have encouraged him to join a union independently, and I think there is a 3-month wait before you can use them before you can start getting advice.

So, like most insurance, if you are in a company with group union rules, then you can get advice immediately. If you do it privately, you probably have to wait.

I still hate these union leaders though, and why should we be having to worry about whether we have full tanks of petrol, worrying about whether the Olympics will be sabotaged by them, and so on.

I appreciate many people want/need a voice but most companies I have worked for have had confidential employer helplines contracted to discuss will making, financial advice, counselling and free legal advice etc, they also have discount schemes on various shopping, holidays, insurances, car schemes etc, all free as an employee. If you have a clause in your house insurance you can get free legal cover upto a certain amount for any issues including employment anyway. I am sure that there are many people who also benefit from employers that offer these.

I work in an unionised environment, many blue collar are in the union and the office workers not. The marked difference in attitude between the two is blinding,

I will leave you to determine which group of people in the main go on and get promoted.

Thrugelmir

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

My other half doesn't have a union at work, so of course there is bullying.

A Union doesn't mean there's no bullying going on.

Bullying can be collective.

Are all Union reps role models themselves?

ffacoffipawb

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Are all Union reps role models themselves?

Absolutely ....

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/07/22/senior-union-officials-at-liverpool-insurance-company-cheated-members-out-of-160-000-for-lavish-affair-100252-29099588/

Jennifer_Jane

Going4TheDream wrote: »

I appreciate many people want/need a voice but most companies I have worked for have had confidential employer helplines contracted to discuss will making, financial advice, counselling and free legal advice etc, they also have discount schemes on various shopping, holidays, insurances, car schemes etc, all free as an employee. If you have a clause in your house insurance you can get free legal cover upto a certain amount for any issues including employment anyway. I am sure that there are many people who also benefit from employers that offer these.

I work in an unionised environment, many blue collar are in the union and the office workers not. The marked difference in attitude between the two is blinding,

I will leave you to determine which group of people in the main go on and get promoted.

If you are saying that people who are in the Union are the ones who don't get promoted - because they are in the Union - there has to be something extraordinarily wrong with that, apart from the confidentiality aspect of being in the Union or not.

The Company I worked for was a FTSE100 company with 55,000 employees worldwide. We had numerous tax-advantageous schemes, and also discounts from vast number of local companies for our leisure club members, but nothing it appears as generous as the many companies you have worked for with all these advantages.

It is good to hear that Companies do so well for their employees, but for me the ability to get super and impartial advice from my Union rep, was worth the subscription fee and my health. Getting the will done, and other benefits which my Company did not provide was just getting more value for my money.

To Thrugelmir who said that bullying would not have been stopped by the Company having a union is, of course, correct, and I take that back. The only thing is that having the rep on-site meant that if you were being bullied you had impartial advice to call on.

Going4TheDream

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

If you are saying that people who are in the Union are the ones who don't get promoted - because they are in the Union - there has to be something extraordinarily wrong with that, apart from the confidentiality aspect of being in the Union or not.

The Company I worked for was a FTSE100 company with 55,000 employees worldwide. We had numerous tax-advantageous schemes, and also discounts from vast number of local companies for our leisure club members, but nothing it appears as generous as the many companies you have worked for with all these advantages.

It is good to hear that Companies do so well for their employees, but for me the ability to get super and impartial advice from my Union rep, was worth the subscription fee and my health. Getting the will done, and other benefits which my Company did not provide was just getting more value for my money.

To Thrugelmir who said that bullying would not have been stopped by the Company having a union is, of course, correct, and I take that back. The only thing is that having the rep on-site meant that if you were being bullied you had impartial advice to call on.

I have also worked for major international companies (and still do), all of whom had employee benefits, I have no doubt different companies offer different packages, but most do similar things on a broad scale.

No I wasnt suggesting that at all, that is blatent discrimination.

I was suggesting that it is all about attitude and the right mindset - it is more about that attitude of what is in it for me /or its not my job. The unwillingness to be flexible in the smallest way. I am not suggesting that all members are like this at all but my experience is that many many blue collar workers are.

People with a good positive attitude are far more likely to get promoted than those that dont

N1AK

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Recent? Was no different in the 70's.

I think you, and the others that followed on the reminiscing about the bad old days misunderstood my point. The strikes during the 70's may well have been extremely disruptive because of their length. Strikes these days are short (because people don't actually care enough to lose a decent amount of money) but timed to maximise the damage a short strike can cause.

Personally if someone is willing to give up a weeks wages to protest I can accept that it causes problems; if they want to cause all those problems but avoid the financial cost then the balance is lost.

Conrad

mcfisco wrote: »

I pay my 11.99/month - I think I'm the only union member at our place

I got 000's in legal representation a few years ago
looks like I'll get a few more this year as they've forced my company into negotiating a compromise agreement rather than just statutory redundancy pay that the rest are getting
The fact that I can take them to a tribunal without fear that it'll cost me convinced them settling would be wise

How nice for you to ensnare all this resource, which ultimately finds it's way to consumer prices.
A company starts out as a dream in the mind of a doer. The doer risks thier own money and family well being to set it up.

One day along come folk like you that feel some sort of wierd entitlment.

Risk your own money if you want a firm to be run along the lines you see fit.

A company should never suddenly become some sort of social enterprise vehicle for all commers to freeload off such as the poor dears that want the word to pay for THIER decision to have a child.

How did I ever manage to save before having a child? Not once did I ever think of asking others to pay for my life choices. No wonder we saw manaufactuing loose 1.3m jobs under Labour.

And to top all, these same entitled people then go and shop around for firms to provide them cheapest goods and services! No thoughts of the suppliers social constructs there then.