On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:07:45 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
Making strikes illegal is simply a waste of time. When has any workforce
been prosecuted for taking 'illegal' action? And if it did happen, there
would be another general strike which I'd be happy to join in.

Rather hypothetical. The purpose of legislation was in respect of
inappropriate secondary action.

It was part of union bashing. Nothing more or less.

I suppose that if you feel that unions should have unfettered power,
then that's an understandable viewpoint.

I feel that in the early years of the 20th century they may have had a
role to play, in the 60s and 70s a fair proportion of the blame for
the decline in UK industry could be laid at their door and that it was
reasonable that their power should have been curtailed. Secondary
action was among the most obvious of those areas.



We are in the 21st century now, not the 1920s or even the 60s/70s, and
the unions need to wake up to the reality of the modern economic
world.

So the bosses do what they want and the workers simply lie back and take
it? No thanks.


This depends on whether you believe that the employer/employee
relationship has to be an adversarial one. Personally I don't.

Either way, there is an inevitable decline in union importance and
influence as a result of the changing nature of business and where it
is conducted.

I suspect that in about a generation, the discussion will be academic
anyway because people will have moved on from the trappings of the
past.


--

..andy

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