On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:21:44 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
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.
Actually, no. I was all in favour of secret ballots, and careful logging
of the numbers attending meetings. Because I knew the idea of hairy arsed
miners etc being intimidated to vote against their true beliefs by a
couple of activists to be just so much media rubbish. And was proved right.
So when that didn't cripple the unions, Thatcher had to go further. She
didn't want fair industrial relations but the return to a master slave
scenario.
Hmmmmmmm........
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.
No - most of it came down to just plain poor management.
Not my recollection.
BMC/BL being the
prime example. They released what amounted to prototypes and expected the
public to do the final testing. Forget poor workmanship - they simply
weren't properly developed. And if they had major engineering flaws it
doesn't take too much imagination to assume that the production
engineering was poor too, so they couldn't be built properly within the
time allowed. And that is going to frustrate a decent worker and make
disputes likely. Those same workers produced decently made cars before and
after.
As I recall, most of the disputes were as a result of the demarcations
over who did what and a general inflexibility in working practices
making it untenable to justify investment on a commercial basis.
Bailouts by successive governments really only prolonged the
inevitable that has now taken place.
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.
Of *course* it shouldn't be. But when a company decides to increase
profits by worsening the pay and or conditions of the workforce - and
believe me it happens regularly - then at some point the workforce will
call a halt to it.
A company doesn't increase profits just for fun, though. It has to
produce a return for its investors. Typically, these are not wealthy
people sitting in mansions but institutional investors producing a
return to fund the payouts for pension schemes, ISAs and all the other
investment vehicles based on the stock markets.
Thus there is a cause and effect all the way through, and one person's
payrise ultimately comes out of somebody else's savings scheme.
And it's not new. I left the BBC in '78 because their rigid following of
the so called prices and incomes policy meant I was getting close to being
no longer able to pay the mortgage. Others on the same grade as me - and
with say between 10 and 20 years service - were eligible for free school
meals for their kids and whatever the equivalent was to income support.
Shortly afterwards, due to vast losses of qualified staff, the BBC was
forced to revise conditions of service to pay them a *lot* more.
I remember that era well. The phenomenon was not restricted to
public service organisations such as Auntie.
I was working for a defence contractor at the time and the government
leaned on them not to give out pay rises or even to put the pay rises
in a suspense account as they had wanted to do. There was a union,
although I didn't join on principle - it wouldn't have made any
difference anyway because whoever it was was pretty toothless anyway,
and this was 1977-8 not 1979 and later.
I left the organisation for another in a different field of
electronics entirely, nearly tripled my salary and was given a company
funded car into the bargain.
The lessons I learned from that were to always make sure that I was
acquiring new skills, always keeping an eye on marketability, never
taking employment for granted and never relying on others to help me
out.
This has worked well as a principle and I can also put my hand on my
heart and say that it has never involved doing anybody else down.
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.
Perhaps the majority of the workforce these days doesn't have experience
or indeed memories of the benefits of a good union. Many only 'know' about
them from the rubbish they read in the press. But things are changing. The
hours worked and the conditions of service for many in this country are
just plain ridiculous, and I can see a revolt coming. And this can only be
done by organising the workforce, now as before.
Oh dear. This is the rhetoric of a bygone era. The UK certainly
works longer hours typically than in most other western European
countries, but organised labour and shorter hours under the same terms
and conditions simply won't fly. One only has to look at inward
investment into countries like France to see the negative effect of
the 35 hour week (or rather what passes as an impression of it).
The discussion should not be about the hours worked or pay and
conditions, but what is necessary to get the job done. When and only
when that is sorted out, is it reasonable to have the discussion about
pay and conditions. Otherwise, the latter discussion becomes
academic.
--
..andy
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