On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:54:26 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
The days of idiot unions having
untrammelled power without responsibility was thankfully ended years
ago (no matter how the resident idiot apologist for murderers may try
to rewrite reality).

Thank goodness. As somebody already remarked, the unions are dead,
they just don't realise it yet.

No they're not.

At one place I work, my union is close to getting recognition. If the
workforce is balloted and more than a certain percentage want this it
happens by law.

And surprise surprise. Many of the things that were making the workforce
want their union involved - like excess hours, some of which unpaid,
observing the maximum working week, statuary meal breaks etc, have now
suddenly been implemented.

Only the naive would think these were freely given.

But a union is if anything needed more in a largely freelance industry to
prevent victimization. At the moment, few with genuine grievances would go
direct to management as it's all too easy to simply not give them another
contract as a trouble maker.

I can see your point for your particular sector. However, in an
environment that is freelance wouldn't you normally be paid either an
hourly rate or a price for the job or some combination of the two?

If that's the case, why would the concepts of excess hours and maximum
working week apply?



--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl