"Andy Hall" aka Matt wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:05:31 GMT, Roger
wrote Rogerness:

The message
from Andy Hall aka Matt contains these words:

There is a clear conflict of interest and as long as the employer can
dispense with employees one at a time the dice is unfairly loaded in
his
favour. Only if the workforce can speak with one voice can negotiations
take place on equal terms.

That simply isn't true.

Oh but it is.

It isn't an issue of weight of numbers. All that that achieves is to
temporarily provide some marginally improved situation for the
workforce. Beyond a certain point that becomes untenable because the
employer can no longer make money, either because margins are squeezed
too far or because he will price himself out of the market.

You are looking at the situation from the old fashioned capitalist
perspective where all the profits of the enterprise belong exclusively
to the owner and the wage slaves are granted the smallest possible
pittance the employer can get away with.

I haven't said that at all

Matt, you have.

and it is seldom the case.

Wrong.

I gave a very typical illustration based on figures from a company
mentioned in another recent thread.

Silly figures too.

What is really at issue is the balance between the reward for the
employer and the reward for the employee.

Of course, and as I illustrated, it is very much in the direction of
the employee in most cases, certainly in anything that involves
manufacturing.

Non specialist employees have
no leverage whatsoever. Supply is almost always greater than demand. One
employer negotiating with one union merely levels up the playing field.

The problem with all of that is ultimately with the employees (or
rather the individual employee). All that the union can ever hope to
do is to bolster up what is ultimately an unsustainable situation. If
the employee allows himself to be a commodity, then he is going to be
subject to the market pressures for that commodity. If the employer
can buy more cheaply elsewhere, with all costs considered, then he
will and does.

This man equates people with raw materials/ Appalling.

The focus for the employee should be on differentiating himself in the
employment market. This is not to say that anybody is ultimately
indispensible, but he can certainly make a bigger difference to his
situation than a union ever can because he can focus purely on his own
requirements.

You are clearly in cloud cuckoo land.

The union movement is responsible for a trail of destruction as a
result of closed shops, restrictive practices, secondary action and
working days lost to strike action. It's a legacy of a bygone era
that really has no place in the modern world.

I doubt whether anyone apart from Dribble would argue that unions are
perfect but the worst excesses of union behaviour are hopefully a thing
of the past and some of them are now illegal.

I agree with you that the worst excesses are broadly a thing of the
past. However, fortunately I don't see a long term future for them
either. The've had their day....

Membership of unions is rising. You are naive.

"David" wrote Bertiness in message
...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"David" wrote in message
. ..
In article .com,
Aidan writes

Doctor Drivel wrote:

The Crown lands are owned by the state. AIUI, the Queen can take the
proceeds of that "land". If so, then Orwell is correct. We, the
state,
own
the land below the high tide mark, but it is given to one family.

I think the Crown lands belong to the Queen, not the state. It dates
from the time when the Monarch was the state. I'm really not sure & I'm
not getting into a row about it.

No, you're wrong the Crown estate is in name only, the Royals receive no
income from the crown estates, the only bit of land that belongs to the
Crown is the foreshore and that is just an administrative thing and does
give it some protection.

Bertie, you are wrong. The Crown Estate does own land, not just the
beach.
It rents land out. Then why is the Queen involved? Maybe there is some
part of the original contract that says if the civil list is dropped the
estate returns to them. The state should sell it all off to owner
occupation only, with clauses that forbid absentee land landlords owning
the
land.

John, try reading and understanding what I wrote, I didn't say that the
Crown Estate doesn't own land,

Bertie, you said "the only bit of land that belongs to the Crown is the
foreshore"

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 15:23:57 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
I do firmly believe that the correct way to make that happen is to show,
encourage and help people to achieve

And letting parasites and idiots bump house prices out of the reach of
reasonable people is your idea of encouragement.

Oh dear. What a lot of bigotted nonsense.....

Presumably, your idea of a "reasonable person" is somebody who doesn't
want to improve himself and is happy to sit back and let the state
organise his life for him.,....

Bringing two threads together:

My idea of reasonable people are those that won't allow parasites to determine
how much they pay for basic necessities.

My idea of reasonable people are workers and employers combining to get work
done to the advantage of both on equal footing. You want employers to be able
to dictate conditions to workers, demand work done under dangerous conditions,
and discard workers at a whim. You're a dangerous plonker.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"David" wrote Bertiness in message
...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"Capitol" wrote in message
...


Doctor Drivel wrote:


BTW, Tone has eliminated the north-south divide, just announced by the
FT.

I suggest you go back and re read it.
In terms of income the gap is still there and in wealth creation, the
North unhappily is still way down the tables.

Nope. Half of the 100 places where standard of living was high where in
the
north of England.

Small pockets though, look at the average.

I see that the Scots are now being chastised for lack of enterprise and
achievement,

I'm not surprised. Some nutters come from up there.

That will be including yourself then, don't be ashamed of your heritage
John.

Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

caused in part by decades of Socialist handouts. Sad, for such a
traditionally hard working group.

You a fool and an idiot! In fact the Jocks are much brighter than you.


--
David

In article ,
Roger wrote:
The real reason that building land is so expensive is an excess of
demand over supply

Not true. It's 'cheap' credit.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

"Roger" wrote Rogerness in message
k...
The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

I live within Leeds commuter belt

Poor sod.

I don't live in Leeds. I live within commuting distance of there should
I wish to work.

That is even worse.

And I am quite happy with the situation.

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

Extensive views of not all
together ruined countryside.

All that fog too.

Surrounded on 3 sides by farmland

Roger, the smell! You have my sympathy.

and with
my nearest neighbour 50 yards away.

They must want the likes of you further away.

But rural life wouldn't appeal to
you,

I do have a house in rural type of location.

The countryside is there to be built on, not
enjoyed.

It is there to serve the peopel Roger. If that mean building a nice house on
it then so be it. Enjoy the country Roger? You are naive.

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their
native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads" - Henry George.

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
Mine, BECTU, includes public liability insurance for each member, which if
bought individually would cost more than the annual subscription.

Not something unique to unions though, most trade organisations offer
similar deals for their members.

What's the difference? Apart from the fact that 'trade organisations' are
seen as somehow respectable by right wingers? Of course some might argue
that CORGI etc are somewhat of a mixed blessing...

At one time, you couldn't work in ITV or films without an ACTT 'ticket'.
This was a 'bad thing', restrictive practices etc, according to right
wingers. But it at least guaranteed the person doing the job was trained
to a reasonable standard, as 'tickets' were *not* issued willy nilly. You
only have to look at the technical standards of many progs on TV these
days to realise that it still needs training to produce an acceptable
result.

But unions have been replaced in many fields by trade associations who are
equally a closed shop - but exist to make a profit for their owners.
Capitalism gone mad again.

--
*If I throw a stick, will you leave?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:19:10 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"Roger" wrote Rogerness in message
. uk...
The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

I live within Leeds commuter belt

Poor sod.

I don't live in Leeds. I live within commuting distance of there should
I wish to work.

That is even worse.

And I am quite happy with the situation.

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

I expect that Roger is too......




It is there to serve the peopel Roger.

Actually it's there for all species which inhabit it, including, but
not restricted to Homo Sapiens.

If that mean building a nice house on
it then so be it. Enjoy the country Roger? You are naive.

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their
native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads" - Henry George.

(as written from his armchair while smoking his pipe and wearing his
slippers).


--

..andy

"Andy Hall" aka Matt wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:19:10 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"Roger" wrote Rogerness in message
.uk...
The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

I live within Leeds commuter belt

Poor sod.

I don't live in Leeds. I live within commuting distance of there should
I wish to work.

That is even worse.

And I am quite happy with the situation.

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

I expect that Roger is too......

I hope so.

It is there to serve the people Roger.

Actually it's there for all species which inhabit it, including, but
not restricted to Homo Sapiens.

So, serving the people then.

If that mean building a nice house on
it then so be it. Enjoy the country Roger? You are naive.

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their
native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads" - Henry George.

(as written from his armchair while smoking his pipe and wearing his
slippers).

Henry George is actually now sadly deceased.

In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"David" wrote Bertiness in message
.. .
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"David" wrote in message
.. .
In article .com,
Aidan writes

Doctor Drivel wrote:

The Crown lands are owned by the state. AIUI, the Queen can take the
proceeds of that "land". If so, then Orwell is correct. We, the
state,
own
the land below the high tide mark, but it is given to one family.

I think the Crown lands belong to the Queen, not the state. It dates
from the time when the Monarch was the state. I'm really not sure & I'm
not getting into a row about it.

No, you're wrong the Crown estate is in name only, the Royals receive no
income from the crown estates, the only bit of land that belongs to the
Crown is the foreshore and that is just an administrative thing and does
give it some protection.

Bertie, you are wrong. The Crown Estate does own land, not just the
beach.
It rents land out. Then why is the Queen involved? Maybe there is some
part of the original contract that says if the civil list is dropped the
estate returns to them. The state should sell it all off to owner
occupation only, with clauses that forbid absentee land landlords owning
the
land.

John, try reading and understanding what I wrote, I didn't say that the
Crown Estate doesn't own land,

Bertie, you said "the only bit of land that belongs to the Crown is the
foreshore"


Which isn't the Crown Estates, jeez have we got to go through all of
this word by word, don't be such a dick John, you know better then that

--
David

In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"David" wrote Bertiness in message
.. .
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"Capitol" wrote in message
...


Doctor Drivel wrote:


BTW, Tone has eliminated the north-south divide, just announced by the
FT.

I suggest you go back and re read it.
In terms of income the gap is still there and in wealth creation, the
North unhappily is still way down the tables.

Nope. Half of the 100 places where standard of living was high where in
the
north of England.

Small pockets though, look at the average.

I see that the Scots are now being chastised for lack of enterprise and
achievement,

I'm not surprised. Some nutters come from up there.

That will be including yourself then, don't be ashamed of your heritage
John.

Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

With a name like Burns???

caused in part by decades of Socialist handouts. Sad, for such a
traditionally hard working group.

You a fool and an idiot! In fact the Jocks are much brighter than you.


--
David


--
David

In article ,
David wrote:
Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

That's obvious. Scots are intelligent.

With a name like Burns???

Probably from an ancestor who was burned at the stake for peddling snake
oil.

--
*Do they ever shut up on your planet?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"David" wrote in message
...
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"David" wrote Bertiness in message
. ..
In article ews.net,
Doctor Drivel writes

"David" wrote in message
. ..
In article .com,
Aidan writes

Doctor Drivel wrote:

The Crown lands are owned by the state. AIUI, the Queen can take
the
proceeds of that "land". If so, then Orwell is correct. We, the
state,
own
the land below the high tide mark, but it is given to one family.

I think the Crown lands belong to the Queen, not the state. It dates
from the time when the Monarch was the state. I'm really not sure &
I'm
not getting into a row about it.

No, you're wrong the Crown estate is in name only, the Royals receive
no
income from the crown estates, the only bit of land that belongs to
the
Crown is the foreshore and that is just an administrative thing and
does
give it some protection.

Bertie, you are wrong. The Crown Estate does own land, not just the
beach.
It rents land out. Then why is the Queen involved? Maybe there is some
part of the original contract that says if the civil list is dropped the
estate returns to them. The state should sell it all off to owner
occupation only, with clauses that forbid absentee land landlords owning
the
land.

John, try reading and understanding what I wrote, I didn't say that the
Crown Estate doesn't own land,

Bertie, you said "the only bit of land that belongs to the Crown is the
foreshore"


Which isn't the Crown Estates, jeez have we got to go through all of
this word by word, don't be such a dick John, you know better then that

Bertie, you're confused.

"David" wrote in message
...

Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

With a name like Burns???

Bertie, I am a better poet than Robert Burns. My brilliant poetry makes you
think I am him.

"Dave Plowman (News)" through a haze of senile
flatulence wrote in message ...
In article ,

David wrote:

Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

That's obvious. Scots are intelligent.

Richard, stop making things up.

With a name like Burns???

Probably from an ancestor who
was burned at the stake for peddling snake
oil.

Was Robbie Burns burned at the stake?

The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their
native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads" - Henry George.

(as written from his armchair while smoking his pipe and wearing his
slippers).

Henry George is actually now sadly deceased.

Where have you been these past 100 years? George died in 1897, not 1997.

--
Roger Chapman

The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

I expect that Roger is too......

Too right. Imagine having Dribble as a neighbour.

--
Roger Chapman

The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:


I don't live in Leeds. I live within commuting distance of there should
I wish to work.

That is even worse.

And I am quite happy with the situation.

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

So am I. :-)

Extensive views of not all
together ruined countryside.

All that fog too.

That's the Vale of York. The Aire Valley sometimes fills with fog but I
am above that most of the time.

Surrounded on 3 sides by farmland

Roger, the smell! You have my sympathy.

Oh you mean the sewage works. That's out of sight over half a mile away
and usually downwind.

and with
my nearest neighbour 50 yards away.

They must want the likes of you further away.

Don't judge my neighbours on the basis of your neighbours reaction to you.

But rural life wouldn't appeal to
you,

I do have a house in rural type of location.

Shed on the local allotment?

The countryside is there to be built on, not
enjoyed.

It is there to serve the peopel Roger. If that mean building a nice
house on
it then so be it. Enjoy the country Roger? You are naive.

Building houses tends to ruin the countryside. Unrestricted devlopment
would certainly ruin it for all concerned.

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to their
native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads" - Henry George.

Never trust a Yank, not even a long dead one, to be objective about the UK.

--
Roger Chapman

The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:05:31 GMT, Roger
wrote:

snip

You are looking at the situation from the old fashioned capitalist
perspective where all the profits of the enterprise belong exclusively
to the owner and the wage slaves are granted the smallest possible
pittance the employer can get away with.

I haven't said that at all and it is seldom the case.

It depends very much on the nature of the work. Those with highly prized
specialist skills are in short supply and it is neccessary for employers
to be considerate if they want to retain their employees services. Those
with no specialist skills (the majority) are treated on a take it or
leave basis. Outside of piecework (and the battle of the sexes) I have
never heard of any situation where adult unskilled or semi skilled
workers are rewarded differently to those they work alongside.

I gave a very typical illustration based on figures from a company
mentioned in another recent thread.

In that one, the wages were approx a third of gross profit, the taxman
took another third and out of the remaining third, after other
operating costs were taken out, most of the remainder was reinvested
in the business and about 3% of the total went to shareholder
dividends.

But I don't recall you mentioning whether the workforce had a union or
the ratio of the CEOs emoluments to the wage of of the shop floor
worker. Reinvestment is added value to the share holder but I am a bit
puzzled how the taxman got his hands on a third of the gross profit. I
thought Corporation Tax hadn't been as high as 33% for years and that is
charged on taxable profit rather than the usually much higher figure for
gross profit.

If there is a piece that could be usefully reduced, it is the piece
which goes to and is wasted by the government.

In no particular order: Armed Services, Police, National Health Service,
Education, Roads, Culture, Welfare, subsidies to parents, MPs (salaries,
expenses and pension fund), etc. etc. - all wasted. :-)


What is really at issue is the balance between the reward for the
employer and the reward for the employee.

Of course, and as I illustrated, it is very much in the direction of
the employee in most cases, certainly in anything that involves
manufacturing.

I doubt whether the employees concerned would agree with you.

Non specialist employees have
no leverage whatsoever. Supply is almost always greater than demand. One
employer negotiating with one union merely levels up the playing field.

The problem with all of that is ultimately with the employees (or
rather the individual employee). All that the union can ever hope to
do is to bolster up what is ultimately an unsustainable situation. If
the employee allows himself to be a commodity, then he is going to be
subject to the market pressures for that commodity. If the employer
can buy more cheaply elsewhere, with all costs considered, then he
will and does.

The focus for the employee should be on differentiating himself in the
employment market. This is not to say that anybody is ultimately
indispensible, but he can certainly make a bigger difference to his
situation than a union ever can because he can focus purely on his own
requirements.

But the individual has no weight at all if he is indistinguishable from
the next man or woman. Consequently the employer can see off each
employee one at a time. The union redresses the imbalance but the
employer ultimately remains in control. (The employees hang separately
if they don't hang together). As an investor or an employer you might
find the power of the union a bit of an inconvenience but that is a
minor matter compared to how the individual shop floor worker finds the
employer if he doesn't have a union for support.


The union movement is responsible for a trail of destruction as a
result of closed shops, restrictive practices, secondary action and
working days lost to strike action. It's a legacy of a bygone era
that really has no place in the modern world.

I doubt whether anyone apart from Dribble would argue that unions are
perfect but the worst excesses of union behaviour are hopefully a thing
of the past and some of them are now illegal.

I agree with you that the worst excesses are broadly a thing of the
past. However, fortunately I don't see a long term future for them
either. The've had their day....

You hope.

--
Roger Chapman

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:35:44 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"David" wrote in message
.. .

Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

With a name like Burns???

Bertie, I am a better poet than Robert Burns. My brilliant poetry makes you
think I am him.


I'd have said more like Andrew Motion. Your literary skills
certainly match his family name...


--

..andy

"Andy Hall" aka Matt wrote in message
...

I'd have said more like Andrew Motion. Your literary skills
certainly match his family name...

Matt, I am the best poet in the world.

"Roger" wrote overt Rogerness in message
k...
The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

"The vast majority of the British people have no right whatsoever to
their
native land save to walk the streets or trudge the roads" - Henry
George.

(as written from his armchair while smoking his pipe and wearing his
slippers).

Henry George is actually now sadly deceased.

George died in 1897, not 1997.

Roger, exactly.

"Roger" wrote Rogerness in message
k...
The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

I expect that Roger is too......

Too right. Imagine having Dribble as a neighbour.

Roger, if I moved in house prices would rise.

"Roger" wrote Rogerness in message
k...
The message ews.net
from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

I don't live in Leeds. I live within commuting distance of there should
I wish to work.

That is even worse.

And I am quite happy with the situation.

I'm glad it's you that live there and not me.

So am I. :-)

Yes, someone has to live in those places.

Extensive views of not all
together ruined countryside.

All that fog too.

That's the Vale of York.

Roger, you are a fog in your opwn right.

Surrounded on 3 sides by farmland

Roger, the smell! You have my sympathy.

Oh you mean the sewage works.

It's getting worse.

and with
my nearest neighbour 50 yards away.

They must want the likes of you further away.

Don't judge my neighbours on the basis
of your neighbours reaction to you.

Roger have they put up barbed wire between you and them?

But rural life wouldn't appeal to
you,

I do have a house in rural type of location.

Shed on the local allotment?

How is your allotment Roger?

The countryside is there to be built on, not
enjoyed.

It is there to serve the people Roger.
If that mean building a nice
house on it then so be it. Enjoy
the country Roger? You are naive.

Building houses tends to ruin the countryside.

It doesn't Roger it make it better, and it make it better for the people in
the houses.

Unrestricted devlopment
would certainly ruin it for all concerned.

Roger, it would not.

"The vast majority of the British people
have no right whatsoever to their
native land save to walk the streets
or trudge the roads" - Henry George.

Never trust a Yank,

Roger, you a prejudiced pillock. Sad but true. No wonder the neighbours
put up barbed wire.

Roger wrote:
The message
from Dave contains these words:


As I passed the group, one of the children asked 'what is a shore'?


The teacher replied that she did not know. I jumped in and said that it
was that part of the beach that is covered between low and high tide and
that it was called a foreshore.


Am I right?


Yes and no. :-)

Foreshore can mean the bit between high and low water mark but it can
also mean he bit immediately inshore of the high watermark.

Thanks Roger. So I was not too far from the mark then :-)
I used to work in the aerospace industry and you had to be right there,
but I think a teacher being told a definition of a word might just try
and get back at me if I showed her up in front of the children. So just
checking by back :-)

Dave

Andy Hall wrote:

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:35:44 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:


"David" wrote in message
. ..


Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

With a name like Burns???

Bertie, I am a better poet than Robert Burns. My brilliant poetry makes you
think I am him.



I'd have said more like Andrew Motion. Your literary skills
certainly match his family name...

Andy, now ask if he heard a whooshing sound ;-)

Dave

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Andy Hall wrote:

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 16:35:44 -0000, "Doctor Drivel"
wrote:

"David" wrote in message
.. .

Bertie, I am not a Jocko in any way.

With a name like Burns???

Bertie, I am a better poet than Robert Burns. My brilliant poetry makes
you think I am him.

I'd have said more like Andrew Motion. Your literary skills
certainly match his family name...

Andy, now ask if he heard a whooshing sound ;-)

Is that the best you can do? Appalling.

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:56:20 GMT, Roger
wrote:

The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:05:31 GMT, Roger
wrote:

snip

You are looking at the situation from the old fashioned capitalist
perspective where all the profits of the enterprise belong exclusively
to the owner and the wage slaves are granted the smallest possible
pittance the employer can get away with.

I haven't said that at all and it is seldom the case.

It depends very much on the nature of the work. Those with highly prized
specialist skills are in short supply and it is neccessary for employers
to be considerate if they want to retain their employees services.

Exactly.

Those
with no specialist skills (the majority) are treated on a take it or
leave basis.

So the point is that people should seek to acquire some form of
differentiation, either by improving or selecting their set of skills,
or by finding pastures new.


Outside of piecework (and the battle of the sexes) I have
never heard of any situation where adult unskilled or semi skilled
workers are rewarded differently to those they work alongside.

So this indicates an oversupply with people competing on price only.
It is hardly surprising that the situation is as you describe. The
solution is to reduce the amount of supply or improve the value as
seen by the purchaser (employer in this case), not to try to negotiate
a better price for a commodity. That's a weak position to take which
will inevitably fail at some point.



I gave a very typical illustration based on figures from a company
mentioned in another recent thread.

In that one, the wages were approx a third of gross profit, the taxman
took another third and out of the remaining third, after other
operating costs were taken out, most of the remainder was reinvested
in the business and about 3% of the total went to shareholder
dividends.

But I don't recall you mentioning whether the workforce had a union or
the ratio of the CEOs emoluments to the wage of of the shop floor
worker.

I did actually, although not in this thread. The company in question
was Talaos, the owning company of Rompa (a manufacturer of special
needs equipment). I have an account with the Registrar of Companies
and pulled their accounts and returns.

The wages amounted to about £1m including approx £140k between the
three directors.

Nothing unreasonable there at all. £50-60k for a managing director is
hardly excessive.

The point being made was not whether or not there were unions etc. but
that there was not a huge mountain of executive emolument and
dividends being built up at the expense of the employees.
The villain of the piece is the taxman.



Reinvestment is added value to the share holder but I am a bit
puzzled how the taxman got his hands on a third of the gross profit. I
thought Corporation Tax hadn't been as high as 33% for years and that is
charged on taxable profit rather than the usually much higher figure for
gross profit.

The take for the taxman was based on corporation tax, employer and
employee NI and employee income tax. Together, these amount to at
least a third of the top line.



If there is a piece that could be usefully reduced, it is the piece
which goes to and is wasted by the government.

In no particular order: Armed Services, Police, National Health Service,
Education, Roads, Culture, Welfare, subsidies to parents, MPs (salaries,
expenses and pension fund), etc. etc. - all wasted. :-)


Almost all of those with the possible exception of armed services and
police could be far more effectively operated outside of state
control. I posted a few weeks ago an alternative method of funding
and delivering both health and education with a much smaller role for
government and the government employed.




What is really at issue is the balance between the reward for the
employer and the reward for the employee.

Of course, and as I illustrated, it is very much in the direction of
the employee in most cases, certainly in anything that involves
manufacturing.

I doubt whether the employees concerned would agree with you.

They may well not. However, if one sits and thinks for a few minutes
and compares the commecial aspect of an employer/employee relationship
with any other transaction, it is pretty obvious that businesses which
sell commodities purely on price are highly exposed to market
conditions. Can you imagine all the shops getting together and
refusing to sell apples because the price is too low? Yet this is, in
effect what union negotiation seeks to achieve.
The right approach would be to offer a better product or to sell a
different product or sell it elsewhere.




Non specialist employees have
no leverage whatsoever. Supply is almost always greater than demand. One
employer negotiating with one union merely levels up the playing field.

The problem with all of that is ultimately with the employees (or
rather the individual employee). All that the union can ever hope to
do is to bolster up what is ultimately an unsustainable situation. If
the employee allows himself to be a commodity, then he is going to be
subject to the market pressures for that commodity. If the employer
can buy more cheaply elsewhere, with all costs considered, then he
will and does.

The focus for the employee should be on differentiating himself in the
employment market. This is not to say that anybody is ultimately
indispensible, but he can certainly make a bigger difference to his
situation than a union ever can because he can focus purely on his own
requirements.

But the individual has no weight at all if he is indistinguishable from
the next man or woman. Consequently the employer can see off each
employee one at a time.

Exactly, which is why the employee should not allow himself to get
into that position.

The union redresses the imbalance but the
employer ultimately remains in control. (The employees hang separately
if they don't hang together).

All that it really achieves is to bolster up a fundamentally weak
position and focusses on the wrong areas.

As an investor or an employer you might
find the power of the union a bit of an inconvenience but that is a
minor matter compared to how the individual shop floor worker finds the
employer if he doesn't have a union for support.


The problem is that the focus always seems to be one of how to get a
bigger slice of the cake rather than making the cake larger.



The union movement is responsible for a trail of destruction as a
result of closed shops, restrictive practices, secondary action and
working days lost to strike action. It's a legacy of a bygone era
that really has no place in the modern world.

I doubt whether anyone apart from Dribble would argue that unions are
perfect but the worst excesses of union behaviour are hopefully a thing
of the past and some of them are now illegal.

I agree with you that the worst excesses are broadly a thing of the
past. However, fortunately I don't see a long term future for them
either. The've had their day....

You hope.

Yes I do, but it will happen anyway as the nature of industry and
services change.


--

..andy

The message
from Andy Hall contains these words:

snip

It depends very much on the nature of the work. Those with highly prized
specialist skills are in short supply and it is necessary for employers
to be considerate if they want to retain their employees services.

Exactly.

Those
with no specialist skills (the majority) are treated on a take it or
leave basis.

So the point is that people should seek to acquire some form of
differentiation, either by improving or selecting their set of skills,
or by finding pastures new.

For at least half the population there is no realistic prospect of them
taking any action that would differentiate themselves from the herd.

Outside of piecework (and the battle of the sexes) I have
never heard of any situation where adult unskilled or semi skilled
workers are rewarded differently to those they work alongside.

So this indicates an oversupply with people competing on price only.
It is hardly surprising that the situation is as you describe. The
solution is to reduce the amount of supply or improve the value as
seen by the purchaser (employer in this case), not to try to negotiate
a better price for a commodity. That's a weak position to take which
will inevitably fail at some point.

I think you are ignoring the point of all this is which is that
belonging to a union alters the balance between the employer and the
employee. The employees position may be weak but it is generally
improved by being a member of a union.

I gave a very typical illustration based on figures from a company
mentioned in another recent thread.

In that one, the wages were approx a third of gross profit, the taxman
took another third and out of the remaining third, after other
operating costs were taken out, most of the remainder was reinvested
in the business and about 3% of the total went to shareholder
dividends.

But I don't recall you mentioning whether the workforce had a union or
the ratio of the CEOs emoluments to the wage of of the shop floor
worker.

I did actually, although not in this thread. The company in question
was Talaos, the owning company of Rompa (a manufacturer of special
needs equipment). I have an account with the Registrar of Companies
and pulled their accounts and returns.

The wages amounted to about £1m including approx £140k between the
three directors.

I didn't see that thread. (Can't find the time to keep up with all the
traffic).

Nothing unreasonable there at all. £50-60k for a managing director is
hardly excessive.

Probably not. But does £40 thousand go to the wife for doing bugger all?

The point being made was not whether or not there were unions etc. but
that there was not a huge mountain of executive emolument and
dividends being built up at the expense of the employees.
The villain of the piece is the taxman.

Reinvestment is added value to the share holder but I am a bit
puzzled how the taxman got his hands on a third of the gross profit. I
thought Corporation Tax hadn't been as high as 33% for years and that is
charged on taxable profit rather than the usually much higher figure for
gross profit.

The take for the taxman was based on corporation tax, employer and
employee NI and employee income tax. Together, these amount to at
least a third of the top line.

I don't have access to the figures but ISTM that even if you concede the
whole of the wage bill to the taxman and throw in the kitchen sink you
still wouldn't manage to give him a third of the gross profit. BTW it is
the employees who pay their tax and NIC, the company merely collects it
on the governments behalf and if half of what I read about tax credits
is true half the workforce won't really be paying any tax at all.

If there is a piece that could be usefully reduced, it is the piece
which goes to and is wasted by the government.

In no particular order: Armed Services, Police, National Health Service,
Education, Roads, Culture, Welfare, subsidies to parents, MPs (salaries,
expenses and pension fund), etc. etc. - all wasted. :-)

Almost all of those with the possible exception of armed services and
police could be far more effectively operated outside of state
control. I posted a few weeks ago an alternative method of funding
and delivering both health and education with a much smaller role for
government and the government employed.

You have more faith in the private sector than I do. Privatization of
services such as hospital cleaning has led to a decline in both wages
and standards. The fiasco that is the government computer services is
private enterprise at its worst.

What is really at issue is the balance between the reward for the
employer and the reward for the employee.

Of course, and as I illustrated, it is very much in the direction of
the employee in most cases, certainly in anything that involves
manufacturing.

I doubt whether the employees concerned would agree with you.

They may well not. However, if one sits and thinks for a few minutes
and compares the commecial aspect of an employer/employee relationship
with any other transaction, it is pretty obvious that businesses which
sell commodities purely on price are highly exposed to market
conditions. Can you imagine all the shops getting together and
refusing to sell apples because the price is too low? Yet this is, in
effect what union negotiation seeks to achieve.
The right approach would be to offer a better product or to sell a
different product or sell it elsewhere.

I don't see what that has to do with the price of fish. Both employer
and workforce would prefer the business to succeed. All that is at issue
is the relative rewards of owner and worker and there is no doubt that a
union improves the situation from the workers point of view.

Non specialist employees have
no leverage whatsoever. Supply is almost always greater than demand. One
employer negotiating with one union merely levels up the playing field.

The problem with all of that is ultimately with the employees (or
rather the individual employee). All that the union can ever hope to
do is to bolster up what is ultimately an unsustainable situation. If
the employee allows himself to be a commodity, then he is going to be
subject to the market pressures for that commodity. If the employer
can buy more cheaply elsewhere, with all costs considered, then he
will and does.

The focus for the employee should be on differentiating himself in the
employment market. This is not to say that anybody is ultimately
indispensible, but he can certainly make a bigger difference to his
situation than a union ever can because he can focus purely on his own
requirements.

But the individual has no weight at all if he is indistinguishable from
the next man or woman. Consequently the employer can see off each
employee one at a time.

Exactly, which is why the employee should not allow himself to get
into that position.

Some employees really have no choice. They have little to sell other
than their presence.

The union redresses the imbalance but the
employer ultimately remains in control. (The employees hang separately
if they don't hang together).

All that it really achieves is to bolster up a fundamentally weak
position and focusses on the wrong areas.

Not from the workers POV.

As an investor or an employer you might
find the power of the union a bit of an inconvenience but that is a
minor matter compared to how the individual shop floor worker finds the
employer if he doesn't have a union for support.

The problem is that the focus always seems to be one of how to get a
bigger slice of the cake rather than making the cake larger.

If the typical shop floor worker was clever enough to come up with ways
of improving productivity they wouldn't be in such dead end jobs in the
first place. Innovation has to come from further up the pecking order,
perhaps even from those intermediate levels that you would seek to get
rid of completely.

snip

I doubt whether anyone apart from Dribble would argue that unions are
perfect but the worst excesses of union behaviour are hopefully a thing
of the past and some of them are now illegal.

I agree with you that the worst excesses are broadly a thing of the
past. However, fortunately I don't see a long term future for them
either. The've had their day....

You hope.

Yes I do, but it will happen anyway as the nature of industry and
services change.

Unions will be around as long as their members see an advantage in
belonging to them.

--
Roger Chapman

Dave wrote:

Thanks Roger. So I was not too far from the mark then :-)
I used to work in the aerospace industry and you had to be right there,
but I think a teacher being told a definition of a word might just try
and get back at me if I showed her up in front of the children. So just
checking by back :-)

That should read checking 'my' back :-)

Dave

Doctor Drivel wrote:


"Dave" wrote in message
...

Andy, now ask if he heard a whooshing sound ;-)


Is that the best you can do? Appalling.

Is that the best that you can come back with?

More than appalling :-)

Dave

Head fully screwed on and logically thinking 100%.

Unlike some, who can not even type a legible sentence on the web.

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:17:23 GMT, Roger
wrote:



For at least half the population there is no realistic prospect of them
taking any action that would differentiate themselves from the herd.

I don't buy that argument. It is almost always possible to take some
action. The issue is much more about whether the alternative action
is felt by the individual to be unacceptable or to carry too high a
risk.



Outside of piecework (and the battle of the sexes) I have
never heard of any situation where adult unskilled or semi skilled
workers are rewarded differently to those they work alongside.

So this indicates an oversupply with people competing on price only.
It is hardly surprising that the situation is as you describe. The
solution is to reduce the amount of supply or improve the value as
seen by the purchaser (employer in this case), not to try to negotiate
a better price for a commodity. That's a weak position to take which
will inevitably fail at some point.

I think you are ignoring the point of all this is which is that
belonging to a union alters the balance between the employer and the
employee. The employees position may be weak but it is generally
improved by being a member of a union.

I'm not at all. My point is that it is not a long term effective
strategy for an employee to cast his fate to others on a group basis.
It's much more effective to take more control of one's own destiny.




The wages amounted to about £1m including approx £140k between the
three directors.

I didn't see that thread. (Can't find the time to keep up with all the
traffic).

Nothing unreasonable there at all. £50-60k for a managing director is
hardly excessive.

Probably not. But does £40 thousand go to the wife for doing bugger all?

Nope. Three completely separate directors.



The point being made was not whether or not there were unions etc. but
that there was not a huge mountain of executive emolument and
dividends being built up at the expense of the employees.
The villain of the piece is the taxman.

Reinvestment is added value to the share holder but I am a bit
puzzled how the taxman got his hands on a third of the gross profit. I
thought Corporation Tax hadn't been as high as 33% for years and that is
charged on taxable profit rather than the usually much higher figure for
gross profit.

The take for the taxman was based on corporation tax, employer and
employee NI and employee income tax. Together, these amount to at
least a third of the top line.

I don't have access to the figures but ISTM that even if you concede the
whole of the wage bill to the taxman and throw in the kitchen sink you
still wouldn't manage to give him a third of the gross profit. BTW it is
the employees who pay their tax and NIC, the company merely collects it
on the governments behalf and if half of what I read about tax credits
is true half the workforce won't really be paying any tax at all.

I was looking at it from the top down perspective - in other words the
employees doing the work and contributing to the gross profits.
I calculated that out of the total, around a third was going in taxes.
Yes, I realise that the employer is operating as an unpaid
administrator for the state, but that money is going from the total
wealth being generated from the work of the employees.
If taxation were lower, the state's slice of the cake would be
smaller, which would be a good thing.



If there is a piece that could be usefully reduced, it is the piece
which goes to and is wasted by the government.

In no particular order: Armed Services, Police, National Health Service,
Education, Roads, Culture, Welfare, subsidies to parents, MPs (salaries,
expenses and pension fund), etc. etc. - all wasted. :-)

Almost all of those with the possible exception of armed services and
police could be far more effectively operated outside of state
control. I posted a few weeks ago an alternative method of funding
and delivering both health and education with a much smaller role for
government and the government employed.

You have more faith in the private sector than I do. Privatization of
services such as hospital cleaning has led to a decline in both wages
and standards. The fiasco that is the government computer services is
private enterprise at its worst.

I didn't say that it had to be the private for-profit sector. It
could also include trust organisations.



What is really at issue is the balance between the reward for the
employer and the reward for the employee.

Of course, and as I illustrated, it is very much in the direction of
the employee in most cases, certainly in anything that involves
manufacturing.

I doubt whether the employees concerned would agree with you.

They may well not. However, if one sits and thinks for a few minutes
and compares the commecial aspect of an employer/employee relationship
with any other transaction, it is pretty obvious that businesses which
sell commodities purely on price are highly exposed to market
conditions. Can you imagine all the shops getting together and
refusing to sell apples because the price is too low? Yet this is, in
effect what union negotiation seeks to achieve.
The right approach would be to offer a better product or to sell a
different product or sell it elsewhere.

I don't see what that has to do with the price of fish. Both employer
and workforce would prefer the business to succeed. All that is at issue
is the relative rewards of owner and worker and there is no doubt that a
union improves the situation from the workers point of view.

That's my point. I don't think that it does in a sustainable way.




The focus for the employee should be on differentiating himself in the
employment market. This is not to say that anybody is ultimately
indispensible, but he can certainly make a bigger difference to his
situation than a union ever can because he can focus purely on his own
requirements.

But the individual has no weight at all if he is indistinguishable from
the next man or woman. Consequently the employer can see off each
employee one at a time.

Exactly, which is why the employee should not allow himself to get
into that position.

Some employees really have no choice. They have little to sell other
than their presence.

I think that is sadly defeatist.


The union redresses the imbalance but the
employer ultimately remains in control. (The employees hang separately
if they don't hang together).

All that it really achieves is to bolster up a fundamentally weak
position and focusses on the wrong areas.

Not from the workers POV.

Even if the result is to price them out of employment rather than
encouraging individual development? Fundamentally, the problem with
a group negotiating arrangement is that it tends to create a least
common denominator.


As an investor or an employer you might
find the power of the union a bit of an inconvenience but that is a
minor matter compared to how the individual shop floor worker finds the
employer if he doesn't have a union for support.

The problem is that the focus always seems to be one of how to get a
bigger slice of the cake rather than making the cake larger.

If the typical shop floor worker was clever enough to come up with ways
of improving productivity they wouldn't be in such dead end jobs in the
first place. Innovation has to come from further up the pecking order,
perhaps even from those intermediate levels that you would seek to get
rid of completely.

I didn't seek to get rid of anybody. In fact I made the point several
times that individual achievement should be encouraged. Collective
negotiation has the opposite effect.



snip

I doubt whether anyone apart from Dribble would argue that unions are
perfect but the worst excesses of union behaviour are hopefully a thing
of the past and some of them are now illegal.

I agree with you that the worst excesses are broadly a thing of the
past. However, fortunately I don't see a long term future for them
either. The've had their day....

You hope.

Yes I do, but it will happen anyway as the nature of industry and
services change.

Unions will be around as long as their members see an advantage in
belonging to them.

Probably, but I very much doubt whether that will be in anything like
their historic or present form a generation from now.


--

..andy

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:14:23 +0000, Andy Hall
wrote:

Can you imagine all the shops getting together and
refusing to sell apples because the price is too low? Yet this is, in
effect what union negotiation seeks to achieve.
The right approach would be to offer a better product or to sell a
different product or sell it elsewhere.

Turning this around slightly, can you imagine a number of supermarkets
driving the purchase price of an apple so low that UK producers are
ripping up established orchards leaving the market open to cheap
imports of subsidised pap from France?

No need to imagine. The supermarkets are doing this over and over
again with hundreds of products both in this country and all over the
world.


--

"Matt" aka Lord Hall wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:14:23 +0000, Andy Hall aka Matt
wrote:

Can you imagine all the shops getting together and
refusing to sell apples because the price is too low?
Yet this is, in
effect what union negotiation seeks to achieve.

What a pathetic analogy by Matt. Little Middle England Logic.

Turning this around slightly, can you imagine a number of supermarkets
driving the purchase price of an apple so low that UK producers are
ripping up established orchards leaving the market open to cheap
imports of subsidised pap from France?

No need to imagine. The supermarkets are doing this over and over
again with hundreds of products both in this country and all over the
world.

Yep, very true Lord Hall.

John Cartmell wrote:

In article ,
Roger wrote:

The real reason that building land is so expensive is an excess of
demand over supply


Not true. It's 'cheap' credit.

Your reply does not make sense...

You are right that there is "cheap credit". However what the cheap
credit facilitates is high demand, which in turn drives the prices. So
how can you claim Andy's statement was "not true"?

The availability of credit would have no effect on price if there was no
demand (or all demand could be easily met).

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Cartmell wrote:

You want employers to be able
to dictate conditions to workers, demand work done under dangerous conditions,
and discard workers at a whim.

Are you reading a different thread to the rest of us?


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Andy Hall aka Matt wrote:
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 15:23:57 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall aka
Matt
wrote:
I do firmly believe that the correct way to make that happen is to
show,
encourage and help people to achieve

And letting parasites and idiots bump house prices out of the reach of
reasonable people is your idea of encouragement.

Oh dear. What a lot of bigotted nonsense.....

Presumably, your idea of a "reasonable person" is somebody who doesn't
want to improve himself and is happy to sit back and let the state
organise his life for him.,....

Bringing two threads together:

My idea of reasonable people are those that won't allow parasites to
determine
how much they pay for basic necessities.

My idea of reasonable people are workers and employers combining to get
work
done to the advantage of both on equal footing. You want employers to be
able
to dictate conditions to workers, demand work done under dangerous
conditions,
and discard workers at a whim. You're a dangerous plonker.

Well said.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
John Cartmell wrote:

You want employers to be able
to dictate conditions to workers, demand work done under dangerous
conditions,
and discard workers at a whim.

Are you reading a different thread to the rest of us?

The same as me.

"John Cartmell" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
The wealth is created by a combination of risk taking and investment
by the employer added to by the work done by the employees (whatever
that might be). The employer pays what he feels is appropriate for
the work delivered, which in turn is what his customers are willing to
pay him.

Drivel has suggested that you are naive. That's possibly naive of him. In
this
matter those that are not part of the solution - which is employers and
employees getting industry working safely and economically on even
footing -
then you are part of the problem. You (and others of your view) have
caused
untold damage to industry and misery (and injury & death) to workers. You
are
parasites on society that no decent society would tolerate.

I applaud such views. ..and I am not naive, but it when I see it.

John Rumm wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:
You want employers to be able
to dictate conditions to workers, demand work done under dangerous
conditions,
and discard workers at a whim.

Are you reading a different thread to the rest of us?

Something to do with National Socialism, perhaps? I
set 'em up, ...... worth a try, anyway, to end this.