WHAT DO PEOPLE ON THE FORUM THINK OF UNION ACTION

Just wondered, as it has been a long time since I lived in the UK what the site thinks about union actions and strikes for different things. It would be interesting to see how it compares to strikes here in France, which are wonderfully demonstrative and work. The funniest one we had here was when France were importing too many potatoes from England. The local farmers got up in arms because they were having to throw their potatoes away. They blocked every road into a major city here with potatoes and filled the central car park as well. It was hilarious. We were really skint at the time and thought about going and getting some, but thought of what an international incident we may cause by doing so.

Another strike we had here was over petrol prices, and whilst the government could not do much about the petrol prices themselves, they did make motoring cheaper by taking away the need for private vehicle users to pay road tax, which was wonderful.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

Just wondered, as it has been a long time since I lived in the UK what the site thinks about union actions and strikes for different things. It would be interesting to see how it compares to strikes here in France, which are wonderfully demonstrative and work. The funniest one we had here was when France were importing too many potatoes from England. The local farmers got up in arms because they were having to throw their potatoes away. They blocked every road into a major city here with potatoes and filled the central car park as well. It was hilarious. We were really skint at the time and thought about going and getting some, but thought of what an international incident we may cause by doing so.

Another strike we had here was over petrol prices, and whilst the government could not do much about the petrol prices themselves, they did make motoring cheaper by taking away the need for private vehicle users to pay road tax, which was wonderful.

They could work, but they might kill inward investment. I worked for an overseas company and their perception was most of Europe was a no go area for their labour laws and the French in particular for striking. Mind you, some of the behaviours of some companies inward investing is questionable at best.

I have an issue with the public sector striking over pay. (well the private sector too, but it is less common these days)

Many people in the public sector are on reasonable salaries, excellent benefits, fantastic final salary pensions schemes which pay at 60 not 65 like the public sector has been since 1988, and pretty much guranteed pay rises (as they are usually inflation linked), unlike in the private sector, who might get the right to join a crappy stakeholder pension, but no contribution from the employer.

If striking is about employment rights, then fine. If it is because they want 23% and 3% is on offer, as that is realistic, then it's not fine (unless they are not on a fair pay to start with)

We had the petrol protestations here too, as I recall when I had just got back from Australia in 2000, and perhaps since.

France imports too many potatoes; UK probably imports too many potatoes, something is going wrong somewhere! It was on the news the other week that we export and import almost identical amounts of some foods (e.g. Cheese)


*Sits back and waits for complaints!!!*

Helen wrote:

I have an issue with the public sector striking over pay. (well the private sector too, but it is less common these days)

Many people in the public sector are on reasonable salaries, excellent benefits, fantastic final salary pensions schemes which pay at 60 not 65 like the public sector has been since 1988, and pretty much guranteed pay rises (as they are usually inflation linked), unlike in the private sector, who might get the right to join a crappy stakeholder pension, but no contribution from the employer.

Couldn't agree more.

My mum works for Falkirk Council in some kind of management role. She told me that her workers get their payrise no matter what and have NO measurement of performance. Basically, she has no way of motivating staff to actually work better and if they do a crap job, nothing to help motivate improvement and no way of getting rid of them.

I think it is high time the public sector was made a LOT more accountable for the money they earn.

Quote :

My mum works for Falkirk Council in some kind of management role. She told me that her workers get their payrise no matter what and have NO measurement of performance. Basically, she has no way of motivating staff to actually work better and if they do a crap job, nothing to help motivate improvement and no way of getting rid of them.

I am going back a bit here and perhaps times have changed but I remember almost being forced to be a union member. I objected because what the union were doing was giving blanket pay rises no matter what the performance of the individual was like. Some of my work in the Uk taught me that if a person performs to the best of their ability, then they merit a payrise, but what was happening was that there were always people that were happy to be passengers, get their payrise and not work hard and these were the ones that to my mind made the whole perception of unions asking for the same payrise for everyone stink. Quite frankly, in the sixties, if you didn't work, you didn't get pay rises, or at least you got the very minimum ones, and employers had an easier job getting shot of you, which promoted hard work. Probably not everyone agrees with me here, but that's your choice. From experience I had of the people that got the same payrises as people who were enthusiastic about their work, whilst being close to apathetic in their work outlook, meant that motivation to become better or to excel disappeared, or at least was not as good as it was before all this hoo ha

The problem with Unions are the fact that the people who run them are on fat cat salaries which defeats the object of having a union to start with. When the Union calls a strike, its staff still get paid but you only get a contribution and it achieves very little but to maybe put other people out and lose money for decent working folks who need the services such as bus/train/petorl etc.

I think we should have some form of union but not the format that it is now and employers can just make your position redundant and rename it if they want to get rid of you, so Unions should be replaced by legal representation of some kind.

Yes, I read about that. Sacking someone, making the job obsolete and then changing the name of the position and employing someone else.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

Yes, I read about that. Sacking someone, making the job obsolete and then changing the name of the position and employing someone else.

Happened to me at ********* Ford as I was earning too much money with the contract I was on and that was the only way out, however I won out of court settlement which is why I can't name them.

You are not the only person to say that. A very well known supermarket got rid of their managers and then employed people under another title. They won too and one of them lives out here in France and the payment they got secured them a nice life here.