Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 7:23 pm  

SBR wrote:

Why would the Chief Executive have to do it? In my experience wage negotiations form a natural part of the performance appraisal process and so are conducted with the manager you report to.

Someone has to have overall budgetary control over the thing. If everyone is negotiating his/her salary individually, someone needs to keep an eye on the overall cost. Can't have individual managers handing out pay rises willy nilly. And then there are all the other conditions to think about. Should each worker negotiate changes to his annual leave entitlement, pension arrangement, sick pay, working hours, overtime arrangement etc individually too? Can't see it working out, really.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 7:29 pm  

I was in the GMB for 20 years. Cancelled my subs a few years ago, because they backed just about every Labour working proposal. They sat around and did nothing, whilst companies like Tesco were getting away with paying minimum wages, and still expected the employees to do weekend/ bank holiday work for normal pay. I lost heart with the Labour party and the trade unions.

Now I agree with people going on strike, but I did'nt agree with last week's strike by civil servants. Just about everybody I know, who has retired in the past few years (private) has been told that their pensions have not matured as much as they expected, so why should civil servants expect any different?

But the 1 thing thats pees me off about CS, is sick pay. Put them on a pay as you work system, and the number of sick days these people have, will be decimated, especially schoolteachers. Those b5stards think the world owes them a living. The above statement, does not apply to nurses.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 8:33 pm  

Live Wired wrote:

I was in the GMB for 20 years.

Why weren't you in USDAW?

Live Wired wrote:

Cancelled my subs a few years ago, because they backed just about every Labour working proposal. They sat around and did nothing, whilst companies like Tesco were getting away with paying minimum wages, and still expected the employees to do weekend/ bank holiday work for normal pay.

That went with the working time directive, you did get guaranteed paid holidays in return, the retail trade is one of those industries where weekend and bank holiday working is part of the job, I didn't like it so I changed my job.

Live Wired wrote:

But the 1 thing thats pees me off about CS, is sick pay. Put them on a pay as you work system, and the number of sick days these people have, will be decimated, especially schoolteachers. Those b5stards think the world owes them a living. The above statement, does not apply to nurses.

While there is no doubt there is a culture of an allowance of sick days I'm not sure the teachers are the main culprit.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 8:41 pm  

Live Wired wrote:

The above statement, does not apply to nurses.

Why - are nurses a 'special case.'? I have spent quite alot of time in hospitals in the last few years and have been shocked at the almost complete lack of nursing care. I am taling childrens wards here - and apparently its as bad in old folks wards. Appalling. So many of them prefer chatting than work. On one occasion an older nurse who had just come back after a 20 year break was aghast and trying to do everything herself - she couldn't believe how standards had slipped and how lazy everyone was. I had to say to her that I was glad it wasn't just me who thought that!

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 9:11 pm  

You can have a go at nurses, i've heard their sh-t smells too

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:41 pm  

Surely the most basic test of the value of unions is the levels of membership where its voluntary? In Australia only 14% of private sector employees are in a union. That about sums up what most people think of them.

One thing that seems to be ignored sometimes is the implicit pact for public sector workers - generally lower wages than their private sector counterparts, but in return the expectation of pretty secure post-retirement lives. In any event, if governments start to change this pact they need to give people serious lead time to self invest - at least 15-20 years if you expect somebody to seriously contribute to their own retirement.

Sometimes the unions themselves have broken this pact. In the public sector in Queensland, public sector unions (which basically run the Labor party here) have routinely had wage rises above inflation irrespective of any improvements in productivity. As a result people in general office jobs here for example earn far more than they could if they left the public sector - ten years of inflation plus 2% will tend to do that. That in turn leads to bloated public sector costs and huge inefficiency relative to the private sector. Bizarrely the very same unions that have forced these wage rises through then complain bitterly when the government is forced to look at provatisation to balance the books.

One thing everybody should look at when planning for their retirement (if they have the ability to do so - most funds worth their salt will enable you to do a bit of diversification in a general sense) is to try to diversify some of your investments. The sharemarket is always a bit of a rollercoaster, and whilst returns over the long-term are generally good, you can face significant short to medium term volatility in the value of your shares - a real problem if you face retirement on a maturing investment during a sharemarket collapse. I know quite a few older people here who are really worried about having to postpone their planned retirement as they simply cannot afford to stop working.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:49 pm  

Dally wrote:

Yes, Thatcher destroyed the mining industry BECAUSE OF THE UNION wielding too much power. So you agree with my analysis that over-strong unions do nothing in the long-term interests of their members. The last bastion of that sort of unionism is in the the public services and guess what, their members are suffering job losses.

Actually lets get it right.
She destroyed the mining industry because SHE WANTED TO DESTROY THE UNIONS.
The unions were not the only ones looking for that fight Thatcher did as well.
That is a big diffrence.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Wed Dec 07, 2011 11:56 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Of car production in the UK what % is Japanese?

It should be 0% according to this little gem.

Sal Paradise wrote:

Its is no surprise that we no longer have any mining/shipbuilding/newspaper typesetting/car manufacture outside of the Japanese

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:05 am  

Horatio Yed wrote:

You can have a go at nurses, i've heard their sh-t smells too

I'm sure my sister will be overjoyed to hear this when she next helps save a life on ICU.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 12:24 am  

Anakin Skywalker wrote:

I'm sure my sister will be overjoyed to hear this when she next helps save a life on ICU.

Give over mate, everyone makes out that all doctors and nurses are amazing people, selfless and full of virtue, i know a few and guess what some of them are right see you next Tuesdays. Just like not all soldiers are heroes, put i suppose it goes against the populist BS that people peddle in mindless fashion. Not everyone is a paragon of virtue regardless of profession.