On 5 Sep, 09:45, eastender wrote:
No, travelling faster than the speed of light is impossible. Protecting
pension rights isn't.

When the RMT said they were already considering striking during the
Olympics, on account of having to work longer hours, I realised that
they had lost the plot. They're trying to hold the country to ransom,
and force TPTB to cave in (after all, come 2012, there will be plenty
of people trying to cash in on the basis that they MUST go ahead no
matter what).

Just wait until the contractors start demanding more cash to finish
the construction on time, just as they did on the tube before the dome
opened. It's becoming the norm now, which worries me. Our local
council is planning to outsource just about everything, because a
third party can supposedly manage everything for less cost - even
though they'll take on the same staff and take a fee for sitting in
the middle. You just know they'll be asking for more cash in a few
years, and the council will have no choice but to bail them out (or
face tough questions). We ask for this of course, because we give
contracts to the cheapest people - so people HAVE to lie to get the
work.

A union should protect the rights of workers obviously, but no union
can try and demand ridiculous promises or pay rises that are well
beyond inflation, or moan when people want to change the way we work.
Life moves on, and things do change. You can't live in ancient times
forever.

Jonathan

Jonathan Morris wrote:

Just wait until the contractors start demanding more cash to finish
the construction on time, just as they did on the tube before the dome
opened.

This is mainly a failure of a business contract and is not down to unions.

We ask for this of course, because we give
contracts to the cheapest people - so people HAVE to lie to get the
work.

So we are to blame.

A union should protect the rights of workers obviously, but no union
can try and demand ridiculous promises or pay rises that are well
beyond inflation, or moan when people want to change the way we work.

What ridiculous promises or pay rises? The only people in this country who
get ridiculous pay rises are City stockbrokers, CEOs and MPs.

E.

On 5 Sep, 12:21, eastender wrote:

This is mainly a failure of a business contract and is not down to unions.

I'm talking about people agreeing to do work for a price, then waiting
until a critical time to demand more money. This happens far too
often, and for what it's worth, I wasn't only talking about unions
here.

So we are to blame.

Well, anyone who accepts this system is to blame. Competitive
tendering is flawed, but I certainly don't pretend to know what the
alternative would be. In many industries, it's clear that there are
backhanders and corruption (I know this first hand as my wife worked
for a contractor that paid quite a lot of money to someone in a very
large London council to win a contract).

Where I live, a bus company has just won a contract from another
operator to run local buses - and paid someone within the other bus
operator to get the application in advance (and then offered a nominal
amount above). From what I'm led to believe, both 'entries' were
virtually identical.

What ridiculous promises or pay rises? The only people in this country who
get ridiculous pay rises are City stockbrokers, CEOs and MPs.

This is what I always seem to see with some unions and their members;
jealousy. "He gets paid more than me.. I want the same". Sorry mate,
but if I want more money I ask for a pay review - or leave and get
another job. You can't demand double pay to 'catch up due to years of
pitiful pay rises' or demand less hours, more leave and so on. Well,
you can ask, but not strike until you get it. Vote with your feet and
things might change.

I'm not an MP, CEO or stockbroker - nor a premier league footballer.
However, while I might envy some of them, I am not going to demand
that I get paid the same because it's in some way unfair. I knew what
my job paid when I signed my contract. My union will step in if I am
wrongfully dismissed or something, not because I'm moaning that
someone in the city just got a £5m bonus.

Jonathan

On 5 Sep, 14:01, Jonathan Morris wrote:
This is what I always seem to see with some unions and their members;
jealousy. "He gets paid more than me.. I want the same". Sorry mate,
but if I want more money I ask for a pay review - or leave and get
another job. You can't demand double pay to 'catch up due to years of
pitiful pay rises' or demand less hours, more leave and so on. Well,
you can ask, but not strike until you get it. Vote with your feet and
things might change.

This isn't entirely fair. For most white-collar workers, there are
several private sector employers in their industry to choose from, and/
or their skills are readily transferrable to a different industry.

In something like Tube maintenance, the skills acquired are highly
specific and not readily transferrable, so you're much less valuable
in a new job than you are in your current one - and there's either one
(TfL) or two (Metronet and Tube Lines) employers.

So the threat of striking is not an outrageous one - effectively the
fact that TfL can't easily recruit anyone to replace strikers cancels
out the fact that you can't just leave and get another job.

The problem is that - rather than using striking as a threat of last
resort, as happens in the private sector - Crow uses it as a regular
event over petty non-issues. Aslef, TSSA and Unite are all examples of
unions that strike the balance more effectively.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Jonathan Morris wrote:

This is what I always seem to see with some unions and their members;
jealousy. "He gets paid more than me.. I want the same".

Er, which union members are asking for anything more than mostly decent cost of
living rises, such as the prison workers? I asked who was demanding City style
increases.

E.