If we all ran on 100% facts rather than a collection of diverse “opinions”, - then we’d all know where to work, and where to avoid - even localized to our own neighborhoods about the country - right?
I’ve always found it rather odd, and also rather infuriating that there’s never been a publication on these boards of actual data that would be useful to everyone, for example, a Wiki-style League Table of what rates firms pay, T&Cs, overtime conditions to kick-in, and general information about companies so that would-be full timers and even agency bods can get a good notion of “what keeps client firms happy” or "What is expected of you for that higher-than-going rate pay they have there.
It’s easy to find the very worst from what one reads on these boards - But the BEST?
One cannot even argue that firms like Supermarkets or Royal Mail like I used to work for are the “best” because they pay high rates for a straight-forward job…
The conditions of working alongside a bunch of backstabbing full timers who hate agency with a passion, or any other kind of wave-maker like moi - shows all you need to really know about what kind of person such a firm attracts. Even as a full timer, I was never very popular, as I used to routinely vote against Union motions for being “daft, and ill-thought-out”, where history so often proved me correct, but I was always in the minority. No one thanks you for being right about something when they ignored you, and ended up out of pocket for making that mistake of “not listening” after all…
I don’t think I’ve known of any firm I’ve even heard of in my life meanwhile that attracts the very “Driving Gods” that I would have thought we’d all be aspiring to be - wouldn’t we?
There’s far too many drivers, often ex-drivers that have gone management - who think they have all the answers, but are insecure in their positions for whatever reason, wasting their energies on “covering themselves” like the political opposition wastes all it’s energies on “hating and applying pressure to the incumbent”, rather than getting things done for their local voters at town-hall level, for instance…
…And people wonder why Labour and labour are both mortally wounded in this country?
Political parties need to concentrate on keeping people’s money in their own pockets, rather than wasting taxpayer cash on everything from “landing criminal illegal immigrants on our shores” to “keeping incompetent people in their jobs”.
At the Union end, such a Union would always jump in the direction of “keeping bums on seats” even if it meant bringing the entire workplace down.
Obvious compromises - never seem to be made.
The evasiveness of “Compulsory Redundancies” for instance, almost always makes just such redundancies inevitable in those firms that are already feeling the pinch, and need to downsize to survive. The Union would often push for a complete shutdown, with EVERYONE being paid off, rather than offer a “voluntary” package, where people can decide among themselves, who gets to go early for what would be an enhanced payoff.
Even the MTSF run through RM years ago - fell short in that it wasn’t offered to nearly as many people as actually might have wanted or even desired it at the time…
If I were running the Union, I would have made sure that an equal opportunity situation abounded, rather than this “seniority” thing where the office you work out of - ends up being a lottery in the bigger scheme of things, such as the “Way Forward Agreement” which offered cut rates on overtime and flood the place with agency in exchange for a one-off payrise that meant the most to staff in offices with no overtime, living on the basic wage. It passed of course, because small office posties - voted for it. Those of us that were docket kings - were clearly in the majority albeit at the fewer, and larger offices. It didn’t help us get sensible things done with the worker’s lot, which in my mind should have been prioritized to favour those people that simply put in the most hours for the firm. “Fair and Equitable”… But we can’t have THAT kind of “Democracy” - can we? Instead, we got saddled with us overtime performers over the years to come seeing their income on a “mark time” basis, overtime rates cut from “double time and a half” to “time and a quarter” by the time I left, to god knows how much lower it has got since that point. It is no wonder that agency seems to cushy there now, outside of the 10-hours working limit “local agreement” which agencies automatically opt-out of… The union - cannot see how it has badly let down it’s own membership there though - can it?
When Labour got elected in 1997, in the five years that followed, there was a real chance that unionized workplaces on the same old agreements they’d already had in place for years - would finally climb up and above the national averages across the board, in a similar way to what happened at say, the Railways and Tube drivers in particular, but omitting bus and municipal drivers along the way.
Had the “Way Forward” not happened at Royal Mail, their pay with overtime - would easily be in the £50-60k range by this point.
“Loadsamoney” on triple time for working weekend evenings - got killed off though, - didn’t he? 
