Suttons Tankers Dispute

[robroy]

Carryfast:

UKtramp:
I completely agree that Unions are not needed anymore, they do nothing for most and very little for a lot with ok for very few. Your subs are simply going down the drain paying into it, management on most sites don’t recognise them or speak with them, Unite was not allowed to hold meetings with members on an ABP site I was on, where they had to hold meetings off site. Weak and useless with no real support. Lots of workers have lost their jobs regardless of a union membership or not. When Thatcher defeated the miners, that was the end of them.

How does the Labour Party imposing wage restraint and the TUC supporting them like turkeys voting for Christmas and Thatcher effectively removing the right to organise and the right to strike again then enforced by a so called ‘Labour’ government.In addition to all sides indoctrinating younger working class generations with a false re writing of history regarding what happened in the 1970’s let alone others like rob who were there believing it too.All translate as ‘no need for unions’.As opposed to what’s needed in the form of a real Labour Party ( not Corbyn ) led by someone like Shore or Benn or Heffer ( Hoey ? ).Who’ll hopefully tell it like it was.In that the early 1970’s were a golden age for the working class despite being under a Conservative administration,then catastrophically let down by a so called Labour one in the mid-late 1970’s and again under Blair.

CARRYFAST, I’ve noticed your subtle digs at me on a couple of posts
I simply could not be arsed to get into a Political debate with you mate being honest, but what I will do is clarify my point of view on this.
I have not been led to believe anything on 70s Trade Unions and how they got over the top in their actions in Brit workplaces…I was actually there mate, among it first hand, as a young apprentice in a Mechanical Engineering works.
It was stereotypical Trade Union control, where the tail wagged the dog, closed shop, Everybody out Brothers, and all the rest of it.
I remember getting a bollocking for changing a fuse on MY electric soldering iron out of my toolbox…as that was an Electricians job. , that is how pedantic it was, you were like walking on egg shells.
We as apprentices were exempt from strikes, but I remember at least half a dozen long periods of turning up and just putting in time in the canteen playing cards when the rest had gone out on strike, usually at the drop of a hat.

My point was I am all for the original concept and reason of being of either a Trade Union or a union with a small “u” , ie to better t.s , c.s, and general fairness to a work force of employees, to stop employers doing absolutely wtf they like, as at the stage it has almost got to now.
What form or strategy a Union would have to take to attract people, and shake off the 70s image, as I said…I’m not sure, (even if you do seem to have a problem with that ) but a bit of solidarity would (and certainly does) work, but I aint holding my breath when I see some drivers today and hear their opinions.
Reckon that’s all I have to say on it mate.

[uktramp]

Dipper_Dave:
I prefer worker collectives not outdated organisations that will cream all the credit from any positive outcome whilst negotiating how many brothers/sisters they can chuck under the bus.

And ain’t that the truth of the matter brother dipper. The unions will take full credit if the drivers win, nothing to do with the unions, it is about the drivers collectively taking action. Come the revolution brother.

[franglais]

RobRoy
See link Muckles post 23 in Shafted Van Driver thread. The GMB seem tovbe what Union should do. In fact they’re doing what Government agencies should be doing!

Sent from my GT-S7275R using Tapatalk

[carryfast]

robroy:
CARRYFAST, I’ve noticed your subtle digs at me on a couple of posts
I simply could not be arsed to get into a Political debate with you mate being honest, but what I will do is clarify my point of view on this.
I have not been led to believe anything on 70s Trade Unions and how they got over the top in their actions in Brit workplaces…I was actually there mate, among it first hand, as a young apprentice in a Mechanical Engineering works.
It was stereotypical Trade Union control, where the tail wagged the dog, closed shop, Everybody out Brothers, and all the rest of it.
I remember getting a bollocking for changing a fuse on MY electric soldering iron out of my toolbox…as that was an Electricians job. , that is how pedantic it was, you were like walking on egg shells.
We as apprentices were exempt from strikes, but I remember at least half a dozen long periods of turning up and just putting in time in the canteen playing cards when the rest had gone out on strike, usually at the drop of a hat.

I’ve also previously given an example of my experience of the 1970’s.I was also working under an agreement that exempted trainee workers from industrial action and union activeties.Which is how I found myself sent out to collect sub contract components during a dispute.Did I drive through the small picket line when I got back.No I stopped and showed them what I’d been sent to collect and said I’d be happy to turn around and take it back to the supplier and zb the consequences.What did these supposed militant loons do.They laughed,said thanks for stopping and showing us,take it through because we’ll need it urgently when we go back to work.

What did the management say.They also thanked me not because I’d carried out my instructions according to my contract.But because I wasn’t a scab and they knew the strike was justified and caused by the bleedin bankers pulling the strings and their puppets in the form of Callaghan and Healey not the management on the ground who wanted to pay us.Bearing in mind that although we weren’t allowed to take part in union action the rate increase being fought for also applied to trainee wage rates.

IE my memory of the 70’s is obviously different to yours probably because I always viewed it as a simple black and wight issue of solidarity or scab no middle ground.That would have included following union demarcation rules to the letter,regardless of how petty they might have seemed,with those rules being there for good reason.Which is why the 70’s usually didn’t mean one person doing more than one type of job description/trade for one trade’s wage.Nor making one worker redundant to make one worker do the job of two.

[beetlejuice]

Is this the same firm ?
Significantly improved pay ?

[beetlejuice]

Suttons

[rjan]

cav551:

AndieHyde:
… People will take the ■■■■. If YOU let them.

Mr Kray. A method that works.

It works on the small time crooks, to whom another crook can talk their language, but not necessarily those who have the law on their side.

[rjan]

Carryfast:

robroy:
CARRYFAST, I’ve noticed your subtle digs at me on a couple of posts
I simply could not be arsed to get into a Political debate with you mate being honest, but what I will do is clarify my point of view on this.
I have not been led to believe anything on 70s Trade Unions and how they got over the top in their actions in Brit workplaces…I was actually there mate, among it first hand, as a young apprentice in a Mechanical Engineering works.
It was stereotypical Trade Union control, where the tail wagged the dog, closed shop, Everybody out Brothers, and all the rest of it.
I remember getting a bollocking for changing a fuse on MY electric soldering iron out of my toolbox…as that was an Electricians job. , that is how pedantic it was, you were like walking on egg shells.
We as apprentices were exempt from strikes, but I remember at least half a dozen long periods of turning up and just putting in time in the canteen playing cards when the rest had gone out on strike, usually at the drop of a hat.

I’ve also previously given an example of my experience of the 1970’s.I was also working under an agreement that exempted trainee workers from industrial action and union activeties.Which is how I found myself sent out to collect sub contract components during a dispute.Did I drive through the small picket line when I got back.No I stopped and showed them what I’d been sent to collect and said I’d be happy to turn around and take it back to the supplier and zb the consequences.What did these supposed militant loons do.They laughed,said thanks for stopping and showing us,take it through because we’ll need it urgently when we go back to work.

What did the management say.They also thanked me not because I’d carried out my instructions according to my contract.But because I wasn’t a scab and they knew the strike was justified and caused by the bleedin bankers pulling the strings and their puppets in the form of Callaghan and Healey not the management on the ground who wanted to pay us.Bearing in mind that although we weren’t allowed to take part in union action the rate increase being fought for also applied to trainee wage rates.

IE my memory of the 70’s is obviously different to yours probably because I always viewed it as a simple black and wight issue of solidarity or scab no middle ground.That would have included following union demarcation rules to the letter,regardless of how petty they might have seemed,with those rules being there for good reason.Which is why the 70’s usually didn’t mean one person doing more than one type of job description/trade for one trade’s wage.Nor making one worker redundant to make one worker do the job of two.

People forget that in the past a lot of managers were also basically socialists, or at the very least recognised the basic tenet that their firm existed partly to provide decent jobs and conditions, not just for themselves but for the next generation, and their role in the firm was not to wage class war but to run a steady ship and maintain good (and preferably increasing) productivity as measured by workers’ time and effort (which strong unions ensured never came cheap or for free, whereas it often does today).

A lot of guys complain about their experience of job demarcation and how they simply couldn’t reconcile themselves to having to ask others to do small jobs that they felt capable of doing themselves. You hear it nowadays even when guys complain about having to call a fitter to change a light bulb, and seem unwilling to accept any justifying explanation.

In the past many workers’ explanation for it would have been “why are you doing a job for free that we have fought tooth and nail with management to ensure somebody is properly trained and paid for that?”, but bosses too would say things like “we want to be able to easily measure and monitor the amount of labour being consumed on various tasks, and we want a small and recognisable group of workers to have oversight over their domain so that the company can effectively gather different kinds of important information about the production process”.

In Robroy’s case of changing a fuse on a soldering iron, it can be so that the company electricians can keep an eye on the quality of the parts that are being supplied, or can go back to the iron manufacturer and say “we’ve got a bunch of duff irons here that are blowing fuses every 5 minutes”, or can go to management and say “we could save a few hour’s downtime a day across the company, if we just bought better quality fuses or irons”. It may even be so that the company, on the off chance it does get a batch of duff irons, can go back the manufacturer and assert confidently that they were pre-existing defects and not the result of inexperienced trainees servicing them.

In his case, none of that may have applied, and low-level staff may not have been explicitly aware of why managers higher up might actually prefer that kind of job demarcation, but the point is he isn’t given enough information to decide for himself whether those concerns apply or not. He’s simply given enough information to understand that it is an electrician who has to perform electrical work, or at the very least needs to be consulted first. And while that rule is adhered to, those in the company who are responsible for organising its operations are better able to make assumptions and decisions and to communicate effectively with a smaller number of people who need to know certain things (without troubling the wider mass of workers who, if they follow simple and consistent rules about who does which job, don’t need to know the intricate concerns of every other possible role in the company), and the workers who are responsible for those particular roles gain overall insight and experience into certain kinds of problems which they won’t if, for example, everyone is simply fixing their own soldering irons without telling anyone or recording the fact.

[cav551]

There is also the fact that the electrician or whatever of yore, will have completed possibly as many as seven years as an apprentice, during much of that time he will have been paid at a much lower rate than even the lowest paid unskilled adult worker on the company. Also he will probably have found himself for much of that time carrying out exactly the same work as his fully skilled mentors and have been expected to complete that work in the same time as every one else in that trade. It is hardly surprising that having come out of his apprenticeship he and his fellow qualified craftsmen would seek to guard their position against what they would see as unskilled meddling, a threat to their wage packet and the chance to recoup the money missed out on for such a long time.

Yes it certainly went too far, with the example given being a ridiculous extreme, but this dumbing down of jobs has given rise to today’s complaints by ‘skilled’ lorry drivers about steering wheel attendants and insufficient financial reward for their abilities.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There have been critical comments in the past on here about companies employing unlicenced shunters.

[beetlejuice]

liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/li … l-14193774

[juddian]

^^ anyone know who the 4 tankers who crossed the picket line belong to?

[beetlejuice]

Says on Facebook Garage manager and tms driving the trucks …

[beetlejuice]

They have used managers and supervisors from other contracts to cross picket what, disgusting behaviour!!!

off Facebook tanker page ^

[dipper_dave]

3 union paid shills by the look of it.

[tiredandemotional]

Scabs are back in town…

[paul1181]

Been following this a while now, have they sorted it out yet? Passed two sutton tankers last night one on the M62 by Normanton, the other on the M18 near Donny.

Hope its worked out ok for the sutton drivers.

[uktramp]

paul1181:
Been following this a while now, have they sorted it out yet? Passed two sutton tankers last night one on the M62 by Normanton, the other on the M18 near Donny.

Hope its worked out ok for the sutton drivers.

Looking good then isn’t it, how can anyone else help the drivers if they can’t even help themselves. I see Sutton tankers all over the place so not exactly a brother and sister strike is it.

[concretejim]

Them new tanks dont pay for themselves

[muckles]

UKtramp:

paul1181:
Been following this a while now, have they sorted it out yet? Passed two sutton tankers last night one on the M62 by Normanton, the other on the M18 near Donny.

Hope its worked out ok for the sutton drivers.

Looking good then isn’t it, how can anyone else help the drivers if they can’t even help themselves. I see Sutton tankers all over the place so not exactly a brother and sister strike is it.

They’re only striking on one contract, not the entire company and if Sutton Tankers are sending management in to do the job, I assume it means drivers aren’t going onto that company’s site.

[uktramp]

muckles:
They’re only striking on one contract, not the entire company and if Sutton Tankers are sending management in to do the job, I assume it means drivers aren’t going onto that company’s site.

I fully understand that, but to quote the OP
“I will post more information soon. SOLIDARITY TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS AT SUTTONS”
Doesn’t appear to be too much solidarity amongst their own. The striking drivers are already out of pocket with loss of wages and it hasn’t even been confirmed that it is the management that is driving. Pure speculation, it does go to show that in the threat and face of strike action by unite, the management have not really been affected or backed down to it. A full on national strike by the brothers and sisters would have brought this to a head immediately. My prediction is that along with the unions this strike action will have little affect or any real benefit. A shame but it appears that way.