UKtramp:
robroy:
Just been told by a lad on the ‘‘Toilets’’ thread, that he worked for a parcel firm who…wait for it…
Did not allow them to stop for a ■■■■And then some of you lot say their is no real need for a Union??
FFS!!
And so they need a union to allow the drivers to go for a ■■■■, FFS rob, I wouldn’t care who told me I couldn’t go for a a ■■■■, I would simply go for one if I needed to. There is not a person who would not if they had to go. Are you saying that you would ■■■■ yourself because you are not allowed to stop and go? There are such things nowadays called human rights and tribunals to take your employer to. I cannot see any tribunal going against the employee for that one.
I agree this is probably a more symbolic issue of how far things have fallen, and I’d be surprised if even the most unreasonable manager went beyond expressing harsh words at defiance of the rule, but the point of a union in this case is to ensure that the rule does not even arise in the first place, that allowances are baked into schedules for the start (so that the argument doesn’t arise about whether there is time for a toilet break), that the ante cannot be upped (for example, by docking pay or issuing formal disciplinary warnings), and that people are not even grilled for going the toilet (which is an adverse experience and a petty indignity in itself, regardless of whether you actually get away with it).
These are also the sorts of petty issues that managers can use to selectively harass individuals for ulterior motives.
I’ve become a lion tamer and I probably wouldn’t think much of having to justify myself if I stopped for a ■■■■, but fundamentally I should be able to go to work and get on with it, not having to engage in lion taming, and managers whose role need not be of the lion being spectacularly tamed, should also be able to do the same.
Unions have that other function too, in that it protects low-level managers from the unreasonable demands of their superiors in turn, and avoids them being degraded or pushed into constant conflict with the workforce, and ensures that appropriate attitudes exist at the senior level - and if necessary, that the only lion taming that occurs is between a minority of senior managers and union officers, who are paid to do so and cannot be as easily victimised for it as individuals.
Not least because the successful victimisation of an individual union officer, will just lead to him being replaced by another officer who will be of much the same bent and possibly even more wily and aggressive in light of his predecessor’s fate. The members who put a union officer in place are unlikely to feel victimised by anything that happens personally to the officer, unless it threatens the existence of the office itself, and that’s when everyone understands that the workplace has to shut to protect the principle that the members negotiate through an officer, not as individuals.
So employers can’t get their own way merely by shooting the messengers, whereas they can when those messengers are only acting for their own individual grievances.