Parliament to Discuss HGV Driver Shortage - bollocks

[rjan]

muckles:

Rjan:
It would be an odd thing to say that the world doesn’t owe you a living - at least under some combination of circumstances. To argue for a world that doesn’t ever owe you a living is not to argue for a civilised society but for a man-made jungle.

You think you’re owed a living? Go and knock a few businesses door tomorrow and tell them they have to employ you as you’re owned a living, see how well you get on. For good measure tell them you’re going to do a bit of skiving, just to raise the average hourly pay of the job.

Now hopefully a civilised society will have a system to stop workers being exploited and help for those who are unable to work due to medical or economic reasons, but it sure as hell doesn’t have to find you a job.

In the end, a civilised society does have to provide jobs and livelihoods in general, or else there will be revolutions until it does, or until the place lies in ruins. You should see how well an organised body of men can get on (and have got on), when they knock on the doors of a few businesses, and tell the proprietors that they must be employed and at what rate.

The willingness to work, the insistence on the conditions being in place to allow work, and the doing of work, is in fact the foundation on which the working class claims to be entitled to a livelihood and the fruits of that work.

The willingness to ingratiate one’s self to a master, as the sole grounds for a claim to a livelihood, is the claim of a slave or a farm animal.

Rjan:
Also, I am not twisting anything, but pointing out matters of fact which seem sometimes to be lost on subscribers to the “grafting” identity.

It’s not fact, it’s your opinion.

It is my opinion, but it also appears to be the facts. If you don’t agree, then either put your critique in detail, or go silent. There’s no point pretending that merely saying it’s my “opinion” is any answer.

Rjan:
I agree, bosses do know the two apart. That being the case, the reason bosses retain skivers is because they do sufficient work for their pay rate. The boss will gladly replace them with grafters at the same rate, because the grafter produces more without being paid for all (or any) of the extra and so boosts profits.

bosses retain skivers because due to employment laws, they are bloody difficult to get rid of and of course they want to replace them with somebody who’ll actually do some work.

Employment laws, which are good for all workers, have barely been so weak in living memory (especially given the weakness of unions also). Those laws are good for grafters also - except maybe when they want to succeed in their trick of undercutting other workers (then maybe it is bad for the grafter within his own terms, and bad for the boss who wants to take advantage of the grafter to drive up profits and drive down wages).

Also, I haven’t observed a case of a skiver who genuinely did no work (or anything approaching “no work”), as you imply you have. In my experience skivers are modestly less efficient than they could be in the round, and they tend to be found working for poor wages.

I wonder, whereas I’ve discussed only real workplace examples so far, are you not drifting off into imaginary stereotype of what the majority of workers in a workplace are like (i.e. skivers who do no work), or at least gross misrepresentation here?

Is it so wrong wanting the company you work for to do well?

It can be. Say if they’re a bottom-feeding employer, then you want them to wither (with the work taken over by a better employer whom you can join), or if you don’t own the company, then you don’t want excess profits made at your expense.

Just to be clear, do you even work in this industry, or are you an employer in this industry?

[chicane]

Rjan I’ve ignored your guff for as long as I can but now you’re selectively misrepresenting what I actually said.

You insult two men you know nothing about, making assumptions that because they’ve settled into the industry quickly they must be cheap and thick, you give no consideration to their previous experience and competence.

To make it simple for you, a grafter is the guy who will get on and get the job done rather than hang about with a tab in his gob and a sixpack of wifebeater in his bait-box ■■■■■■■■ about it. The level of pay is irrelevant though low pay de-motivates and anyone of any use will soon move on to somewhere better, good employers know that and will treat their staff accordingly.

[muckles]

Rjan:

muckles:

Rjan:
It would be an odd thing to say that the world doesn’t owe you a living - at least under some combination of circumstances. To argue for a world that doesn’t ever owe you a living is not to argue for a civilised society but for a man-made jungle.

You think you’re owed a living? Go and knock a few businesses door tomorrow and tell them they have to employ you as you’re owned a living, see how well you get on. For good measure tell them you’re going to do a bit of skiving, just to raise the average hourly pay of the job.

Now hopefully a civilised society will have a system to stop workers being exploited and help for those who are unable to work due to medical or economic reasons, but it sure as hell doesn’t have to find you a job.

In the end, a civilised society does have to provide jobs and livelihoods in general, or else there will be revolutions until it does, or until the place lies in ruins. You should see how well an organised body of men can get on (and have got on), when they knock on the doors of a few businesses, and tell the proprietors that they must be employed and at what rate.

The willingness to work, the insistence on the conditions being in place to allow work, and the doing of work, is in fact the foundation on which the working class claims to be entitled to a livelihood and the fruits of that work.

The willingness to ingratiate one’s self to a master, as the sole grounds for a claim to a livelihood, is the claim of a slave or a farm animal.

Unless you work in some sort of Communist state where you all work for the state, then a civilised society doesn’t have to provide you with a job. But a civilised society as we understand it will have some form of commerce, that leads to the creation of jobs, but it doesn’t mean you have to have one, the same way as just because you run a business people don’t have to buy your goods.

Rjan:

muckles:

Rjan:
Also, I am not twisting anything, but pointing out matters of fact which seem sometimes to be lost on subscribers to the “grafting” identity.

It’s not fact, it’s your opinion.

It is my opinion, but it also appears to be the facts. If you don’t agree, then either put your critique in detail, or go silent. There’s no point pretending that merely saying it’s my “opinion” is any answer.

Something isn’t fact just because you say it is, it’s your opinion.

Rjan:

muckles:

Rjan:
I agree, bosses do know the two apart. That being the case, the reason bosses retain skivers is because they do sufficient work for their pay rate. The boss will gladly replace them with grafters at the same rate, because the grafter produces more without being paid for all (or any) of the extra and so boosts profits.

bosses retain skivers because due to employment laws, they are bloody difficult to get rid of and of course they want to replace them with somebody who’ll actually do some work.

Employment laws, which are good for all workers, have barely been so weak in living memory (especially given the weakness of unions also). Those laws are good for grafters also - except maybe when they want to succeed in their trick of undercutting other workers (then maybe it is bad for the grafter within his own terms, and bad for the boss who wants to take advantage of the grafter to drive up profits and drive down wages).

Employment laws are important, for all workers and good employers.

muckles:

Rjan:
Also, I haven’t observed a case of a skiver who genuinely did no work (or anything approaching “no work”), as you imply you have. In my experience skivers are modestly less efficient than they could be in the round, and they tend to be found working for poor wages.

I wonder, whereas I’ve discussed only real workplace examples so far, are you not drifting off into imaginary stereotype of what the majority of workers in a workplace are like (i.e. skivers who do no work), or at least gross misrepresentation here?

I’ve seen workers who do the bare minimum they can, especially if nobody’s watching them.
I’ve never said it was the majority of workers.

muckles:

Rjan:
Is it so wrong wanting the company you work for to do well?

It can be. Say if they’re a bottom-feeding employer, then you want them to wither (with the work taken over by a better employer whom you can join), or if you don’t own the company, then you don’t want excess profits made at your expense.

Then if you’re somebody who works hard and has a sense of self worth, you don’t stay with a duff employer, you look for something better.

I personally believe that those employers who treat their staff like dirt, get the employees they deserve. Those employers who look after their employees, not just financially, normally get people who look after their company. Some industry leader once said, “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.”

muckles:
Just to be clear, do you even work in this industry, or are you an employer in this industry?

I have worked in the haulage industry for many years, as a driver, I’ve also worked in warehousing and a few other jobs. When I haven’t been happy with my lot I don’t sit there and moan about crap wages and crap employers, I change it. I don’t work in the haulage industry at the moment, but I still drive trucks for a living, because I’ve found a way of driving trucks and getting very well paid for it and very well treated.

I used to believe by standing with my fellow workers I could change things for the better, but I’ve found those that moan and complain the most, won’t stick together when it come to confronting management about the issues. To the point I got marked out as the trouble maker, because it would be me and a maybe one or 2 other complaining to the management, while the other were hiding in the background still moaning about how bad it all was and how somebody should do something. I gave up with them, found something better and moved on.

[rjan]

chicane:
Rjan I’ve ignored your guff for as long as I can but now you’re selectively misrepresenting what I actually said.

You insult two men you know nothing about, making assumptions that because they’ve settled into the industry quickly they must be cheap and thick, you give no consideration to their previous experience and competence.

I haven’t said grafters must be thick. In fact I haven’t said anything adverse about the competence of a grafter. And it was you who first referred to poor pay.

Unless you are going to disabuse me of what you said, and assert that the pay is fantastic (or certainly very fair) relative to your son’s work effort, then I’m not really sure where you feel the difference between us lies (except perhaps to the extent that you insist hard work explains your son’s comparative employment prospects, whereas I assert it is hard work for poor pay that explains his employment prospects).

I can see why that might be annoying for you, but it’s not because I’m being either insulting to you or talking nonsense.

To make it simple for you, a grafter is the guy who will get on and get the job done rather than hang about with a tab in his gob and a sixpack of wifebeater in his bait-box ■■■■■■■■ about it. The level of pay is irrelevant though low pay de-motivates and anyone of any use will soon move on to somewhere better, good employers know that and will treat their staff accordingly.

The level of pay should never be irrelevant for a worker. I agree that the best thing a grafter can do is move on to better, but then he might just that all the work he has done for a bad employer at such a poor rate, means there is no good employer left to move on to.

[rjan]

muckles:

Rjan:
In the end, a civilised society does have to provide jobs and livelihoods in general, or else there will be revolutions until it does, or until the place lies in ruins. You should see how well an organised body of men can get on (and have got on), when they knock on the doors of a few businesses, and tell the proprietors that they must be employed and at what rate.

The willingness to work, the insistence on the conditions being in place to allow work, and the doing of work, is in fact the foundation on which the working class claims to be entitled to a livelihood and the fruits of that work.

The willingness to ingratiate one’s self to a master, as the sole grounds for a claim to a livelihood, is the claim of a slave or a farm animal.

Unless you work in some sort of Communist state where you all work for the state, then a civilised society doesn’t have to provide you with a job. But a civilised society as we understand it will have some form of commerce, that leads to the creation of jobs, but it doesn’t mean you have to have one, the same way as just because you run a business people don’t have to buy your goods.

There are circumstances in which people have to buy business’s goods and services. Often not from any particular business, but the goods must be purchased from somewhere amongst the class of businesses which provide that good (and there must be at least one business in that class). Take food or housing - these are bare necessities which must be purchased in our society (where property rights mean that these are rarely available outside the market). And many other things, like clothes or transport, become necessary in our particular society. There’s no question of these things not being necessary to purchase.

And work is necessary on two levels. First, for the actual production of necessities. And secondly, for the purchase of them on the market.

It is true to say that no society owes any particular person a particular type of job, but a civilised society does owe people generally the means of a livelihood. Society doesn’t owe it to me to be a driver, but if not that, then it owes me a different type of job, or social security. Of course, society can renege on these claims generally, but then it reneges on the mutuality of civilisation on which our way of life depends and heads towards revolution or collapse.

So there is a very big difference in what I’m saying, I think, from saying the world does not owe me a living.

Even people who do assert that the world does not owe them a living, often act to the contrary in practice once their own livelihoods are being genuinely threatened and starvation awaits. Then it is often just an excuse to assert the counterpart notion, that the individual owes nothing to civilisation (and therefore anything foul he does to others is fair).

muckles:

Rjan:
It can be. Say if they’re a bottom-feeding employer, then you want them to wither (with the work taken over by a better employer whom you can join), or if you don’t own the company, then you don’t want excess profits made at your expense.

Then if you’re somebody who works hard and has a sense of self worth, you don’t stay with a duff employer, you look for something better.

I personally believe that those employers who treat their staff like dirt, get the employees they deserve. Those employers who look after their employees, not just financially, normally get people who look after their company. Some industry leader once said, “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.”

That only works when sanctions are imposed on bad employers. That can be by skiving. It can be by collective action. But it must involve some actual punishment of bad employers to create breathing room for the good - it doesn’t just happen spontaneously. The grafting mindset works against those processes, by gladly working hard for the bad!

muckles:
I used to believe by standing with my fellow workers I could change things for the better, but I’ve found those that moan and complain the most, won’t stick together when it come to confronting management about the issues. To the point I got marked out as the trouble maker, because it would be me and a maybe one or 2 other complaining to the management, while the other were hiding in the background still moaning about how bad it all was and how somebody should do something. I gave up with them, found something better and moved on.

Now this I can say reflects my own experience.

[chicane]

Rjan, please show me where I thought his pay was poor. I have already said it’s above most of the rates mentioned on TN (and no I am not going to put the figure on here) for the kind of work and that both are earning more from driving than from their old/other jobs.

Other than that I don’t think there is much between our outlooks I think it comes down to semantics. Two peoples separated by a common language

To my mind there is a difference between a grafter and a ‘drone’. Though both are competent, hard workers, a grafter looks out himself, a drone will stay with the same company forever no matter how they’re treated, be shocked if you ever say the boss/company is anything less than perfect and most likely go running to tell tales.