Spacemonkeypg:
While i am only 31 and of no political direction my knowledge of the unions and there movement are not of the positive side at all.10 people died in the miners strike causing the three day week, where unions and their members attempted to bring down the society of the UK and failed. There are positive and negative points and reasons over the miners and their strike i am sure. But for example the taxi driver who was killed taking a miner to work and the teenagers attempting to get coal.
Then their is the BA strike, i can imagine the low cost airline staff dreaming of the T&C’s BA staff get in their contract in stark comparison to their terms of employment. Not only that the action deliberate in its timing to cause distress and hardship for members of the general public.
Post Office if the wind blows the wrong way then they throw out ballot papers left right and centre - more interestingly is the partisan strike action taken by each individual depot.
Tube drivers, in this instance its just pure lunacy. £40k starting salary YES starting salary plus 40 days holiday plus free TFL transport. The latest strike is to get TRIPLE pay plus a day in leu if they work a bank holiday.
The four most common factors with these is they are all former public or still are public sector workers. Who seem to think they have to automatic right to work in a non-profitable fashion and the general ideology of work as little for as much as i can. Wastage of any form is nearly encouraged and service levels take a second nature to workers over rights.
Maternity midwives, nurses, doctors, police, private sector workers (majority), health care workers and soldiers have terms and conditions of their employment which in comparison to the above are/where a dam heck worse. But they are not militant in their attitudes they are not consistent moaners they do the work they are employed to do.
A family two doors down the road from me don’t work. They claim what ever form of benefit they can. The man, i have been informed by his partner jumps from JSA to DLA depending on the nature and the closeness of the social security worker into investigating his claim. If he has been unemployed for a certain period of time he moves to DLA under stress of what ever he can pull out of the hat. Then moves back to JSA wiping his time served on JSA thus avoiding the forced work/education placed on claimants. This said fellow apart from having sky tv, sky sports, all the matching sports clothing, working at the furniture removal shop at the top of the road and smoking pot is considered to be on the bread line. He see’s his benefits as his RIGHT in society and considers his benefit payment as a pay day when it comes through. Many normal people would see this person as bleeding UK system dry.
This mentality is the same for unions and union workers. The only difference is that they bleed/ attempt to bleed companies and or UK departments dry. With the miss belief they are entitled to a hell of a lot more than the man on the front line dodging IED’s and bullets putting something back into the UK rather than attempting to take it out.
I would love to place a striking tube driver in front of this man thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne … ?offset=10 and watch him try to explain why he deserves to strike for MORE money.
Then once he has explained his actions i think i would like to introduce him to this fellow telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ … mbers.html and again ask him to explain not only why he gets the right for more but also a right to a pay rise while others are tightening their belts.
As i have said i’m 31 and i have worked since the age of 11 non stop. I can honestly say that all i have ever seen in todays society is take take take. At the forefront of this trend is benefit claimants and unions i am afraid.
Sounds to me like you’re just one of that generation who’s been indoctrinated by the societal values since Thatcher came to power.It might come as a shock but unlike you I was around when the miners were on strike and the three day week was introduced and there were plenty of people working in industry at that time,who actually supported their actions,like my late Dad for one,and who were ex WW2 vets who,just like that bloke in the photo, put themselves in harms way and got the country out of the zb.
However the Tory press has never let the truth stand in the way of using a one sided view that ‘heroes’ are only on their side and try to forget the fact that there are just as many ‘heroes’ on the (in their view) ‘wrong’ side of the age old trade union (socialist government supporting lot) versus management (tory government supporting lot) issue.
You say that you’re of no political direction but I’d disagree with that as it’s clear from reading that post that your political ideals are clear enough cut and not surprising considering the years you’ve grown up through.
If you really want to know what no political direction means try the idea of being able to understand that not everything about socialism is bad in just the same way as not everything about good old fashioned working class Capitalist America is bad.Yes even the yanks had unions and took industrial action when they needed to and just like that soldier paid the price both often on the battle field and at work.
pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr190/cox.htm
