Drivers used to be in the Transport and General Workers union I believe. Could we have a union now? I don’t believe we can ever be a part of one because agency drivers would fill in for the striking full timers and then you have the rich part timers who only do trucking to top up their other income so they would not join the union or take any action. You have the foreigners who are not interested in joining in and they too would fill in for the full timers. The employers are already phasing out a lot of full time jobs in favour of using agency so any move to unite would simply escalate that process. In other words you end up with a very weak hand against the employers sat there holding a Royal Flush
alder:
The employers are already phasing out a lot of full time jobs in favour of using agency so any move to unite would simply escalate that process. In other words you end up with a very weak hand against the employers sat there holding a Royal Flush
There’s no reason as to why working for an agency should be considered as mutually exclusive with union membership. 
Olog Hai:
The ball is completely in the employer’s court and so if it’s something that you consider unreasonable then just don’t go.
Where do think the economy would be now if the working class had taken that view during the 50 years between 1930-80. 
Juddian:
The labour party got taken over by professional agitators and communists, and latterly by champagne socialists with their own agendas, with the great anti leader lucifer blair a shining example of just what can go wrong when it reaches its logical conclusion.The real labour party of old wasn’t far from a genuine conservative party, neither of which we now have, both are first and foremost patriots, and i’m not talking about politicians attending a sporting event they despise.
Ironically just like the modern tory party the current labour party apparatchiks despise the British genuine working class proletariat and i do not include the benefit class here, far from doing their best for them have between them done their level best to undermine them for the past 40 years, currently the method is replacement/displacement, the labour party especially have got it as wrong as its possible to be.
Working class people are stubborn and proud, they work for their livings giving a fair days work for a fair days pay, the current labour party campains on the politics of envy and fear, where the voters they woo and want are subservient to and rely on the state to subsidise their living, the real working class are too proud to take money they haven’t earned as handouts, lowering them to the benefit underclass…yes working people can be just as snobbish as the middle and upper echelons, never mistake a worker for a scrounger unless you want to get your ears syringed.
Working class people realise that labours version of robin hood of stealing enterpreneurs money to give to the bone idle and immigrants won’t make a viable economy, it will only drive away the people who make business work.
Tory version of economy of borrowed money to be repaid at some point in the future by the new middle class, who are actually working class but were somehow convinced they were middle class because they bought their own houses, won’t work either.The trouble with the labour party is that it doesn’t attract the working class into its ranks and would never promote them or put them up for election, not many Beasts of Bolsover in their ranks.
For one thing working people tend to be too busy earning a living to go through the hoops, secondly soon as they open their mouths they’re in trouble they say the wrong things because they see whats going on at the coal face as it were and tell it how it is, thirdly working people tend to be supporters of free speech and have no time for PC or bullying, they wouldn’t give the current agitators and boot boys in UAF or Hope not Soap the time of day.
I have these same conversations with my misses most weekends about buying houses and classes,
She is a southerner and families have always bought there semis and work the same as everyone else but think they have developed into a middle class zone.
It’s a joke if you ask me when do you become this middle made up yuppie class zone.
you either have money or you need go work for it.
Themoocher:
I have these same conversations with my misses most weekends about buying houses and classes,She is a southerner and families have always bought there semis and work the same as everyone else but think they have developed into a middle class zone.
It’s a joke if you ask me when do you become this middle made up yuppie class zone.
you either have money or you need go work for it.
Having grown up in the ‘home counties’ private/purchase sector of the housing market that sounds a bit simplistic and stereotypical.
IE I knew people who had clerical working parents and therefore who everyone,including themselves,viewed as ‘white collar’ middle class ‘but’ who lived in council houses. While my definitely blue collar manufacturing industry worker father and part time shop worker mother were most definitely ( rightly ) viewed as working class and who ( rightly ) looked down on the former as social housing sector scroungers.Looking for handouts in the form of a tax funded house which my parents had to subsidise out of their taxes while also having to fund their own deposit and mortgage.
The irony of that eventually went on to the situation of council house tenants then voting Conservative to get an even bigger handout in the form of the ‘right to buy’ their council houses at a below market value price.While at the same time calling people like my father the ‘militant working class’. 
alder:
Drivers used to be in the Transport and General Workers union I believe. Could we have a union now? I don’t believe we can ever be a part of one because agency drivers would fill in for the striking full timers and then you have the rich part timers who only do trucking to top up their other income so they would not join the union or take any action. You have the foreigners who are not interested in joining in and they too would fill in for the full timers. The employers are already phasing out a lot of full time jobs in favour of using agency so any move to unite would simply escalate that process. In other words you end up with a very weak hand against the employers sat there holding a Royal Flush
I’m sure I was in the TGWU at an Exel depot a few years ago, so nothing stopping you joining them.
The only problem is, unions know drivers wont stick together, so wont help us fight our corner, we are a lost cause of the working classes.
It’s now a case of, if you don’t like it, leave, or put up with it.
Carryfast:
Themoocher:
I have these same conversations with my misses most weekends about buying houses and classes,She is a southerner and families have always bought there semis and work the same as everyone else but think they have developed into a middle class zone.
It’s a joke if you ask me when do you become this middle made up yuppie class zone.
you either have money or you need go work for it.
Having grown up in the ‘home counties’ private/purchase sector of the housing market that sounds a bit simplistic and stereotypical.
IE I knew people who had clerical working parents and therefore who everyone,including themselves,viewed as ‘white collar’ middle class ‘but’ who lived in council houses.
The irony of that eventually went on to the situation of council house tenants then voting Conservative to get an even bigger handout in the form of the ‘right to buy’ their council houses at a below market value price.While at the same time calling people like my father the ‘militant working class’.
Tell you what makes me laugh even more.
Is the inner city living in two bed ex council house but the through right to buy.
Move out city into 5 bed house and become a upper class in society over night it’s brilliant
to me your working class if you have to work to get by. middle / upper don’t.
Carryfast:
Themoocher:
I have these same conversations with my misses most weekends about buying houses and classes,She is a southerner and families have always bought there semis and work the same as everyone else but think they have developed into a middle class zone.
It’s a joke if you ask me when do you become this middle made up yuppie class zone.
you either have money or you need go work for it.
Having grown up in the ‘home counties’ private/purchase sector of the housing market that sounds a bit simplistic and stereotypical.
IE I knew people who had clerical working parents and therefore who everyone,including themselves,viewed as ‘white collar’ middle class ‘but’ who lived in council houses.
The irony of that eventually went on to the situation of council house tenants then voting Conservative to get an even bigger handout in the form of the ‘right to buy’ their council houses at a below market value price.While at the same time calling people like my father the ‘militant working class’.
Jesus Carryfast you’ve just taken me back 43/44 years, i had an almightly blazing row about this with one of my older colleagues (best of mates really despite the age difference), he was a staunch labour man of the Harold Wilson years who could see no wrong in subsidised housing for those who could well afford to pay the real rate, foreign holidays new cars etc all the trimmings while the rest paid the full whack and then excess taxes to part pay for the council houses, which were then bought cheaply by their tenants as part of Thatchers divide and rule bribes.
Yet funnily enough that same had long ago bought his own private house which he lived in, i eventually moved in next door to him and we got on well till he died many years later.
His brother who also worked with us was as staunch a real conservative and they used to have really blazing rows regularly about politics.
They both voted NO to the common market mind, as did i.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, i’d quite forgotten that day.
weeto:
I’m sure I was in the TGWU at an Exel depot a few years ago, so nothing stopping you joining them.
TGWU was one of the unions that merged to form Unite. Unite is one of your possible union options as a driver.
Themoocher:
Tell you what makes me laugh even more.
Is the inner city living in two bed ex council house but the through right to buy.
Move out city into 5 bed house and become a upper class in society over night it’s brilliant
There is no bigger enemy of the working class than the working class themselves.Who forget who they are and the sacrifices made by previous generations to improve their lot.
As for the right to buy social climbers that is the definition of what the wannabee Cons call the ‘housing ladder’.IE shout for Socialist ’ affordable housing’ solutions then switch to full on Con type ‘Capitalist’ mode ASAP to pocket the difference.On the basis of finding some mug who’ll give them enough for their cut price ex council hovel in a zb inner city area to allow them to move out to a better area where they hope to find another mug who’ll flog them that decent house ‘in the country’ for the same value. 
Carryfast:
Olog Hai:
The ball is completely in the employer’s court and so if it’s something that you consider unreasonable then just don’t go.Where do think the economy would be now if the working class had taken that view during the 50 years between 1930-80.
I don’t really care because it doesn’t matter as we’re not talking about that period, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’re talking about now. Employers call the shots and if the potential employee doesn’t like it he or she has the option of not working there.
Olog Hai:
Carryfast:
Olog Hai:
The ball is completely in the employer’s court and so if it’s something that you consider unreasonable then just don’t go.Where do think the economy would be now if the working class had taken that view during the 50 years between 1930-80.
I don’t really care because it doesn’t matter as we’re not talking about that period, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’re talking about now. Employers call the shots and if the potential employee doesn’t like it he or she has the option of not working there.
Employers no more ‘call the shots’ now,probably less so,than they did in 1930.Nor would/is accepting the logic of if the employee doesn’t like it the employee can leave be any different ‘now’ as opposed to ‘that period’.Meanwhile the results of that logic are all around us in the form of food banks,tax revenues that don’t cover social provision costs,and wage levels that don’t cover living expenses and having to be topped up with ‘tax credits’ thereby adding even more to the deficit.Together with the lose lose situation of low wage expectation immigration adding to the labour supply thereby holding down wages even more.While adding demand to housing and social provision and low disposable incomes suppressing consumer demand thereby lowering the demand for labour and putting even more downward pressure on wages.While what consumer demand we’ve got gets directed into imports.
Feel free to explain how weak unions and those unions we’ve got being lumbered with Socialist ideology will fix all that.
Olog Hai:
. We’re talking about now. Employers call the shots and if the potential employee doesn’t like it he or she has the option of not working there.
Yeh but do you not think that that type of ‘If you don’t like what I tell you to do you can go and ■■■■ off somewhere else’ type of regime really works for either party, it just ■■■■■■ the driver off and a ■■■■■■ off driver is not a productive driver, so it becomes counter productive for the boss.
So then we get back to the o/p, ie. some take it some don’t.
I wasn’t discussing ‘all that’, so I’ll pass on your invitation. My point, which you seem either to misunderstand, miss completely or grossly over think, is that if an employer offering a job which an applicant would like, calls the shots.
How even you can expand that to tax credits, socialism and whatever else, is beyond me.
robroy:
Olog Hai:
. We’re talking about now. Employers call the shots and if the potential employee doesn’t like it he or she has the option of not working there.Yeh but do you not think that that type of ‘If you don’t like what I tell you to do you can go and [zb] off somewhere else’ type of regime really works for either party, it just ■■■■■■ the driver off and a ■■■■■■ off driver is not a productive driver, so it becomes counter productive for the boss.
So then we get back to the o/p, ie. some take it some don’t.
Not in all cases but there has to be a line. It’s up to the driver to prove he is worthy of better treatment, which to someone who knows what they’re doing they should be capable of within a minute or two of meeting the boss. Always worked for me and nor am I shy of putting a bit if effort in to getting a decent job. Some on seem to think the work worth having should drop onto their lap.
Olog Hai:
My point if an employer offering a job which an applicant would like, calls the shots.How even you can expand that to tax credits, socialism and whatever else, is beyond me.
What you’re describing is just a licence for the undercutting of wage levels and terms and conditions.Which is why we need strong unions to stop that.No surprise that you obviously then also don’t seem to understand the link between that and the inevitable results on the economy.
While the question as to how anyone thinks that can be fixed by ever weaker unions remains.
You/we as drivers can get change you don’t need the unions or do-gooders or the spinless enough numbers park and blockade 3-5 days you get your change . ■■■■ em all who say any different sometimes after banging heads against brick walls it hurts . and I’ve always said it and would do it but if you won’t or can’t stop ■■■■■■■ your working and earning coz if you don’t some foreigner will …
karl,let the other people from other countries come in and do the work,cos pretty soon no one will be earning any way,that’s the whole point of uniting and putting the back bone (spine) back into the workers.As for ■■■■■■■■ i’d rather discuss.
I am 57 and a large percentage of drivers are in their twilight years. So how many can be bothered to join a union and fight? I will admit I cant be 4rsed to fight an unwinnable war at my age 