The Sin Bin • Re: Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
Mild Rover wrote:
An official strike requires democratic support from members. The union HQ going on strike in sympathy would be an act of stupid self harm. It isn’t like a hunger strike.
Those laws about working conditions mightn’t exist without trade unions. While wage negotiations are possible, it is easier to ‘pick-off’ individual or small negotiators. That is, for example, a big part of why European healthcare is a lot cheaper than in the US, where a fragmented private insurance system lacks the power to secure better immediate value for its customers.
A lot of HR people do a fantastic job but ultimately they exist to protect the employer’s interests, leaving individual employees vulnerable to abuses of power.
It’s sad that we have had such an adversarial, distrustful relationship between workers and bosses in the UK and battled to compromises so often where interests diverged rather than finding them through partnership. The growing gig economy will require new approaches and the younger generation will have to work that out in their own way.
We all know that voting against a strike if its called is difficult - the idea that its any way democratic is delusional - its like an election in Africa!!
I think your last statement is incorrect - we a distrustful relationship between employers and the representatives of employees who work to a set agenda in which the individual is lost. The guy/girl from the union wont lose their job if their intransigence leads to the employer taking a course of action that leads to loss of jobs. McClusky soon piped-down when Ratcliffe said enough is enough I don't need this I will close Grangemouth. To blame the employer all the time is unfair.
Statistics: Posted by Sal Paradise — Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:57 am