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Trades Unions and the right to strike
Topic Started: Thursday, 29. July 2010, 09:40 (398 Views)
garfield

I have recently started a part time job and received an invitation to join the union, I wondered whether to join as I'd heard years ago from the pro-life movement that some of the big unions funded the 'abortion rights' cause. But then unions play an important part in defending workers against exploitation.
Does the forum have any thoughts on union membership?
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Rose of York
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Some unions got out of hand during the sixties and seventies, but if there had never been any trade unions, the workers would have had no means of seeking fair treatment, reasonable wages and conditions.

If you don't join you will have no means of voting on decisions affecting your own well being and job security. If you do join, you can attend the meetings, and through those and the union magazine you can raise the matter of a trade union promoting abortion.

i suggest you enquire whether there is still a membership levy, added to the subscription, that goes to Labour Party funds. There used to be, and if you did not want to sipport the party it is up to you to complete a fom opting out.

The Boilermakers and Blastfurnacemens union had a Catholic leader, Tom Walsh, at the huge Middlesbrough steelworks, who based his work on the social encyclicals. In twelve years he negotated pay increases, improvements in safety and conditions, lot of things, without calling one single days strike. His policy, put over to members, was that if the workers destroy the company, there will be no jobs, and employer and employee contribute to the profit so must be fair with each other.
Keep the Faith!

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Peter

Hello Garfield

I'm strongly in agreement with Rose when it comes to union membership. I belong to Equity and they support me and others when it comes to pay and working conditions in our industry. I'm also owed money from a broken contract at the moment and although it's taking an awfully long time to resolve (16 months so far) it's now going to the county court. The union do appear to be like a dog with a bone, which is very comforting as far as I'm concerned especially as the people that owe me money won't enter into negotiations at all. On top of all that my union cover me for public liability insurance.

As members of a union we can all effect rule changes by turning up at meetings and bothering to vote on topics that concern us.

For me, it's really good to know I have the strength of a union behind me and that it will fight my corner if necessary.

Good luck with your deliberations!

Peter
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CARLO
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Good advice from Rose and Peter.

I am with them.

Pax


CARLO
Judica me Deus
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pat
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When I had a job, I belonged to NALGO (known affectionately as "not a lot going on"). Where I worked it was important to have the backing of a union because management would do you over every time.
Actually you are lucky to be offered the choice: these days anyone wanting to join a union is seen as a troublemaker by some companies and you don't last long.
Any funding of campaigns and causes not directly to do with the union comes out of the "political levy" this could be the Labour Party, CND, whatever, and you have the right to opt out of paying that levy -it's just a question of filling in a form.

The fact that some fundamentalist sects and people like the JWs forbid membership inclines me to think being in a union must be a good thing!
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tomais

Pat think unions today- think NALGO and tkink just what their annual inome is/are!
Think Cuba!
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OsullivanB

Zero for NALGO since 1993 when it ceased to exist
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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pat
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My great grandmother, may she rest in peace was generally pretty right wing on most issues except when it came to unions. When she was a girl, she worked in a factory making tin boxes and some of the machinery was lethal, as you can imagine (lots of fast moving cutting machines). She lost a finger there, and lost pay because she got taken to hospital.They worked on piece rates, having a quota to fill each day and if not filled, it had to be finished the next day before that day's work could begin. So she and some of the other girls decided they would join a union, so they could campaign for hourly rates, and better, safer conditions. they ended up on strike, and won the right to join a union.
Conditions and wages may have improved, but when you look into the faces of some of our badly paid, casual workers who serve us in cafes, or clean our offices, you would think we're back in the early years of the last century.
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Rose of York
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The Guardian has a useful map we can check if we need to buy petrol or diesel. Click the link, scroll down the page to the map showing filling stations where there have been reports of excessive queueing, closed petrol stations and panic buying due to the threat of a strike by tanker drivers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/mar/28/panic-buying-petrol-your-stories

As the forum exists for discussion of Catholic and other faith related matters, I had better comment about the moral angle of this.

Here goes.

I fully support the right to strike when the demands of the workers are fair, implementing them is reasonably feasible, and the benefit to the workers outweights any harm done. The country, the whole of Europe, indeed the world, is in economic crisis. Now that the very small local shops are finished off, and the typical supermarket is a hundred times the size of the largest convenience stores, what will be the result of a petrol tanker drivers' strike? In a similar situation in the early nineties I went into a supermarket at half past nine in the morning. There were two loaves on the bread shelf. The vegetable department had one cabbage, nothing else. Milk was limited to one bottle per customer. Smaller independent shops closed down, due to being completely cleaned out of supplies.

I suggest government should be considering what they can do about food miles. A food processing factory near us is quite a sight at four o'clock every afternoon. A fleet of container lorries leaves, prior to causing a long tailback on a ten mile old fashioned A-Road with one lane on each side. They then join the motorway and proceed on a 350 mile journey to deliver the food to a central warehouse. One driver told me it is his job to drive up there fully loaded, then call at the despatch bay to collect another load, to deliver to a supermarket next door to the factory where they were made. Due to such nonsense, a motor fuel strike brings the nation to a standstill. Workers are stuck at home. Sales staff cannot travel to customers. That has a negative impact on production and sales, due to fewer orders. Hotels where sales staff spend their nights have high vacancies.

It would please me if workers on high wages were to make a sacrifice and refrain for the time being, during the current economic crisis, from taking industrial action.
Keep the Faith!

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Anne-Marie

Rose of York
Wednesday, 28. March 2012, 23:39
I fully support the right to strike when the demands of the workers are fair, implementing them is reasonably feasible, and the benefit to the workers outweights any harm done.
It would please me if workers on high wages were to make a sacrifice and refrain for the time being, during the current economic crisis, from taking industrial action.
The workers seem to think they have a good cause... but what is a good cause to one group can all too easily be perceived as very different indeed by another.

As you rightly point out, Rose, at a time of crisis like the present, we should all be pulling together, not tearing one another apart for our own self-interest - we're all hurting.
:clare:
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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PJD

Yes I agree Anne-Marie.

PJD
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Chris
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I was a member for the bulk of my career. When I really needed them, they (GMB) were a spare wheel. Absolutely useless. When I became a manager from the early part of my career, I stayed in the union as they still represented management grades.

My personal view is that in our inter-connected world, no group has the right to infringe of the rights and liberties of the majority. To that extent, I've long held the view that a list should be drawn of essential services and providers, and the right to strike be replaced by compulsory and binding arbitration.

A detached, calm and professional look at both arguments is much better than the emotions and macho behaviour I experienced on both sides of the 'negotiating' table.
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OsullivanB

Chris
 
My personal view is that in our inter-connected world, no group has the right to infringe of the rights and liberties of the majority.
It is also essential in a free society that no group has the right to infringe the rights and liberties of a minority.
From my reading of newspaper reports about the current dispute, the employers are seeking to vary the terms of employment of the drivers to make their jobs less secure. That seems to me to be a legitimate grievance driven by an important and fundamental need rather than greed.
As for "these hard times".Aa least one of the most important constitutional law cases was decided during the second world war when the courts decided that mandatory identity cards could not be imposed. Freedom overrode security issues in that time of grave peril.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Chris
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OsullivanB
Thursday, 29. March 2012, 10:39
It is also essential in a free society that no group has the right to infringe the rights and liberties of a minority.
From my reading of newspaper reports about the current dispute, the employers are seeking to vary the terms of employment of the drivers to make their jobs less secure. That seems to me to be a legitimate grievance driven by an important and fundamental need rather than greed.
As for "these hard times".Aa least one of the most important constitutional law cases was decided during the second world war when the courts decided that mandatory identity cards could not be imposed. Freedom overrode security issues in that time of grave peril.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of either case (rarely outlined accurately in the media) it is the method of resolution I have an issue with, i.e. industrial disputes irrespective of impact on the majority, hence binding arbitration as an alternative.

Take essential services as an example. This from a Police inspector blogger:
Quote:
 
At the 09.00 hrs Tactical Management Meeting this morning, emergency response police commanders like me were told that our response crews must not sit in queues for fuel because it sends out 'the wrong message' and may panic the public. I guess the rationale behind this is that if the public see emergency service vehicles in queues, they will work out that we are not attending emergency calls and that we don't have our own fuel.

At the 10.00 hrs Local Management Meeting, neighbourhood police commanders were told that marked police vehicles should join the queues as soon as possible and get filled up as a contingency, in case the petrol stations run dry. If the public approach police officers in the queue and ask questions, we are to 'reassure them'. When asked how and what to reassure the public about, an answer was not forthcoming.

We have established plans for emergency service and essential staff vehicle fuel supply. Plans like restricted lanes at large 24/7 fuel stations and designated fuel stations in rural locations. We can't trigger these plans because then we would be officially admitting that there is a crisis. And of course there is not a crisis. Unless you are trying to fill up an ambulance, police car or fire engine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/mar/29/fuel-panic-live-updates-petrol

Being in the NHS, I know this rationale is being widely applied.

Edited by Chris, Thursday, 29. March 2012, 16:27.
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OsullivanB

Binding arbitration is an excellent system, more widely used than ever before as an alternative to litigation.

It is of the essence of arbitration that both (all) parties repose total trust in the ability and impartiality of the arbitrator(s).

Binding arbitration is not a conceptual problem. The "binding" nature of arbitration is at the heart of the process and is rigorously respected by the courts of this country and elsewhere.

Compulsory arbitration presents very different difficulties, not necessarily insuperable, but requiring time and goodwill to resolve.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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