What would you do about strikes?

[mistermack]

I see worrying signs in the UK, that trade unionism is becoming militant again, after a couple of quiet decades. They are striking over stupid stuff like they used to in the seventies, like who pushes a button.
I think that the workers have the balance of power tilted too far in their direction.
In vital industries, like trains and planes and electricity, they can cause havoc, and all they lose is a few days pay.
So my proposal it that we should change the law, so that strikers lose a lot more than just the pay for the strike days. They should take some of the grief that they inflict on the company, and the public.
What would you do to make that happen? Or do you think it's just great as it is?

My suggestion :
Make the workers pension funds open to claims from the employer.
A special court should decide if the strike is reasonable, and if not, the employer can claim some or all of the losses, and the compensation paid to customers, from the pension fund.
With the proviso that non-strikers have their pensions protected.

Let's see how keen they are to go on strike, when it damages their own retirement fund.

[NineBerry]

Just give workers the right to kill greedy bosses. And there won't be why more strikes.

[mistermack]

Just give workers the right to kill greedy bosses. And there won't be why more strikes.

I think they tried that in the USSR and Cambodia. Didn't go too well.

[JimC]

Seth has hacked into mm's account!

[laklak]

I add the scores for the next two balls, of course. A spare only gets one.

[pErvinalia]

I think that the workers have the balance of power tilted too far in their direction.

The government and elite DON'T allow significant progress without there being something on the line to force them to do it.

Another stupid thread by conservatives who no fucking clue how the world actually functions.

[pErvinalia]

Seth has hacked into mm's account!

No he hasn't. MM is a conservative just like Seth.

[Brian Peacock]

UK strikes are at an all-time low, and the trend is downwards. For a union to call a strike is a lot more difficult, not to mention expensive, than it was in the bad-old-days. There are many legal hoops to jump through, its easier for an employer to challenge a ballot in court, for which the union bears the cost if the challenge is upheld, and since the introduction of the Union Reform Act in May 2016 ballots require a 50% turnout, and action in the public sector requires an additional condition of ascension from at least 40% of the membership (to put this in perspective the last Tory government was elected on a 60% turnout with a 36% share of the vote). Also the courts now have powers to order unions in the public sector into binding arbitration. Laws on picketing were also tightened to ensure that pickets can only picket their own place of employment, they must be supervised by at least one appointed representative of the union, and employers must be informed as to the position and number of pickets. The union is legally responsible for the behaviour of picket and may be fined and/or banned from picketing if the picketing rules are breached - including the requirement not to cause a noise nuisance!

I think it is unrealistic to claim that the balance of power is with the union members over the employers in these circumstances. I don't think any union has either the money or the inclination to call a strike for political reasons, particularly as there is a legal requirement that limits action to a specific employment dispute. In fact, I think this notion that union members are maliciously striking for political reasons and no good reason is a bit of a red-herring used to bait the line that holds that the employer sets the conditions of employment and the workforce either like it or lump it. An employment contract is just that, a contract between parties. if either party does not fulfil their part of the contract, or wishes to renegotiate the terms of that agreement in their own interests, or simply invoke changes to suit themselves, then the other party must have some means by which to meet that in kind. This goes for employers as for employees. That the overwhelming majority of employment disputes are settle without strike action suggest that making strike action difficult, or banning it all together, is simply not needed.

[mistermack]

I think that the workers have the balance of power tilted too far in their direction.

The government and elite DON'T allow significant progress without there being something on the line to force them to do it.

Another stupid thread by conservatives who no fucking clue how the world actually functions.

Funny, because I've seen it functioning over 66 years.
I've seen disputes at British Leyland cars, where the night shift said the floor was too cold, so the management put wooden boards down after a strike. Then the day shift said that they objected to the wooden boards, and went on strike.
So in the end, the floor had to be put down at night, and taken up in the morning. Just to stop the strikes.
Needless to say, BL went bust. As did Triumph Motorcycles. As did huge numbers of famous British Marques. All destroyed by trade unions.

So sure. I have no fucking clue. I'm restricted by facts, unlike you.

[Brian Peacock]

Those days are long gone.

The number of working hours lost to strikes in 2015 was 170,000 compared with 788,000 in 2014, which was the second lowest annual total since 1892 (lowest year was 1904). The number of people involved in strikes in 2015 was 81,000, an historical low, which reflects that the number of disputes that result in strike action has been falling steadily since the peak in 1979 - with less than 100 strikes taking place in 2015, the majority of which lasted for one day.

Perhaps these facts should also be worked into your analysis?

[mistermack]

Yes, I know we've had a couple of decades of very low strike activity.
But you mention 2015. I reckon we reached the bottom of the curve, and it's now going back upwards.
And not just trade unions. The hard left has taken over the Labour Party in a way that's been unimaginable for a couple of decades. Labour will never again be anywhere near the centre, in my lifetime, that's for sure.
The old days are on their way back. You can see it every day, in the news, and it's happening pretty fast.
If, dog forbid, Labour ever did win an election, you would be seeing this country paralysed by strikes again within a very short time.
It's a movement, that's growing and spreading, in back rooms.

[laklak]

We just fire their privileged asses and hire Mexicans at half the wages.

[pErvinalia]

I think that the workers have the balance of power tilted too far in their direction.

The government and elite DON'T allow significant progress without there being something on the line to force them to do it.

Another stupid thread by conservatives who no fucking clue how the world actually functions.

Funny, because I've seen it functioning over 66 years.
I've seen disputes at British Leyland cars, where the night shift said the floor was too cold, so the management put wooden boards down after a strike. Then the day shift said that they objected to the wooden boards, and went on strike.
So in the end, the floor had to be put down at night, and taken up in the morning. Just to stop the strikes.
Needless to say, BL went bust. As did Triumph Motorcycles. As did huge numbers of famous British Marques. All destroyed by trade unions.

So sure. I have no fucking clue. I'm restricted by facts, unlike you.

Anecdotes. Well done. As Brian said, strikes are at an all-time low (as is the case in Straya). And without unions and strikes we wouldn't have the safe workplaces and worker protections that we have now.

[JimC]

While admitting that there are some dodgy unions, and that some past strikes were really pushing it, the existence of trade unions and the potential for strike action is a vital part of the checks and balances in any modern western society. Without that, employers simply have the whip hand...

[Brian Peacock]

It took 200 years of struggle before working people were able to secure mutuality in the employment contract. It was a genuine civilising factor that went a great way towards growing the stable, ordered, peaceful societies we enjoy today. We should resist overturning that mutuality for political convenience or quick econonic gains less we once again reduce working people, and their dependants, to the status of the chattel of their employers.