What would you do about strikes?

[Hermit]

The bad old days are well and truly behind us and they are not going to come back. At least not insanities like strikes arising out of demarcation disputes. They were truly the pits.

I went down to a wharf one day to pick up 22 tons of some kind of resin. They came in by the 44 gallon drum which were strapped to 4 x 8 foot ship pallets. before loading them on to the truck every one of them had to be reloaded on to 4 x 4 Cheps. The wharfies were on morning smoko when I arrived. Having forgotten to bring some reading material with me, I rummaged around in the truck's tool box and found some tin snips, as expected. So I started snipping the steel bands off that held the drums down, folding the bands up and throwing them into the scrap metal bin. When the wharfies returned one of them chucked a wobbly and sent for a union delegate. Cutting bands belonged to the Maritime Services Union, didn't ya know? I was a member of the Transport Workers Union, and my job was to take the drums off the ship pallets, put them on the Cheps and reband them. They had an hour and a half worth of stop-work meeting, and when they returned they told me to fuck off. They were not going to fork anything on to my truck. This sort of thing doesn't happen any more in Australia, and it won't happen again. The mindset has changed irretrievably, unionist or not.

Meanwhile I am very happy with what the unions had achieved for me, such as the eight hour day, holiday pay, safe superannuation funds and so forth. Superannuation was a major issue. Until about 25 years ago every company had arranged an in-house account for it. If you left your employment to start a job elsewhere, you lost your part of the money. All of it. If you stayed on and the company went broke you were classed as an unsecured creditor at best, which meant that you might get part of your superannuation money. More commonly it was discovered that the owners had already raided the account, ploughed the funds into the company and lost the lot. So, when your pilots, train drivers or whoever else go on strike, all I can think of is: "I hope your demands will be met."

[JimC]

With the super, Hermit, I suspect it was a mixture of Union pressure and labour government policy...

[Hermit]

With the super, Hermit, I suspect it was a mixture of Union pressure and labour government policy...

Very much so. In the past the union movement made Labour government policy. Having been the founded in the colony of Queensland by striking pastoral workers in 1891 and in other states by similar folk, unions were part of the party's fabric right from the start, and had the most powerful presence of all Labor Caucus members throughout its history (though their power has been whittled away since Whitlam became its federal leader). The Labor party also had a special relationship with Australia's union umbrella organisation, the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Many ACTU functionaries went on to become prominent Labor politicians. I don't need to remind you of the most famous one, do I? You would have heard of the Sydney to London beer drinking champion, the honourable, the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, during you SDS days.

The current leader of the Labor Party was previously a member of the ACTU's executive and the Australian Workers' Union's national secretary before that.

[mistermack]

All and every advance in workers rights should be, and generally were, put into law by politicians. Owing to a demand by the voting public.
Nothing to do with people going on strike.
And that's the way it should be. There's nothing wrong with having unions to collect and express the feelings of the workforce. But that should be limited to the working conditions and advisory.

Here in the UK, we have had repeated strike action on Southern Rail, over who presses the button to open the doors. The company have brand new rolling stock, designed to be operated by the driver. The union says it should be a conductor who presses it, for safety's sake. Even though the trains were DESIGNED to have the doors driver-operated, and safety studies were done in advance, and the same system is being used elsewhere without any extra safety issues.

The union CLAIMS to be acting in the interests of the safety of the passengers.
Meanwhile, they are making the same passengers lives hell. The very people who are putting money in their pockets.

Our post office workers are striking over Christmas, over claimed plans to close some sub-post offices. Exactly mirroring the miners' strike of the seventies, led by Arthur Scargill. So fuck-all has changed, in the balance of power.
The workers lose a few days pay. (and pay less tax as a result).
The employers lose millions, pay compensation, and the public are just powerless pawns in the middle.

I'm saying, if you organise a strike, to deliberately harm the business and its customers, you should share equally in the grief that you cause.
Having the pension pot available, through a court case, as compensation, is the best way I can think of to spread the grief around more fairly.
And do the same with the Union assets.

You wouldn't need all this if the labour supply wasn't constantly tilted against the workers, in the employers' favour, by constant immigration.
The laws of supply and demand would mean that employers wouldn't dare try to exploit their workers, for fear that they might fuck off elsewhere for a job.

[Brian Peacock]

The people making Southern Rail passenger's lives hell are the board and management of Southern Rail. The exceptionally shoddy service including delays and impromptu cancellation that puts it at the bottom of the league tables for punctuality and service cannot be pinned on the drivers or train managers (as we're supposed to call the ticket-inspecting conductors these days). Yet despite this the group that owns Southern Rail took higher revenue out of the service this year than last, as it has done for the last four years. It seems to me that the strike is yet another symptom of poor management and the company should probably have his franchise removed as was the case with the East Coast Line a few years ago. The East Coast Line was nationalised and run by the Dept of Transport for three years, in which time the cost to the taxpayer of running the service went down while the level of service climbed to the top of the performance tables.

[mistermack]

The group that run Southern Rail are not responsible for the strikes.
They are purely down to the lying trade unionists, who hide their real agenda under the cloak of safety.
And yes, maybe they should re-nationalise it. That wouldn't solve the problem of strikes though, would it? It might, in the short run, as the unions would want to keep it nationalised. But in the long term, it wouldn't.

Perhaps you can link to a good strike, since you're so fond of them.

[Brian Peacock]

You make it sound like we're in the middle of a workers' uprising.

I'm not 'fond' of strikes, but I see nothing wrong with the idea that workers should be able withdraw their labour in employment disputes as a means of getting employers to the negotiation table. In this day and age nobody goes on strike for frivolous reasons because striking gets you where it hurts most - in the wage packet. If one wanted to stop strikes altogether then repealing the relevant section of the 1906 Trade Disputes Act which keeps unions from being sued for damages by employers would do the trick. Is that the sort of thing you're after, or are you saying that strikes are fine in principle as long as you're not inconvenienced by them?

[mistermack]

Yes, I would most certainly allow employers to sue unions.
That wouldn't automatically mean that they would win.
We allow people to sue for all sorts of stuff. Why should strikes be any different?
They would have to prove that they acted reasonably, as would the employer.

If you intentionally damage someone's business, why should you have immunity?
If the employer sacks someone, he can be sued in a special court, if it's deemed simply unfair.
Unfair striking should be treated the same as unfair dismissal.

[Brian Peacock]

That would make any and all strike action impossible and allow employers to set and change the terms of employment on a whim. The loss of a single working hour damages a company.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taff_Va ... prov=sfla1

[pErvinalia]

All and every advance in workers rights should be, and generally were, put into law by politicians. Owing to a demand by the voting public.
Nothing to do with people going on strike.

Utter bullshit.

[JimC]

All and every advance in workers rights should be, and generally were, put into law by politicians. Owing to a demand by the voting public.
Nothing to do with people going on strike.

Utter bullshit.

In recent times, some of the changes in worker's rights may have occurred politically, but before that, the vast majority occurred when greedy capitalists were forced kicking and screaming into changes via pressure from organised labour, then simply confirmed by legislation...

[rainbow]

That would make any and all strike action impossible and allow employers to set and change the terms of employment on a whim. The loss of a single working hour damages a company.

Not always.
Where a company is in an oversupply situation, they may actually benefit from a strike.

[mistermack]

All and every advance in workers rights should be, and generally were, put into law by politicians. Owing to a demand by the voting public.
Nothing to do with people going on strike.

Utter bullshit.

In recent times, some of the changes in worker's rights may have occurred politically, but before that, the vast majority occurred when greedy capitalists were forced kicking and screaming into changes via pressure from organised labour, then simply confirmed by legislation...

Most of the cases I remember were the opposite. The workers lost the strike, and went back to work with nothing, but the law was subsequently changed anyway.

In this country, certain strikes, like the police or army, are illegal.
Because the service is too important. Does their world cave in, because they can't strike?
The fire service, on the other hand, can strike and do.
As a result, fire men are notoriously over-paid, and there is a huge waiting list to get a job in the fire service, and the jobs are usually fiddled for friends and relatives.
Why the fuck should firemen and ambulance drivers be allowed to strike, while police and army not?
I would make strikes illegal in any public monopoly service.

I'm still waiting for examples of good strikes.

[Hermit]

All and every advance in workers rights should be, and generally were, put into law by politicians. Owing to a demand by the voting public.
Nothing to do with people going on strike.

In recent times, some of the changes in worker's rights may have occurred politically, but before that, the vast majority occurred when greedy capitalists were forced kicking and screaming into changes via pressure from organised labour, then simply confirmed by legislation...

In Germany the unions are grouped by the industries its members work in rather than by trade. Nevertheless, they are unions. Every year their peak representatives sit down with peak representatives of their employers in the relevant industry and government representative of the ministry for the economy to negotiate an agreement for the following months. The tripartite conference has no hierarchy. Workers, factory owners and government officials meet on an even footing. Nevertheless, government participation is minimal. The bulk of the negotiation takes place between unions and employers.

The system works relatively smoothly. Unions are not allowed to strike in order to add pressure for award rate increases until four weeks after the current agreement has expired, though they can go on strike for other reasons during that time. After that they may, and sometimes do, organise warning strikes. They are usually short. Earlier this year IG Metall, one of the larger community of unions representing 3.8 million workers in the metal working and electronics industry, had difficulties reaching an agreement with its employers. Negotiations started mid-March. The unions wanted a 5% rise for the next 12 months. The employers offer amounted to a total of 2.1% for 24 months. Strike actions commenced late in April. The agreement that was finally reaches two weeks later resulted in an increase of 2.8% for the first 12 months and another increase of 2.0% for the next 12. Lengthy, disruptive strike action was averted.

[Brian Peacock]

That would make any and all strike action impossible and allow employers to set and change the terms of employment on a whim. The loss of a single working hour damages a company.

Not always.
Where a company is in an oversupply situation, they may actually benefit from a strike.

I guess that in some situations a company may benefit from forced under-productions/productivity, but as MM has it, in such a situation they could also boost their profits by suing the union for damages.