It is staggering how rife this kind of behaviour is. You sense that some of the people who have been successful in business are never satisfied with the wealth they will have. The Mirror is right to flag this up yet most of the newspaper's today seem to be laying in to Mick Lynch due to the rail strike which is taking place to ensure that wages keep up with inflation and to retain the services necessary to keep the trains functioning. As someone who has cause touse trains from time to time, i think Mick Lynch is correct yet the press seems keen to cast him as a pantomine villain as opposed to looking at the issue of people who continue to exploit others to accrue excessive wealth.
I never watch breakfast TV but understand that Lynch was dealt with disrespectfully in an interview yesterday which resulted in him losing his cool because the questions were framed in the context that the unions were guilty in some respect. I don't see this argument ever being put to the train operators and I also do not see more pertinent questions being put to unions leaders such as why trade union membership remains so low within the private sector. For me, this is the one question I would like to see asked - not why are you on strike but why have unions not made inroads with those working outside the public sector. If there is any "failing" on the unions, it is the fact that so few workers feek they need to be belong to them and the negative perception of unions by some employers. This is the kind of question where Mick Lynch needs his feet held to the fire.
At the risk of incurring a certain poster’s wrath, the reason why Mick Lynch is being cast as pantomime villain, by the press, is because the large majority of the press supports the Tory party and will do whatever they can to demonise unions, or anyone/anything that stands against the Tory party.
Lynch actually called the BBC out, yesterday, for parroting a right wing agenda and effectively just asking him about things written in the right wing press.
The disrespect shown to him was, from what I saw, by Richard Madeley, an appallingly inept interviewer at the best of times, who has a Piers Morgan complex, in as much as everything should centre around him and not the debate.
With regards to low union membership, this is another thing that was engineered by government. Union fees were always taken from the wages, by the employers, and forwarded to the unions. This practice has now ended, which means that those who want to join a union have to set up a DD or Standing Order, which some can’t be bothered to do.
Then you also have to include the anti union feelings that have festered as a result of them ALWAYS being painted as being in the wrong, by the media and government. This has an impact on those being asked to join.
It is also more difficult for unions to take action, because of the rules they have to comply with, in order to go on strike.
The midwives, in England, have just voted on strike action and polled 94% in favour of striking, BUT because fewer than 50% took part in the vote the result is invalid.
Midwives in Wales ARE striking because they passed the threshold.
I watched the ITV news, early evening yesterday, and the first part was all about empty train stations and talking to people who were being inconvenienced.
I didn’t see them talk to anyone who took the view that the RMT were right to make a stand, or someone who recognises that the strike(s) is/are being driven by the government’s intransigence, in another attempt to distract from the mess they have made with the country’s economy.
