You have lost me there GTH - what Watford FC threads are you referring to - you clearly do not mean on not606
There used to be a saying, "Lock them in a room and don't let them out until there is an agreement". This evening I have been reading about a strike here by the crews who work for SNCM, the ferry company that goes between the south coast and Corsica, Sardinia and North Africa. Last December the company informed the unions that they wished to change the shift patterns, but it would not result in any job losses. The unions said "Non" and refused to even discuss it. Despite various overtures to the union, no discussions did take place. The union then call a strike which just happened to coincide with the first week of the holiday season. For the past two weeks there have been no sailings, leaving holiday makers unable to travel, transport companies stuck on the quay with some food goods perishing and the regional government losing out on income that will effect the way they can provide services to the people who live there. Yesterday both parties were brought together with an arbiter, and a compromise deal was worked out, one that they both dislike, but enough to get the ferries moving again. Clearly a small number of people have created chaos for others, costing them money, and ruining their annual holiday. Why the union refused to even talk I do not know, but it is becoming a regular event and they always chose the time to obtain maximum disruption. The whole point of this post is that is has been shown that a deal could be reached, and you have to ask why the talks didn't start until after the strike began.
To be honest, I simply don't understand how you arrived at that conclusion - the concepts of right and wrong don't fall into the category of 'personal beliefs', rather they are society-set standards, as are lying and stealing, and are taught within RME and Citizenship. The personal beliefs that I am precluded from imposing on children are mainly all to do with Religion, Politics and Human Sexuality - which, I suppose, makes a classroom akin to a public bar. On all three of those topics, the curriculum covers the 'nuts and bolts' - anything else is a no-no, and quite rightly so as far as I'm concerned. Even here in one of the strongholds of the Independence group, I'd be crucified if I dared to promote a Yes vote in the classroom, which can actually be a bit of a challenge. Some children can be very inquisitive and forthright in their quest for knowledge.
Interesting point on French Unions OFH - I am working on a project to deliver a new mobile phone app for our companies service engineers.this will bring significant benefits to those engineers and the company of course. I have a manager in France negotiating with the Unions seeking their permission to deploy this in November. Although this will really benefit the engineers, we have to gave the permission of the union to deploy it. They do not wish to see the changes or listen to the benefit case, they just want to show that they hold the real decision. What was interesting in the recent UK strike was an apparent north/south divide. Most of the strike action was in the north - hardly any schools in my area were impacted. It probably matches union membership very well.
Yorkie - this thread has revealed a side of you I was not aware of - a very strong left wing leaning and willingness to share non relevant information simply to promote a left wing agenda. The argument is supposed to be about justification of striking as opposed to settling disputes reasonably. Your banner is simply propaganda for a leftish cause. You may have forgotten that MPs had review of their own pay taken out of their hands after the public - you and I - objected to them fearthering their own nests. An independent body now recommends the pay structure for MPs and in fact most MPs have disagreed with the high increase. You can't have it both ways - although as a left winger perhaps you can. It will cut no ice with you to say that MPs are very poorly paid and in the past had a "green light" to make up for this on expenses. Our MPs are a shoddy bunch - and if you want decent ones you need to pay a salary that will attract better ones - same argument I made for doubling teachers salaries - when you pay peanuts you get monkeys. You may consider MPs salaries high but a friend of mine who is a headmaster is paid more than double the pay of an MP. Enough said though as this does not affect the argument re strikes and is more relevant to the Politics thread.
OFH - before Maggie "tamed" the unions and restricted their power our unions were as bad as the French ones are today
Everyone seems to have to go through the Unions in France eh... re--- striking.. def more militant up north.... but more manufacturing base in the past, more unemployment , more labour voters etc etc. Mind you I saw a programme on house prices in London last night.... much cheaper up north!
I arrived there because I (tongue in cheek) asked if you teach that it is alright to hurt innocent bystanders in pursuit of an objective you desire. You said you could not teach such issues. For me that is simple right and wrong. You should teach children that they cannot harm another person to attain their own ends. Fits in Citizenship - whatever that is - for me.
Militant is the correct word. A political stance rather than an attempt to negotiate properly. For those who say unions do not call strikes lightly they should read up n Arthur Scargill and Vic Crowe
I doubt anyone in their right mind would agree that what Scargill did was acceptable or the right thing to do - but the key word there is 'did'. That was thirty years ago and times have changed - you simply can't assume that what a union did back then is what it would do today. As for Maggie 'taming' the unions - her methods simply revealed government attitudes towards your preferred process of negotiation. Whilst a key element in the negotiating process may well be 'never reveal your hand' - her method of negotiating was simply to take that a step further and lie about her government's intentions towards the industry, and served only to inflame the situation. Her response to that was little more than violence - sending in the troops (literally in many cases in Scotland, where soldiers dressed as police were required to 'quell' members of their own families). Yet you object to 'innocent bystanders' being hurt by (peaceful) striking public sector workers this week?
Militancy in the north of England should maybe be understood against a historical background. From the time of Disraeli's 2 nations debate through to the 1970's nothing had really changed in England - namely that the country's wealth had been made in the north and spent in the south. If you doubt this then visit Oldham now and try to remind yourself that this town once processed more cotton than the whole of Germany and France combined - look at it now and you will see a testament to England's errors. The trade unionists of the 60's 70's and early 80's were very often men who, in their youth, had been at places like Dunkirk or El Alamain. My father's family were all steel workers in Scunthorpe - his father died several years after the great war as a result of gassing at Ypres. My fathers generation also went to war with the promise of 'a land fit for heroes ' on their return. During the War there was much talk of 'we're all in this together' and great propaganda emphasis on how classless we all were. In fact Winston Churchill actually offered to buy a pint for every returning soldier - well, guess what, my father, at 97, is still waiting for this. What the working men actually came back to was the assumption that class relations (and therefore industrial relations) would simply return to normality ie. them and us. They would also come back to an England in which every mans status was determined by his way of speaking - to a nation which was so rotted by class consciousness that it was incapable of seeing that 1945 could have been a 'Zero Hour' as it was in Germany. So many unfulfilled promises and frustrated expectations during the immediate post war period may have helped to create the militant character of industrial relations in the 70's. England has had over 200 years to rebalance the north south divide and has mostly failed to do so (something which Germany has had to achieve in just 20 years after reunification) - the only difference being that now wealth is both made and spent in the South.
One of the best best posts I've seen on any thread anywhere. A missed opportunity indeed. Won the war, lost the peace both on the home front and elsewhere. A collective failure to grasp the opportunity of a new beginning. Regardless of which party is in government there is still a ruliing elite with the power be that in the civil service or the city of London. That has yet to change.
Scargill did his best for his members, attempted to at least, but was intellectually and tactically inferior to Thatcher. What she did was deliberate and vindictive, retribution for the miners bringing down the Heath government in the 1970s. She allowed the overtime, enabling the stockpiles. Had they not been there the government would not have held out for so long. Sir Keith Joseph let the cat out of the bag very early on when he let slip the, "necessity" of high unemployment and low wages. That was Thatcher's policy and she changed the law to allow the police to enforce it. The bitterness remains to this day... see the comments on the Thatcher thread after she died. The point being that Scargill got greedy and was found out. Thatcher was already more so but spiteful with it. For every pit shut there was a community that went down with it. We are a nation sitting on coal, surrounded by oil and the instigators through invention of the industrial revolution and the modern world. And it has been frittered away... the resources would not have listed forever but the wealth of this nation has been stolen from the people by those with the power. It sickens me.
Sorry not true...... I just will always stand up for the right to protest and withdraw one's labour Mind you does show the potential problem with deciding things by arbitration.... and WHO appoints the arbiters? Anyway bac to the Cricket My point is perhaps the ordinary working person has little real say in determining their own work and pay conditions
What this topic has taught me is that nobody is seriously interested in resolving a particular dispute. Several have asked who appoints the arbitrators - the answer has already been given and is in existence already - they are part of the juidicary - and above politics. Nobody cares about that or that those arbitrators could force a fair resolution. The truth is that many people hate the rich and all they stand for and will support anything against them - even if it is a strike that does nothing to the rich but in facts harms the poorest in society the most. Claims of "historic right" are always rolled out when there is no real case to present. Strikes resolve nothing and are unnecessary and rarely occur inn many nations. To suggest they are necessary due to greater inequality in this country is nonsense. Arbitration achieves a solution if that is what is required. A strike is just a political weapon to attack the government and the rich. It is also often used by "newcomer" general secretaries to bolster their power and support in the union itself. Many of you do not like the fact that there are rich people so will support anything to take whatever you can from the rich. OK - well that is a fair political point of view but is still no reason to take action that only harms the poorest in society - other working people. Maybe had we lost the Second World War, had our industry and society destroyed and had to be built up from scratch we would have seen a different society - personally I am glad that we did not lose and that did not happen.
