Like i said, my information on what benefits/salaries the employees have is not based on something read from a newspaper but rather first hand information from people who work for different airlines. Add the fact that i have been for interviews with airlines in the last couple of months and part of the interview process is seeing what benefits and salary you get. Also even if every news source in the country is giving a negative slant to Unions - that doesn't change that often, in recent years, we have seen strikes for stupid reasons - the BA strikes and the threats about striking during the olympics over how much of a bonus they would get, are perfect examples.
It is only BA's view that the cuts were neccessary.Obviously the unions had a different view.The dispute ended up going to ACAS were an agreement was reached.
EVERY other airline in the WORLD had a crew member less on the same aircraft that BA wanted to cut a member of staff from. It made perfect sense. Any business person put in the same position would make the exact same decision. It was bringing BA more in line with other airlines. This was the main point that was in disagreement - it may well have been that the Unions where just using it as leverage to get something else knowing full well that it was a neccessary decision and would happen eventually. Either way, for anyone with any sense it is obvious that the decision being made was neccessary. I'm sure all employees didn't agree that it was neccessary - but is that suprising considering it's there job that may get cut? Everyone gets so up in arms about businesses making cuts, but ultimately they are businesses and they need to make the decisions which are best for the business. Sometimes that means that people lose there jobs, or have there hours cut etc... Thats life. It might not seem "fair" but life isn't fair.
This ^ BUT I think the Arsenal game being postponed could be good for us. Instead of playing on December 22, 26, 29 and 1st Jan, we now only have 2 games in quick succession rather than 4. When we now play the game it will be far less congested with fixtures and so we should get he benefit of being fresher.
Unions are leeches. If a worker wants more money change jobs or get a 2nd one. Feckin sick of this 'the world owes me a living' bull****. Bloody scroungers should learn to be self sufficient or be left to starve in the gutter.
Don't tar us all with the same brush as that ****. I'm a fully paid up Union member and I know from first hand experience how they are needed to protect workers rights in an environment where 'competition' and 'market forces' are used as an excuse to squeeze people's livelihoods even further. I think the thing that some of these union bashers forget is that private enterprise will cut pay / conditions etc to protect their PROFIT, and let's not forget, profit is SURPLUS, that's what's left over after all the wages, overheads and bonus' have been paid. They do not affect operating costs. Making somebody redundant to protect the wealthy's profit margin is morally wrong in my book.
Sorry Piskie but thats a really odd view of business. It is not morally wrong to protect profits... It is not morally wrong to lay someone off. It's life. That's how business works. People don't go out one day and think "I'm gonna put all of my money and effort into starting a business, i'm going to dedicate my life and time to making it work - hopefully one day i'll be able to make no money but give people jobs." After all of your living costs do you give all of your salary away to people with less money than you? Once you've paid the mortgage, utilities and food, do you take whats left and go down to the dole office to hand it out? Honestly i have no idea how you can believe what your saying. Profit isn't a surplus, profit is the reason the business exists. It's the reason those people at the top put the time and effort they do to make sure the business moves forward and grows. It's the reason the jobs exist in the first place for those people. If businessmen where not trying to go out and make a profit then there would be no businesses to employ anyone... And the idea that it only protects money for the wealthy is wrong as well. Shareholders could be anyone, when BP had the oil crisis it was reported that something like 18% of people in the UK are in some way shareholders, or have financial plans/schemes which had bought into BP. The board of directors and management teams are under scrutiny from the shareholders. If profits are rubbish the value of the company drops, which means share prices going down, which means angry shareholders, which means the directors being replaced. Everyone at the company is dependant on the company being a success. Out of curiosity, what do you do for a living Piskie?
I work for the NHS, so I see where private enterprise tries to justify profit over service. Profit is surplus. It is what's left over after all the overheads have been met. If you have a successful business that meets all of it's operating costs and pays all of it's employees and managers as well as the healthy bonus' that it's directors receive, then I do in fact think it's morally wrong to lay people off to protect that surplus. If a business is struggling and losing money (not reduced profits, that's still surplus) and it's putting the business in danger of going bust, then it's a different matter. But if it's simply to protect the profit margin, then I think it's morally wrong to prioritise it over protecting an employee's livelihood.
I just hope the union bashers on here are never unfairly dismissed from their employer or never have an accident at work which is their employer's fault.
So Piskie you basically think all Business should be not for profit and entreprenuers should be motivated by providing jobs as opposed to making any money for themselves? Business is not a charity. I think it's a very naive view of business to think that profit is just a surplus and that it's a moral injustice to protect the profits of a business. Honestly your view that cuts should only ever be made if a company is going out of business is ridiculous. Your basically saying businesses should follow poor business practice and allow waste and inefficient use of cash for the sake of having employees who are no longer needed? It is that attitude that has lead to the massive waste in the public services and helped lead us to a point where cuts are being made on a huge level. Had resources been better used over the last decade we would not be in quite as ****ty of a position as we are now. We would still be making cuts and in recession, but it would not be cutting as deep if the services had been managed properly in the first place. Your also taking the very narrow minded approach that it is impossible for a business to care about its employees, be proud to be providing those people with a livelyhood, but still make cuts to protect profits. I would assume you don't know many SME owners - in general they are very proud of the fact they are able to provide others with employment, but that doesn't mean they will not make the decision to cut hours/jobs to keep the business profitable. Your views to me sound like your comming from the point of view of someone who has been effected by the recent cuts but never been on the other side of the table having to make the cuts?
Well you're making some massive incorrect assumptions on all levels there. Let's look at your post paragraph by paragraph: 1. No, I don't think all businesses should be not for profit. But I do think that if they are making a profit then they can't reasonably justify making people redundant due to recession. 2. Profit is surplus, by it's very definition. I'm not saying it's moral injustice to protect profit, I'm saying it's morally wrong to make profit and then make redundancies to protect the profit margin. 3. I'm not saying business should follow poor practice and wasteful measures, I'm saying that making profit should be at least on the same level as protecting jobs. 4. What has led to massive waste in public services is the breaking up of those organisations and contracting out the jobs to private companies. In my industry what you get is private companies who charge more to get those jobs done that if they were done 'in house'. Also they are often tied into long contracts, so that when the work is done, the organisation has to continue to pay for the remainder of the contract or buy itself out, both thereby adding to the overall costs. 5. I'm not saying that all business doesn't care about it's employees at all. I'm saying that profit margins should not take priority over whether people keep their jobs or not. I do know some small business owners and I would argue that the original point on this debate was not about SME owners, it was about BA, they are not a small business and their profits are not dependent on their survival. I've already pointed out where if it means the business is in danger, then you have to look at your operating costs, but BA are not in danger of collapse, in fact they are a huge profit generating company. 6. I haven't been affected by financial cuts thankfully, but I have needed to use my union to protect both myself and my employees from organisational change that would have caused a huge detriment to their pay and working hours. I am in a job where I have to hire and fire, so I do know what it's like from both sides. I have a budget to manage and a service to deliver. Call me old fashioned, but in my view people's livelihoods are more important than the need to protect a private surplus of cash. What actually happens when you lay people off is that they then have less to spend and they have to rely on state benefits, which is both detrimental to private business and the taxpayer.
1) Yes you can. Your demonstrating a lack of understanding of how a business is run to think that it is impossible to be faced with a situation where people have to be laid off in a company which is profitable. A particular contract for example may reduce in value by 40%, this results in the contract now making a loss for the company at current labour levels. The overall company is posting a profit, but that area of the business is now loss making. To continue to run the contract in the same way is the company taking on the time and effort to run the contract whilst losing money. The choices are simple - either stop providing the service as it isn't cost effective (they all lose there jobs) or make cuts to the service so it is still worthwhile providing it (aka still profitable). 2) Profit is not surplus. Considering the stated aims of most busineses will include making X amount of profit, it is not extra cash that has not been accounted for. Shareholders put pressure on business to make certain levels of profit. The profit can then be re-invested into the business or paid out as dividends. It is not a surplus as the point of the business is to make that profit. Without the profit there is no point in running the business. 3) If a job can be done by one person and two people are employed to do it, it is waste. Pure and simple. It is cash being paid out that isn't needed. It is inefficient and poor business practice. Why should businesses make decisions which effect themselves negatively for the sake of keeping someone in work who isn't needed? To me, that is stupidity and goes against common sense. 4) To blame the current need for cuts on the fact that services have been out-sourced to private companies is again completely flawed. Firstly even if you provide the services in house, that means not focusing on your core competancy (helping sick people) and means you lose the expertise of the private companies. For example when dealing with a virus out-break i'd much rather have a specialist team come in from a contractor to deep clean it than have a nurse run a mop over it! Also in my experience the length of contracts is not particularly long at all - the majority of public sector contracts (at least for cleaning, grounds maintenance, building maintenance etc) are around 3 years in length, some are shorter and occasionaly they are longer (you'd be very hard pressed to find anything over 5 years in length). And these days there are lots of performance level clauses which allow for canceling the contracts if the service isn't up to scratch. The waste in those circumstances comes from poor decisions from the public sector bodies over which company to employ, or how they monitor the on-going costs. If after going through the OJEU Tender process you are left with a contract that is bad for the public sector body then it is due to the mistakes made by those setting out the contract and criteria. For example - i have seen contracts that are very cost conscious - any additional work that is added is carefully costed and agreed. I have also seen contracts where the public sector manager calls in and goes "I need XYZ done, just send me an invoice". It is not because of private companies that the public sector wastes loads of money, it's because the public sector doesnt operate enough like a private company! It is due to not monitoring costs and silly spending when there was money around - now that the money isn't there they are struggling and realising the previous level of waste was not sustainable. You'll notice private companies who out-source are not having to make the same cuts that public sector organisations are - simply because in private companies it is managed better and waste is minimised. (My views on this point are formed from working at a company providing services to public sector clients including the NHS) 5) I know the original point was about BA, but i was trying to get across the point that all across the spectrum of businesses decisions are made which result in cuts to hours or jobs to protect profits. And again i'll point out that a business does not have to be at risk of collapse for it to make sense to make cuts. If businesses where not interested in making money they would simply cease to exist. Saying "oh but BA makes lots of money" is not a reason for them to waste money on labour which isn't required. I'm sure the shareholders would love to hear from a CEO how profits could be higher but they aren't because the company is running in an inefficient way. That isn't how business works. 6) I have no problem with people being members of Unions or having a Unions representative support them to ensure there rights are not infringed. I only have an issue when the action Unions take isn't justified (e.g. the strikes i have mentioned). I am all for employees being treated properly and having a service (unions) who can provide the information and guidance needed. But i recognise that sometimes changes come about that do result in people getting pay cuts/hour cuts/job cuts. I'm all for protecting jobs, keeping people in work, not cutting deeper than is needed etc... But that doesn't mean lower level workers can ignore the state of the economy and expect to still have everything they want whilst the company suffers instead.
It's nice to have something to keep my brain active in between jobs though Saves me watching terrible christmas TV!
The problem at the present time is that the work people do is becoming less skilled and the entire workforce is becoming more skilled. Also, less workers are needed now that a lot of jobs are automated. Also there are now more women in the workforce. Also, many jobs can now be remote to the workplace, even India or China. That means that (supply and demand) hiring workers is easy and you do not have to pay them as much, even in the skilled jobs. However here is the problem. Instead of dropping the (relative) price of the goods they make to pass on the savings to the consumer, companies are putting prices up and pocketing obscene profits. They then use some of the money to influence governments to leave corporate taxes low. Some of the oil corporations are making over a billion dollars profit a year. This is lunacy! They should be paying 95% taxes on that kind of profit. However for some reason our society seems to think they owe their shareholders more for their success than their workers! Bizarre! It is like thinking that the gamblers who bet on a horse are more responsible for it winning than the jockey. In the jobs where unions exist they have managed to drive salaries up to an acceptable level, but now, because they typically are earning more, and have better conditions, than the average non-union worker there is a lot of resentment toward them.
