It's an age old managment trick Mike designed to surpress aspiration by encouraging the worker to under value themselves. I fail to understand why people accept it, instead of turning round and saying no and then being prepared to do something about it.
Unless born with a silver spoon in your mouth life can be hard and I've never had any problem with people banding together collectively to try and achieve gains for their lot. Why shouldn't they? In fact I think there's something morally right about doing so. Make no mistake, if capital could get away with it, we'd still have appalling workplace terms and conditions as common place in this country. Abuses still go on of course, some of them result in fatality like the disgraceful Simon Jones case or Morecombe Bay. A lot of it goes unreported though and is thankfully concentrated now to certain industries, who routinely and wantonly flout the law in the name of capitalist greed. Hoisery and knitwear is one that most readily comes to mind, as indeed is agriculture
The simple fact remains however, that it is largely through the fruits of collective labour organising and challenging work place abuses that a lot of the protective legislation that we take for granted today has been introduced. Freeloaders who aren't prepared to make sacrifices themselves or put their own head above the parapet, have been around for as long as organised labour first started to make an impact. As I alluded to, these people are quite happy to accept the gains made by decades of trade union struggle, and the labours and toils of others, yet are the first to slag them off. Next time Purr tries ram raiding a picket line you might like to reflect on this.
I think there's another fundamental misunderstanding about trade unions too. They are essentially conservative by nature and hardly the rabble rousing 'Trots' of popular myth. They had their roots in craftsmans guilds of course (I think the bakers union might the oldest). These roots were primarily about maintaining the status quo, laced as they were with all sorts of restrictive practices which unless you were a card carrying member you were excluded from. Indeed, they have been accussed by many prominent left wing scholars as actually surpressing the worker precisely because of their lack of ambition to try and seize an agenda and bring about pro-active change, rather than confining themselves to narrow horizons which are typically driven as a result of a reaction to something else. Essentially unions are reactive rather than pro-active, which drew an observation from Rosa Luxemburg that "they support the worker, like a rope does a hanging man". Indeed, this current dispute is an example in point, given that it is principally about defending existing working conditions, quite how people have turned it into some kind of pay dispute I don't know shrug::
I think that it's worth mentioning as well the whole raft of pastoral activities that Unions negotiate for their members as these are often over-looked. My own union provide me with free legal access for instance 24/7 - 365 days a year (though I'm sure if I rang them at 3 o'clock in the morning on New Years day I'd soon discover that this isn't necessarily true :laughing: ). On top of that I automatically qualify for sickness pay on top of my statutory entitlement. My family get some death allowance should my employer eventually succeed killing me. The union will also pay me industrial injury compensation, loss of income compensation, and even a minimum strike pay should I ever need to take the ultimate sanction. How? well purely because like minded people have been prepared to pay dues down the years which has allowed us to build up a substantial fund, and a membership that has permitted us to negotiate concessions from service providers in recognition of our collective purchasing clout.
I might finish on a little anecdote actually concerning one of our most famous members. The late Queen Mother!!! I really can't think of a more establishment figure from the last century. Yet when it was war time and the women of the country were working in munitions factories etc She immediately saw the value of 'becoming one of them' in an attempt to galvanise unity and keep morale up etc She duly joined the T&G, and remained a member until her death, paying her fee every year and having the same voting rights as the rest of us. I note incidentally that Prince Charles has also applied to join
Unless born with a silver spoon in your mouth life can be hard and I've never had any problem with people banding together collectively to try and achieve gains for their lot. Why shouldn't they? In fact I think there's something morally right about doing so. Make no mistake, if capital could get away with it, we'd still have appalling workplace terms and conditions as common place in this country. Abuses still go on of course, some of them result in fatality like the disgraceful Simon Jones case or Morecombe Bay. A lot of it goes unreported though and is thankfully concentrated now to certain industries, who routinely and wantonly flout the law in the name of capitalist greed. Hoisery and knitwear is one that most readily comes to mind, as indeed is agriculture
The simple fact remains however, that it is largely through the fruits of collective labour organising and challenging work place abuses that a lot of the protective legislation that we take for granted today has been introduced. Freeloaders who aren't prepared to make sacrifices themselves or put their own head above the parapet, have been around for as long as organised labour first started to make an impact. As I alluded to, these people are quite happy to accept the gains made by decades of trade union struggle, and the labours and toils of others, yet are the first to slag them off. Next time Purr tries ram raiding a picket line you might like to reflect on this.
I think there's another fundamental misunderstanding about trade unions too. They are essentially conservative by nature and hardly the rabble rousing 'Trots' of popular myth. They had their roots in craftsmans guilds of course (I think the bakers union might the oldest). These roots were primarily about maintaining the status quo, laced as they were with all sorts of restrictive practices which unless you were a card carrying member you were excluded from. Indeed, they have been accussed by many prominent left wing scholars as actually surpressing the worker precisely because of their lack of ambition to try and seize an agenda and bring about pro-active change, rather than confining themselves to narrow horizons which are typically driven as a result of a reaction to something else. Essentially unions are reactive rather than pro-active, which drew an observation from Rosa Luxemburg that "they support the worker, like a rope does a hanging man". Indeed, this current dispute is an example in point, given that it is principally about defending existing working conditions, quite how people have turned it into some kind of pay dispute I don't know shrug::
I think that it's worth mentioning as well the whole raft of pastoral activities that Unions negotiate for their members as these are often over-looked. My own union provide me with free legal access for instance 24/7 - 365 days a year (though I'm sure if I rang them at 3 o'clock in the morning on New Years day I'd soon discover that this isn't necessarily true :laughing: ). On top of that I automatically qualify for sickness pay on top of my statutory entitlement. My family get some death allowance should my employer eventually succeed killing me. The union will also pay me industrial injury compensation, loss of income compensation, and even a minimum strike pay should I ever need to take the ultimate sanction. How? well purely because like minded people have been prepared to pay dues down the years which has allowed us to build up a substantial fund, and a membership that has permitted us to negotiate concessions from service providers in recognition of our collective purchasing clout.
I might finish on a little anecdote actually concerning one of our most famous members. The late Queen Mother!!! I really can't think of a more establishment figure from the last century. Yet when it was war time and the women of the country were working in munitions factories etc She immediately saw the value of 'becoming one of them' in an attempt to galvanise unity and keep morale up etc She duly joined the T&G, and remained a member until her death, paying her fee every year and having the same voting rights as the rest of us. I note incidentally that Prince Charles has also applied to join
h34r: 
