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[Doctor Gollum]

Be asked to join two unions at work. Not happening as long as I have a hole in my arse.

Adds upto £42 a month. I would rather spend it on McDonald's Filet O Fish* or add it to my SIPP.

*Possibly the single most hateful thing on their menu

As for workers rights, the unions did such good for the miners and British Leyland 

My taxes already pay to support a generation to sit on its arse and I will be damned if I am going to line the union coffers as well.

[Andy B]

Be asked to join two unions at work. Not happening as long as I have a hole in my arse.

Adds upto £42 a month. I would rather spend it on McDonald's Filet O Fish* or add it to my SIPP.

*Possibly the single most hateful thing on their menu

As for workers rights, the unions did such good for the miners and British Leyland 

My taxes already pay to support a generation to sit on its arse and I will be damned if I am going to line the union coffers as well.

... and yoiu'd decline any pay rises or better terms & conditions that the unions might provide

[Marks DTM Calib]

Never yet seen the unions be as effective as people voting with their feet, wages are based on supply and demand. In this case, and many others, they might get what they want eventually but, the consequence will either be higher ticket prices or fewer jobs, there is no magic 

In fact when Unison got involved with the Ericsson site closure, they lost us around 4k each. :'(

[jonathanh]

its quite sad really.  i have personal experience of "sitting across the table" with a number of union guys.  the majority of the local union reps work hard for the interest of their local workforce.  I have a lot of respect for them to do that.  a few see it as a political role and it undermines what they are trying to do.

when you head further up the union structure it tends to get more politicised and less about grass roots workers issues and i feel that undermines the work of the local reps.  Its not always the case however I know one national rep @ unite ( i will not name) who when he gets off his political soapbox is a thoroughly reasonable chap to deal with and tries to do sensible things.

sadly i fear this dispute is politicised and it is undermining the real issue here that no one has really cottoned on to:  most workers in the UK are facing a below inflation increase - public or private sector.  However there are millions of public sector pensioners who are going to get an inflationary pay rise.  but they don't contribute to the economy do they?   a real social imbalance going on...

[Andy B]

The last train I was on was a steam train on the East Lancs Railway ..... and it will be the next time I'm on a train.

Train travel is expensive & isn't door to door like a car is.

[Doctor Gollum]

Be asked to join two unions at work. Not happening as long as I have a hole in my arse.

Adds upto £42 a month. I would rather spend it on McDonald's Filet O Fish* or add it to my SIPP.

*Possibly the single most hateful thing on their menu

As for workers rights, the unions did such good for the miners and British Leyland 

My taxes already pay to support a generation to sit on its arse and I will be damned if I am going to line the union coffers as well.

... and yoiu'd decline any pay rises or better terms & conditions that the unions might provide

I have yet to see evidence of that. Usually whatever 'rise' is at the expense of something else... Losing sick pay in lieu of a cut in the overtime rate, itself cut from 2x down 1.66x the year before...

Removing the option for lieu days acrrued on Bank Holidays to be paid at 3x instead of 2x plus the lieu day...

A load of Virgin Atlantic legacy crew were made redundant in 2020. Independently they took Virgin to court. The union turned up at court and undermined their case by insisting that they hadn't been informed. The fact that they had zero business there didn't seem to faze them even though they subsequently stalled proceedings. And just because someone had the audicity to not involve them.

C nuts, the lot

Fundamentally, we have a choice as to where we work. If we don't like it, there's plenty other work to do.

[Doctor Gollum]

The last train I was on was a steam train on the East Lancs Railway ..... and it will be the next time I'm on a train.

Train travel is expensive & isn't door to door like a car is.

Sadly I may have to endure one next week to Lundun, although I may just park the car at Gatwick and get a coach into Lundun...

[Mister Rog]

The last train I was on was a steam train on the East Lancs Railway ..... and it will be the next time I'm on a train.

Train travel is expensive & isn't door to door like a car is.

I still go to Laaahhndon fairly often, from West Wales

If alone I go by train (using Senior Railcard!)

If Mrs is coming, I usually drive. Stay at cheap Travelodge with cheap or free parking in Suburbs near a station

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

A case in point where a union may have been useful to me was when my employer of 20 years sacked me on the spot for having a disability in my right leg.
It was 2008 and the financial crash was starting to bite, so they looked for any excuse whatsoever to get rid of staff for free.
I was awarded around 25 grand at tribunal, but couldnt get a penny of it, because they had gone into receivership in the meantime, and started up again as if nothing had happened under a slightly different name.*
My only happy ending to the story was that the Director who did it to me, then had the instant bullet himself a few weeks later.
In days gone by, Unions have also done great work in Health & safety matters, but once they became too big and powerful, and run by barons who wanted to bring down Capitalism, they were on a road to nowhere in the private sector.
In the Public sector though, they still wield far too much power and cost all of us a lot of money and progress for no good reason.

Please dont ever buy products from Milbank concrete Ltd. Formely known as Milbank Floors Ltd.   

[TheBoy]

Of course it is. TB wold shoot the lot of them in front of their families. 

And whats wrong with that?

[TheBoy]

..... All because they believe their higher than average salaries need a 7% boost!

Bastards!!

I've no idea what terms & conditions etc they're  fighting for other than the percentage  pay rise they're asking for ..... but how many here are paid anything like the average wage? There are some pretty thirsty/expensive cars here for an average wage.
Lizzie .. should we all be on the average wage of around £30k.
https://www.google.com/search?q=uk+average+salary&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB804GB804&oq=uk+aver&aqs=chrome.0.35i39j69i57j0i131i395i433i512j0i395i433i457i512j0i395i512l2j0i512l4.3360j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

We've just been offered 4.5% plus some other bits

From what I heard on the BBC - so who knows if its anywhere near accurate - the average pay for a railway worker is £44k.  Obviously, "average" can mean a lot of things, and drivers are getting shit loads more than those that delitter the trains at the end of each journey.

I believe my company is offering an average of something like 2.5% on average across the grades our union covers.  Some will get SFA and good boys like me will get more than the average, but still nowhere near what the RMT are hoping for.  But then, as a private, unsubsidised company, there is no Number 10 Money Tree for us.

[TheBoy]

The last train I was on was a steam train on the East Lancs Railway ..... and it will be the next time I'm on a train.

Train travel is expensive & isn't door to door like a car is.

Sadly, I have to use train services quite a lot for work.  Anything London bound is stupidly expensive, and thats on top of the silly parking charges at Chiltern stations.  Birmingham bound is much cheaper, almost bordering on reasonable if it weren't for the parking charges at the station.

And Chiltern only lay on 1 train an hour, so if you miss it....


Which means that colossal waste of money, High Speed 2, is so needed, when Chiltern can't even fill a 4 car DMU every hour

[STEMO]

There is no such thing as average.

[TheBoy]

There is no such thing as average.

Being thick, and failing my mock Maths AO, meant I had to do a statistics o level instead.  So I can make "average" mean almost anything.


Sadly, I then still have to do my Maths AO in the 1st year of my Maths A level.  So by failing the mock AO meant I actually ended up with more qualifications than the bright kids...

[STEMO]

If you've got 100 workers on £100 a week and two bosses on £5K a week, the the average wage at that company is around £200 a week. But, of course, no one is on anything like £200 a week. That's taking it to the extreme, but averages don't work.