All these strikes

[davieG]

3 hours ago, Merging Cultures said:

It's the staff who choose to strike at this time of year, therefore it is the staff who are disrupting people's Christmas.

...or the organisation choosing to pick this time of the year to make their changes hoping that the employees, with all their Christmas cost can't  afford a strike.

[Guest MattP]

The right to strike is an extremely important one but also one that should only be used in extreme circumstances when you have genuine grievance, we should all support workers who are on strike for the right reason, I would hazard a guess 90% of the public would have supported the guys at Amazon, JD Sports or Sports Direct had they decided to down tools after we all saw the conditions they were subject to work in.

 

Unfortunately, as uncovered by the Sunday Times in the video Webbo has posted, we now know that this is little to do with train safety and everything to do with "bringing down this working class hating Tory government" and "replacing the capitalist system with a socialist order" - It's idiots like Hoyle that are the real enemies of the working people, because they seem to be prepared to destroy their own movements for their own ideologies.

 

The ego's of guys like this are often out of control and that's the reason why yet again they will rightly lose if they take on the democratically elected government.

[Finnegan]

29 minutes ago, MattP said:

The right to strike is an extremely important one but also one that should only be used in extreme circumstances when you have genuine grievance, we should all support workers who are on strike for the right reason, I would hazard a guess 90% of the public would have supported the guys at Amazon, JD Sports or Sports Direct had they decided to down tools after we all saw the conditions they were subject to work in.

 

Unfortunately, as uncovered by the Sunday Times in the video Webbo has posted, we now know that this is little to do with train safety and everything to do with "bringing down this working class hating Tory government" and "replacing the capitalist system with a socialist order" - It's idiots like Hoyle that are the real enemies of the working people, because they seem to be prepared to destroy their own movements for their own ideologies.

 

The ego's of guys like this are often out of control and that's the reason why yet again they will rightly lose if they take on the democratically elected government.

 

Second half of your post is pretty much exactly my problem with the situation. 

 

Anti union publication quotes fanatic peddling own personal politics, drives wedge between more rational, normal workers and union, leaves only "lefty loonies" in union. Lefty loonies vote for lefty loony union leaders, who fanatically peddle own personal politics and repeat.

 

If you dont like the politics of your union leaders you should take the same attitude you would if you don't like the leaders of your country - vote and campaign for someone else.

 

Not being left wing or not liking your shop steward (plenty are definitely pricks abusing the system, no argument there) or your union's leader shouldn't be a reason to leave, it should be a reason to campaign and vote against him or her (or vote against striking, if that's your belief.)

 

I can sympathise with right wing voters who feel alienated by people like Len McLusky and the late Bob Crow but I'd still encourage absolutely everyone to join a trade union.

 

As I said, there should be nothing at all considered wrong about banding together as workers to make sure you aren't taken advantage of by your employer. That's all a union should be at it's core, it should never be about party politics, contemporary "left" and "right". 

 

Just makes me so sad that that's what it's become.

[Guest MattP]

8 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

If you dont like the politics of your union leaders you should take the same attitude you would if you don't like the leaders of your country - vote and campaign for someone else.

 

Not being left wing or not liking your shop steward (plenty are definitely pricks abusing the system, no argument there) or your union's leader shouldn't be a reason to leave, it should be a reason to campaign and vote against him or her (or vote against striking, if that's your belief.)

 

I can sympathise with right wing voters who feel alienated by people like Len McLusky and the late Bob Crow but I'd still encourage absolutely everyone to join a trade union.

 

As I said, there should be nothing at all considered wrong about banding together as workers to make sure you aren't taken advantage of by your employer. That's all a union should be at it's core, it should never be about party politics, contemporary "left" and "right". 

 

Just makes me so sad that that's what it's become.

In an ideal World I'm sure many would but the idea that anyone of a right wing persuasion would fund an organisation that gives mass amounts of cash to the Labour party (and to a lesser extent the Greens) is just not going to happen and that's before we get to people like Hoyle who will openly use his members as pawns to try and bring down any Tory government.

 

Although I'll be watching the Unite election very closely.

 

The unions have made their beds on this and now they have to lie in it, you still can garner public support for strikers, the Junior Doctors showed that, but ruining Christmas trying to claim that people are going to go mental over doors not being closed by platform staff on safety reasons isn't going to fool anyone not already committed to the cause.