The Strikes

[Yellow Fever 3,847]

Trying not to get too pollical but how has it come to this ? What is the way out ?

I have lots of sympathies with the nurses, teachers etc but not so much with others.

Where is the money coming from to pay higher wages - higher productivity, perhaps higher growth in the economy and also higher tax take ?

It's very easy to demand more money especially in the public sector but somebody has to pay for it.

Can't help but think we need to have some serious grown up realism on all sides here and both the government and indeed the population to take responsibility for their choices, taxes and services/benefits, as to what sort of country we want. No free lunches!

Edited February 1, 2023 by Yellow Fever

[TheGunnShow 6,065]

Let them strike. The real issue, as far as I can see, is that politicians get considerable increases to their allowances and expenses whilst these people have had to accept wage freezes and indeed drops in real terms.

The bit that baffles me is why working-class folk choose to get antsy at strikers in the same class. A win for them is fundamentally a win for all of us.

I do think some of the tactics in strikes are a bit off. There have been examples in both Okayama in Japan, as well as Brisbane, where bus drivers went on strike, but as they were mindful that people depended on them to get to work, they still drove but refused to take fares. People weren't inconvenienced, but it was a sharp message to their superiors.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

The decade of austerity has left us bereft of anything for a rainy day. We are more or less entering the perfect storm.

It is a problem that Governments have never come to terms with. There is no will to tackle the problem as it mounts and eventually the boil has to be lanced. And that is what the strikes are doing.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,360]

How negotiations used to work:

Quote

Union: "Our wages are dropping, we want 10%!"

Government: "How about 5%?"

Union: "Yeah ok."

How negotiations work under the Tories:

Quote

Union: "We want 10%."

Government: "You scrounging wastrels don't know how easy you have it! We're not giving you a penny and we'll make it illegal for you to strike! There's no money (because we've given it all away to our crony mates and we wont raise taxes on our billionaire party donors or big companies we have director roles for) so you'll just have to suck it up!"

Union: "Well screw you lot then, we're striking."

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Canary Wundaboy

[king canary 7,700]

2 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

How negotiations used to work:

How negotiations work under the Tories:

 

In part two I'd add

Union- 'We want 10%!'

Government- 'We'll give you 3% but you also have to agree to a bunch of cuts in your benefits, extra hours and we want to make 20% of the workforce redundant.'

Union- 'No'

Government- 'well we offered them more money, the greedy ****s.'

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

As an ex Union Secretary I can tell you that negotiations are nothing like described. Both sides of the table have facts and figures, graphs, testimony and legal advice. And the argument is based on one or all of productivity, relativity or cost of living. People don't shout at each other (Scargill may have) as the relationships between employer groups and Unions have to be convivial and mutual. It isn't a bunch of shop stewards in overalls making demands that the chocolate should be on the other side of the digestive.

This is an image that certain Government departments wish you to think of as it suits them to have Lynch portrayed as a Pie and Mash eating Cockney who knew the Krays.

[ricardo 7,441]

5 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

The decade of austerity has left us bereft of anything for a rainy day. We are more or less entering the perfect storm.

It is a problem that Governments have never come to terms with. There is no will to tackle the problem as it mounts and eventually the boil has to be lanced. And that is what the strikes are doing.

The future will be very much like the past.

Only more expensive.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

47 minutes ago, ricardo said:

The future will be very much like the past.

Only more expensive.

And shorter in our case

[ricardo 7,441]

8 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

And shorter in our case

Oh definitely.

The older you get the quicker time passes.

Except for the time it takes to have a wee.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

Oh definitely.

The older you get the quicker time passes.

Except for the time it takes to have a wee.

One of lifes crueller items. A pensioner's bladder. I saw mine on camera once and have never seen anything so pathetic.

[ricardo 7,441]

12 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

One of lifes crueller items. A pensioner's bladder. I saw mine on camera once and have never seen anything so pathetic.

When I shave I often wonder who that old man is looking back at me.

My dear old mum used to say there's no fun in getting old. She was right but the alternative is so much worse.

Look on the brightside because one day season ticket prices will be the least of our worries.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

11 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

Where is the money coming from to pay higher wages - higher productivity, perhaps higher growth in the economy and also higher tax take ?

Teachers pay is about 5% lower than it was 14 years ago in real terms.

But UK tax receipts have increased by about 10% in real terms.

So that's calculated adjusted for inflation.

So its a political decision to give some public servants real terms pay cuts. 

The solution to all of this feels very much like a staggered multi year deal which gradually gives them that 5% back in real terms without risking instant huge pay increases driving further inflation. That's likely the deal that Labour would strike if they got in government, to commit to returning pay to 2008 levels in real terms by the end of that parliament.

Of course what that doesn't consider is that a new teacher in 2009 wouldn't be as heavily indebted, as their student loans would be more in the region of £15k rather than £50k.

Edited February 1, 2023 by TeemuVanBasten

[SteveN8458 64]

11 hours ago, ricardo said:

Oh definitely.

The older you get the quicker time passes.

Except for the time it takes to have a wee.

Read this last night on my phone, nearly spilt my Horlics 🙂

[SteveN8458 64]

12 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

As an ex Union Secretary I can tell you that negotiations are nothing like described. Both sides of the table have facts and figures, graphs, testimony and legal advice. And the argument is based on one or all of productivity, relativity or cost of living. People don't shout at each other (Scargill may have) as the relationships between employer groups and Unions have to be convivial and mutual. It isn't a bunch of shop stewards in overalls making demands that the chocolate should be on the other side of the digestive.

This is an image that certain Government departments wish you to think of as it suits them to have Lynch portrayed as a Pie and Mash eating Cockney who knew the Krays.

Many years ago I was a 'shop steward' and had been invited to sit in on the year's pay negotiations. There had been a number of meetings, but the management were not giving anything. In this particular meeting, after 4 hours of going nowhere, a voice from my left (Shop floor steward) asked the Finace Director a question:

John "FD, am I right that my thoughts are my own?"

FD " Yes John, your thoughts are your own, but what is your point, I see no relevance to our meeting"

John "Just that I've been sitting here thinking, but they are my thoughts, and there is nothing you can do, is that correct?"

FD "Yes John, there is nothing I can do, so would you like to share your thoughts? you never know they just might help us!"

John " Well since you asked so nicely, I think you are a Can't"

To which everyone, including the MD, sniggered under ther breath and the meeting was adjourned for coffee.

[canarydan23 4,114]

23 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

I do think some of the tactics in strikes are a bit off. There have been examples in both Okayama in Japan, as well as Brisbane, where bus drivers went on strike, but as they were mindful that people depended on them to get to work, they still drove but refused to take fares. People weren't inconvenienced, but it was a sharp message to their superiors.

The problem with that is in the UK, employment law protects strikers if certain conditions are met (minimum turnout, comfortable majority in favour, etc). You cannot be penalised or disciplined for taking part in legitimate strike action.

Not accepting fares would be a sackable offence. For sure, they can't sack everyone, but you can be sure as sure can be that they would use that opportunity to get rid of some people whose faces didn't fit or who have agitated in the past. It'd be a dangerous game for some.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,611]

On 01/02/2023 at 11:08, Yellow Fever said:

Trying not to get too pollical but how has it come to this ? What is the way out ?

I have lots of sympathies with the nurses, teachers etc but not so much with others.

Where is the money coming from to pay higher wages - higher productivity, perhaps higher growth in the economy and also higher tax take ?

It's very easy to demand more money especially in the public sector but somebody has to pay for it.

Can't help but think we need to have some serious grown up realism on all sides here and both the government and indeed the population to take responsibility for their choices, taxes and services/benefits, as to what sort of country we want. No free lunches!

These look to me to be the right questions, with some valid points thrown in to boot.

In immediate terms, starting from my own view that achieving high standards in healthcare, education, policing, and justice, is vital to maintaining a cohesive society,  there needs to be a balancing act of deficit spending mitigated by tax increases in some way, shape or form to maintain market confidence that the UK can continue to service its borrowing to find a compromise.

The frustrating thing about politics at a UK level is it's very much possible for individuals to sensibly discuss these sorts of questions impartially, but it's very difficult to unbundle any of it from the adversarial nature of two-party politics, and at a Westminster level you are reduced to two packages of policies for the public to pick between, and two packages of political messages for people to pick between.

Absolutely nobody likes being taxed, and both main parties know this. Furthermore, one of the main parties is ideologically very comfortable with the idea of slashing state services to reduce taxes and that there are enough wealthy voters who can live without state support and state services for this to keep this a viable bias for one of the main parties to stay one of the two main parties, then you can appreciate that, regardless of how many grown-up debates people have, whatever the other main party settles on as the way forward basically finishes up being the only choice for people who prioritise services over lower taxes.

So part of the long-term strategic answer for the way out is to introduce electoral reform in the Commons to promote a more plural and less adversarial national debate without the pressures of two-party politics.

I also think that adversarial labour relations are fundamentally problematic in that it's very hard to negotiate a balance, but it has been shown that simply dismantling unions is not an answer in itself, since disenfranchising labour from the activities they're vital to providing is not a sustainable situation.

I'd like to throw in there the possibility of introducing cooperativism as a way forward for providing quality public services, where the services are broken up into smaller enterprises, but it's a requisite that those enterprises give a substantial, possibly even majority stake in the success of the enterprise. Cooperatives can therefore tender to provide services competitively against each other, but at a level where everybody's motivated to make sure that the tendering prices are sustainable as well as competitive.

Possibly capital equipment could even be unbundled from the cooperatives that provide the labour for services as a means for government to maximise purchasing power in acquiring necessary hardware and materials for services, so the cooperative enterprises will tender to provide the labour for maintenance and use of  government-owned asset to provide a service.

This is my own favoured idea for bringing to an end the prospect of national strikes while properly enfranchising in the success of their activities sustainably.

Sadly there's no party I can vote for that's offering anything like this in any manifesto that has a chance of getting sufficient representation in parliament to implement it or negotiate its implementation with other parties, which goes back to my fervent desire for electoral reform to a proportional system.

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Barbe bleu 837]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

I'd like to throw in there the possibility of introducing cooperativism as a way forward for providing quality public services, where the services are broken up into smaller enterprises, but it's a requisite that those enterprises give a substantial, possibly even majority stake in the success of the enterprise. Cooperatives can therefore tender to provide services competitively against each other, but at a level where everybody's motivated to make sure that the tendering prices are sustainable 

 

Isn't this already happening?  For instance i think that lots of schools are run by not-for-profit academy trusts that incentivise workers by offering high pay and  bonuses in return for higher levels of service/output.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples of charities and authorities setting up trading companies that operate on a commercial basis but which reinvest profits towards the public interest

 

[dylanisabaddog 5,050]

My view on all strikes over pay is that each party makes their case to ACAS who then have to choose one or the other in its entirety. 

Perhaps then both sides would start to behave a bit more reasonably. 

Is this happening anywhere else in Europe? 

[Yellow Fever 3,847]

6 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

The problem with that is in the UK, employment law protects strikers if certain conditions are met (minimum turnout, comfortable majority in favour, etc). You cannot be penalised or disciplined for taking part in legitimate strike action.

Not accepting fares would be a sackable offence. For sure, they can't sack everyone, but you can be sure as sure can be that they would use that opportunity to get rid of some people whose faces didn't fit or who have agitated in the past. It'd be a dangerous game for some.

-

Edited February 2, 2023 by Yellow Fever
wrong person - see BB below

[Yellow Fever 3,847]

3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Isn't this already happening?  For instance i think that lots of schools are run by not-for-profit academy trusts that incentivise workers by offering high pay and  bonuses in return for higher levels of service/output.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples of charities and authorities setting up trading companies that operate on a commercial basis but which reinvest profits towards the public interest

 

My experience of 'not for profit' companies is that they are more expensive than 'for profit' ones!

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

2 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

My view on all strikes over pay is that each party makes their case to ACAS who then have to choose one or the other in its entirety. 

Perhaps then both sides would start to behave a bit more reasonably. 

Is this happening anywhere else in Europe? 

I mentioned in my post about negotiations. In NZ, negotiations take place in an industrial court and become binding agreements.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,611]

6 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Isn't this already happening?  For instance i think that lots of schools are run by not-for-profit academy trusts that incentivise workers by offering high pay and  bonuses in return for higher levels of service/output.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples of charities and authorities setting up trading companies that operate on a commercial basis but which reinvest profits towards the public interest

 

 

2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

My experience of 'not for profit' companies is that they are more expensive than 'for profit' ones!

Not-for-profit and cooperative are two different beasts. By cooperative, I mean a worker/stakeholder model not unlike the John Lewis model. It's a for profit model where the profit is for the benefit of the workers generating it.

By having many cooperative competing for government tenders, cooperatives will always strive to be as efficient as possible to get the best margins for their workers within the confines of pricing to win contracts.

There was a fairly successful cooperative train franchise in the West country that got sold off, which was a shame.

In broadband B4rn has used the model successfully to provide effective competition to BT that has forced BT to up its game regarding fibre coverage to the countryside.

The biggest barrier to it is the difficulty to raise capital to start up, but if you unbundle Labour from facilities then that's a tidy way around that obstacle in my view.

Edited February 2, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[king canary 7,700]

20 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

Not-for-profit and cooperative are two different beasts. By cooperative, I mean a worker/stakeholder model not unlike the John Lewis model. It's a for profit model where the profit is for the benefit of the workers generating it.

By having many cooperative competing for government tenders, cooperatives will always strive to be as efficient as possible to get the best margins for their workers within the confines of pricing to win contracts.

There was a fairly successful cooperative train franchise in the West country that got sold off, which was a shame.

In broadband B4rn has used the model successfully to provide effective competition to BT that has forced BT to up its game regarding fibre coverage to the countryside.

The biggest barrier to it is the difficulty to raise capital to start up, but if you unbundle Labour from facilities then that's a tidy way around that obstacle in my view.

This sort of model also helps avoid the short termism that is often the hallmark of large, publicly traded companies.

[kick it off 1,956]

On 02/02/2023 at 12:20, Barbe bleu said:

Isn't this already happening?  For instance i think that lots of schools are run by not-for-profit academy trusts that incentivise workers by offering high pay and  bonuses in return for higher levels of service/output.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples of charities and authorities setting up trading companies that operate on a commercial basis but which reinvest profits towards the public interest

 

Academy trusts are a way of centralising and cost-cutting on some measures, for example instead of having 5 HR people across 5 schools, you can have all the schools under one umbrella and have 3 HR people who do all the HR for the 5 schools, shared policies means reduced workload in some areas allowing extra capacity for the 3 people etc etc.

 Also useful as a vehicle for redistributing funds between schools and providing liquid capital etc. Instead of 2 schools saving up for 3 years to fit a new computer room, they can both have them instantly and then recoup the costs from later budgets.

They aren't offering us higher pay, teachers are paid on main salary scale at every school in the country, sometimes lower salary if you choose to work in private education (never understood why private schools offer lower pay despite obviously having more money but it's true) and there's no bonuses, no incentives, no overtime etc. Not complaining, just saying how it is.

Edited February 3, 2023 by kick it off

[benchwarmer 625]

I'm not a huge fan of Mick Lynch and his merrie men, but it's disappointing to see BBC News parroting the government's insinuation that today's rail strike was deliberately timed to disrupt Eurovision. 

It's nonsense.  Local Merseyrail services are unaffected, while the number coming from further afield is very small compared to the number watching remotely, and they've had plenty of time to make alternative travel arrangements.

 

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by benchwarmer

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

19 hours ago, benchwarmer said:

I'm not a huge fan of Mick Lynch and his merrie men, but it's disappointing to see BBC News parroting the government's insinuation that today's rail strike was deliberately timed to disrupt Eurovision. 

It's nonsense.  Local Merseyrail services are unaffected, while the number coming from further afield is very small compared to the number watching remotely, and they've had plenty of time to make alternative travel arrangements.

 

 

It wouldn't matter two hoots. The media have reported beggar all but Eurovision for a while now. And it was just a way of mentioning it again. 

The reason to inconvenience people is also a genuine Union tactic. How would they ever succeed in their claims without making people angry?

 

[FenwayFrank 2,472]

On 01/02/2023 at 21:17, ricardo said:

When I shave I often wonder who that old man is looking back at me.

You do mean your chin don’t you?