TOPIC: Militant Republicans Strike Again

Holiday Season for the RMT again, the reasons for striking must be getting harder to make up. This one is a cracker................

Hundreds more London Underground workers are to go on strike later this week, threatening disruption to Tube services.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said 500 track patrol staff will walk out for 24 hours from 6.30am on Friday in a dispute over the use of private contractors to "casualise" their jobs.

Whats your beef here? Seriously? Did a train driver run off with your mrs?

The use of private contractors is a way of reducing costs. The costs are reduced because the private contractors are paying substantially less money, if that is the case they will be attracting people who are less good at the job, and less likely to give a shit. The result is very likely to be a much poorer service which might well run the risk of more accidents happening, and people being injured or killed. But this fella cares nothing about that, if somebody is trying to preserve their working pay and conditions, and their standards thesilentone wants it stopped.

I'm sure he'd like to see kids back down mines by the age of 10.

I imagine thesilentone as that actor in one of them sketch shows (Fast Show?) who believes anything that a bloke down the pub told him. He certainly hasn't been blessed by the gift of thought.

Come on now, seriously,even the left wing loonies that keep springing up on here don't buy into this twaddle.

"General secretary Mick Cash said: "This dispute is over an outrageous attempt to casualise and undermine the jobs of our London Underground track patrol members through an extension of the use of private contractors. The plan must be halted."

"Left wing loonies". That's original. Which newspaper did you read that in?

Do you believe private contactors should be doing that job at a cut rate silentone?

griff wrote:
I wonder if the Junior Doctors in London will have to cancel their next strike due to the Tube strike ?

Moorlad wrote:
Well ' Creeping Privatisation Bruvver ' its the end of the working man, innit...

Actually privatisation is not necessarily the end of the working man silentone, not at all. It would be entirely likely that the same (or similar) workforce would still be doing the same job (probably fewer of them, to be fair). However they'll then be doing it for lower pay, in some cases much lower pay, and worse conditions. Now, you may well think that's fine, and a decent way to operate, Cameron and Osborne would no doubt quite agree. But hang on, if you were being asked to do the same job, for less wages and in worse conditions, would you be happy? I doubt it. Would you then give your job 100% effort? Or the same effort you gave before your pay and conditions were worsened? I doubt whether I would.

So how would all of that help the standard of the work produced? I may be wrong, but I would assume that fewer people doing a job they're not that bothered about might well result in corners being cut, or productivity declining. Wouldn't that mean the employer suffers as well as the employees, and the consumers. Obviously you don't care about employees and consumers, you're all about the employers, and putting down the people who actually do the work, making sure they know their place and all that.

I'm afraid there needs to be a balance, and since the second world war we have gone some way to getting that balance, however the greed of this tory government and their cronies means that balance is now being reassessed, and of course greed is the main driver here. It is the greed of the employers though, not as you see it, the workers. You really need to look at what has been done for this country, and its workers by the Trade Union movement, and think again about how much you believe in the daily mail. Would you have seen the striking match girls in the 1880s as militant?

...

For what its worth, I used to work for a local company, that was bought out by a big international company about a year ago. My contract just transferred over to my new employer, so my pay remained the same. Sadly the new company doesn't do performance based bonuses like the old one though, but I get paid the same per hour, although missing out on an extra couple of hundred a month in bonuses is missed. New staff however, get paid less than I do. I work days, and we have new staff who work nights, who get paid less than me. How is this fair? Also, as Moorlad alluded to, because the new staff aren't on as much money, they're generally not very good. So the experienced and competent staff, who were there in the old place, are leaving in their droves (I'll be joining them out of the door soon) because you're just left working with absolute rivets, who make your job harder, because you have to babysit for them, as well as doing your own job.

Moorlad wrote:
All very philosophical, had it been written in the 1930's. However the greedier elements at play here are the fat, lazy republican bully boys sitting at the top of the RMT. The same breed that destroyed manufacturing in the UK in the 70's. They make Osborne's wa..ing bankers look like choir boys. The inflexibility of the RMT and willingness to exploit a privileged position is what brings these things about. Things change, accept it and move on...............

Do you seriously believe that? Manufacturing in the UK was systematically destroyed by the policies of tory governments. It was their "standing up to the unions" that effectively got rid of almost all manufacturing in this country. It was a purely political decision to move to a service based economy, and to drive down the working classes and the people who tried to protect their rights. Now they want to do the same sort of thing in every form of employment, they want workers to have no rights at all, they want us back in the Victorian age. They'd like to see workers, on zero hours contracts, queueing up outside workplaces for the privilege of getting a day's work. Is that the sort of thing you advocate silentone?

You've already mentioned the junior doctors in one of your posts today, well to me it is fairly obvious that somebody is telling lies in that dispute, do you think it's likely to be the 50 odd thousand doctors, or might it be Hunt? You appear to have a real problem with people having a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and decent conditions to do their work in, I'd like to know why.

Also, what is so wrong with being a republican? Your pals at the top of the tory party want to stop paying any benefits, why not cut the benefits of the biggest family of scroungers there's ever been?

C'mon Derek Robinson (Red Robbo) was a member of the Communist Party, you don't really believe that drivle you have written !! The UK was sitting on the cusp of becoming the biggest manufacturer of cars in the World, so tell me where has all this striking and prevaricating around got us ?

Absolutely nothing against anyone getting a fair days pay for a fair days work, what I abhor are those who are willing to exploit the public and taxpayers by striking at the drop of a hat, this go's against the principals of Unionism

His communist affiliation aside, he led strikes claiming British Leyland was being mismanaged. In the mid 70s, Leyland went bust and had to be nationalised, so did he have a point? Red Robbo then started the participation mevement at Leyland, where shop stewards were supposed to work with management to stop the strikes. It might well be that Robinson wasn't militant enough, and his participation might well have been what split the union and meant they couldn't control the unofficial strikes.

So if you've nothing against a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, what should the junior doctors do, considering Hunt won't even discuss anything with them?

We must be remembering a different Red Robbo, I'm remember the one who used to de-rail his own line to stop production. The same one who drove the Company out of business.......Yes, I suppose his Communist tendencies are irrelevant...........


Guess who made the quote ?

"This union will not accept the undermining of jobs, conditions and safety or the creeping privatisation of functions."

thesilentone wrote:
You're remembering him differently because you have been suckered into believing right wing rhetoric. It doesn't matter who made that quote, it is something that all unions should follow.

What I remember was a company with absenteeism rates of over 20% on Mondays and Fridays.....Old technology and creeping imports from Germany and Japan where efficiency was way ahead.

We had a workforce stuck in the dark ages, unwilling to change led by Left Wing Militants that ultimately led to there downfall.

Mr Cash and that other Republican at the top of the RMT are out of the same mould........Strike first....

So why were the rates of absenteeism so high? Just plain laziness? Or could it be there was no incentive to go to work? Might it be that their pay and conditions weren't good enough to make them want to put themselves out for the people employing them? Was old technology the fault of the workers? Was it the fault of the unions (I know you'll say it was, because they wouldn't allow it in the plants, but that is yet more cack)? Or might the employers, who wanted to bleed every penny out of their workforce and their customers, have to share some of the blame?

We had employers stuck in the dark ages, unwilling to change, led by right wing lunatics that led to the complete loss of British industry.

Mr Cameron and that other tax dodging idiot at the top of the tory party are out of the same mould..........sack first.....

Moorlad wrote: The f*cking spacker works at Sports Direct and is mad about getting searched every day before he leaves work, what do you expect?

Moorlad wrote:
Nissan are good employers, incentivise employees and pay and conditions are relatively high. People are turning up in their droves. You're right moorlad, if the employers are disrespectful to their workforce whom they rely on to produce their product (BL) the workforce will respond accordingly. Also, pay peanuts, get monkeys. It's quite simple.

It is interesting to note, Nissan was introduced to the NE under Maggie after car production had fallen to an all time low in the late 70's......Under guess who ?

thesilentone wrote:
And why did she offer the land there at a knock-down price? She's already killed off every other major industry in the area. Nissan was just crumbs from the table. Every clock's right twice a day.

I think you need to check out the history of car production in the UK to see who killed it............good old Harold and Brother Jim !!

That was the nett result of bankrupting the Country, letting inflation run wild and going cap in hand to the IMF, all to keep the unions happy, what a mess !

You'll probably find that the introduction of hatchbacks overseas and the very slow response by Leyland didn't help silentone, and higher costs of production due to really slow modernisation (short termism) by the employers led to the decline in the British industry. Although Leyland's sales here held up quite well they couldn't shift anything overseas. The big drop in Leyland's market share in the UK happened in 1972/3, I think that nice Mr Heath was Prime Minister then, wasn't he? The market share fell from over 40% to less than a third. By the time Wilson again became Prime Minister the British, who had been world leaders in manufacture, were down to 6th, and even though the Labour government tried nationalising British Leyland, they were by then too far behind to be saved. Even the introduction of the Metro in the 80s (under Thatcher) and a renaming to Rover didn't help.

So really you're quite wrong to say it had anything to do with the Labour government of the mid '70s. I imagine you're one of those who still believes the 3 day week was introduced under a Labour government too, because that's what the Mail would want us to believe.

I'll merely say this, oh notverysilentone. How do you feel living in your Tory Utopia? In your guaranteed for life job with a magnificent pension at the end; with our schools now the envy of the world and the NHS an international landmark in excellence? With an economy so bouyant that the debt is reducing year on year? With so much spare cash that the Government is simply throwing money at us here in the North to fix thepoor infrastructure? You must be laughing all the way to the bank, watching your savings and investments flying through the roof.

Oh, it isn't?
You haven't?
They aren't?
It's not?
Increasing by HOW much?
What, HS2 and the London docks, not us?
Really, it's your bank laughing at you?

What have they been doing these last 6 or 7 years?

Yeah but all of that's the striking tube drivers' fault.

sirjimmyglass wrote:
Come off it, the junior doctors have to take some of the blame as well.

Perhaps silentstone you should put together a blacklist of all people who join a trade union and fight to improve pay and conditions, and supply it to all interested employers.

They think that they should be protected from competition....seriously, in industries like this productivity levels v the real private sector are shocking and why most of our manufacturing in this country has gone abroad as we cant compete . .....dont bring competition in as I might have to work for a living...

If it were down to these guys you you would still be buying your gas from from British gas and having 3 people to change a pump in a ... plant...1 mechanical, 1 electrical and 1 supervising all of which would blame management for poor profitability and moving the plant to a country that get things done.....rant over

thesilentone wrote:
Fully support the proposed strike action. LUL have always had in-house patrollers (These fellas walk the network during the night looking for any faults that may have developed). Used to regularly see them passing through our worksites. Any attempt to merely replace them with sub-contractors should be opposed for a multitude of reasons! Why fix what isn't broken?!

Im no expert in 1970s industrial relations but it would seem to me a bit simplistic to say British manufacturing disappeared solely because of either a) the unions or b) the Tories.

Surely it was a mix of factors? The unions sometimes being over the top, the Tories being the same in their reactions. But also the fact that the Western world was moving away from a manufacturing based economy towards a white collar one. Perhaps many British made products, such as BL vehicles, just weren't as good as their foreign competitors at the time?

The world economy was really starting to globalise in the 1970s and mass manufacturing everything abroad for a much lower cost becomes an option. Its interesting to hear people say that employers should be willing to pay a decent wage to get a decent standard of employee. And I agree, but is it not also right that consumers should be willing to pay a decent price for a decent product made in the UK over a cheaper foreign alternative if we want to have a manufacturing industry? You look at the US and over there 'Made in the USA' still carries a premium that makes people want to buy that over foreign products and be willing to pay a bit more for it. Over here nobody seems to care where anything comes from as long as it works and is cheap.

One of the reasons manufacturing moved abroad was because of the free market, which resulted in a lot of manufacturing being sold to foreign companies.
Most of the privatised companies including the utilities are now foreign owned. We are even using the Chinese to build our next generation of power stations.

One of the big unsaid reasons British manufacturing declined was the generous company final salary pension schemes falling into deficit. Instead of investing for the future, companies had to top up these pension schemes at a time profits were under pressure. This encouraged companies to reduce their workforces which then made it more difficult for them to grow their businesses so a spiral of decline set in. Many companies ended up with pension funds with assets worth a lot more than the companies that had to support them. Foreign ownership of UK manufacturers was probably beneficial as the owners were still prepared to invest in better machinery and new products. Our car industry has thrived despite being foreign owned as are many of the companies that supply components.

It's sad but inevitable that Britain's industrial base has declined whereas countries like Vietnam are rapidly becoming the main production centres for clothes, trainers and mobile phones. Britain will just have to focus on what it is good at like selling the Premier League to countries around the world.

Britain is one of the largest car manufacturers in the world, Toyota, Honda and Nissan are all here. All of which have unions in some form or other.
If the work done by these rail workers can be done more cheaply with no impact due to lack of quality then I guess it should be out sourced. What is irritating is that we have a Government that refuses to invest in Britain by providing incentives and training for these people but jumps at every opportunity to screw up the country by signing up for wars, buying bombs, building Chinese nuclear power stations and allowing fracking. If industries need to be restructured that process should be made as painless as possible and seen as an opportunity, not a source of cheap sarcasm for the uncaring

Blues86 wrote:
Excellent summing up! Neither unions nor management were equipped for the changes in global manufacturing. Cheaper, and importantly, better quality, products from Japan. (Whose economy has itself suffered since the 1990s from competition from cheaper Asian competitors as its own production costs increased)

Massive oil price rises in the 70s mustn't be underestimated either.

Even when it was Metronet/Jubilee Lines?

Strike suspended...

www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-suspends-strike-...tube-safety-dispute/

CCU wrote:
Well, that's going to hack thesilentone off big time. A union seeing sense, whatever next.

griff wrote:

This is the Militant Union thread not the joke Thread, Mr Cash is not having his holidays spoiled by some strike being called off !!

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Friday's 24-hour Tube strike has been called off, but further industrial action remains in place, including a walkout during this year's London Marathon.
Around 1,500 London Underground maintenance workers were due to down tools from 6.30am tomorrow in a row over safety, with the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union claiming potentially "lethal" changes were being made to the way workers access the track.
The union has now called off the action after receiving confirmation that any changes would be put on hold for two weeks to allow for a comprehensive safety review.
It is the second strike to be cancelled in just a week. A 48-hour walkout planned for last weekend was suspended at the last minute.
Mick Cash, the RMT general secretary, said: "The hard work of RMT's negotiating team, backed by a determined and rock-solid workforce, has enabled us to secure a two-week block on these track access changes to allow for a comprehensive safety review prior to a return to [the conciliation service] Acas."
He added: "The dispute remains live, further strike action remains in place from early March and action short of a strike also remains in force.