Are you in a trade union?

Long Onion

Grimes wrote: »

Are we still living in the 18th century? Its people like that who run trade unions and promote this "us v them" attitude in the workplace.

Just a quick little story. I work in a place that is heavily unionised. People will not go outside of their stated contract without extra pay. The Union members bully those workers who might pick up a sweeping brush on lunch or process dockets faster than the rest.

Unions are really sickening and I cannot understand them.

Unions represent the interest of their workers. Not the interest of the state or company. If the money dosnt exist and the workers want it, the union has to acchieve or seen to attempt to acchieve despite realilty and logic. I am warmed to see the resulsts of the poll.

I think you quote me out of context Grimes, I am on the same side of the fence as yourself on this. I was merely pointing out that the unions base their radical actions (which are often bullying, archaic and rooted in the realm of fantasy) on the fact that capitalism is evil and must be stopped at all costs lest we find ourselves working for free, yet they fail to realise that their actions actually help those whom they swear to defeat.

Social theory is all well and good as a reference for debate but it can't be divorced from reality and that, in my opinion, is where the Union's fail miserably.

dotsman

mouthful wrote: »

Would love to be in a union. my boss is a pig and treats us like rubbish.

Just told us 20% pay cut or leave the job, then I hear some rich kids saying "no need for a union":eek:

I have had enough going to get my mates to work with me in forming a union and even if they sack me it can not be any worse than what is happening now.:mad:

Here's a plan. You can form a union (or bring in one of the big unions and have everybody join them.

Then, you can go on strike (unpaid) for a week demanding a pay increase. Then 2 weeks later you can collect the dole from the nearest social welfare office because the company collapsed.

I just love the way the lefties claim it was the banks that caused the recession.:rolleyes:

Snakeblood

AnonoBoy wrote: »

They're ain't no Union for pervert freaks so I'm out of luck completely.

NAMBLA?

Edit: Nuts, someone already said it.

Nodin

dotsman wrote: »

Here's a plan. You can form a union (or bring in one of the big unions and have everybody join them.

Then, you can go on strike (unpaid) for a week demanding a pay increase. Then 2 weeks later you can collect the dole from the nearest social welfare office because the company collapsed.

I just love the way the lefties claim it was the banks that caused the recession.:rolleyes:

Would you care to highlight the series of events (as you outline above) that occurred in Ireland to bring about the recession?

dotsman

Nodin wrote: »

Would you care to highlight the series of events (as you outline above) that occurred in Ireland to bring about the recession?

Way too much to get into here, but the headlines would be:

• Celtic Tiger sees some well-paying jobs come into Ireland via Multinationals.
• Some other companies also benefit and are able to create more high-paying jobs and reward good staff well.
• Number of entrepreneurs are very successful in setting up very profitable companies and also get rich.
• Record low unemployment figures and severe shortages in certain professions/sectors.
• May people in unskilled labour, public sector and certain professions that did not benefit directly from the boom become increasingly envious as Irish society becomes increasingly all about "keeping up with the joneses"
• Unions, pretty much unnecessary given the wide number of employee right's laws and employment opportunities, do everything they can to keep their subs coming in.
• Demanding unwarranted wage increases for large percentages of the population, bedding down with Fianna Fail and creating the economical nightmare that was "social partnership", sees Ireland's wage inflation explode.
• Unions continue to encourage a "them vs us" attitude to management. Any attempt to make a company more efficient/profitable is met with severe resistance from unions and tied to massive wage increases. Public sector grows hugely inefficient and expensive as a result.
• Massive wage inflation causes the cost of living (and cost of doing business) in Ireland to explode. Housing market explodes as people's wages continue to grow year-on-year (and thus larger and larger mortgage can be afforded). Ireland's reputation as an extremely expensive holiday destination grows as does it's reputation as a place to set up business.
• Extremely high standard of living is expected amongst a large percentage of the population, and where something can not be afforded right now, an attitude of "buy now and pay later" due to the expectation of ever increasing wages.
• The cheap, highly educated (in science/IT/Engineering etc), hardworking/efficient population that brought about the celtic tiger becomes replaced more and more with expensive, uneducated, inefficient workers.
• Economy still looks strong as GDP keeps increasing at a high level. Successive governments can continue to sign up to more and more increases based on the increasing tax take from stamp duty, other property-related taxes and the fact that a huge amount of people are being employed in the construction sector.
• Fearing what the unions would do if they do not deliver, government ignores risks in the financial sector and refuses to bring in restrictions on banks (thus giving them as safe, but still profitable environment in which to work), instead leaving them fend for themselves, where the only profit is to lend more and more.
• Overinflated Property Market crashes (rapidly after the sub-prime crisis in the US).
• Massive numbers of mostly overpaid, underskilled labourers are let go initially. Soon followed by preoprty related professions such as architects, solicitors, estate agents etc. With so many losing their jobs, negative sentiment spreads rapidly throughout the country and people cut down on their spending. Many also take to spending their cash abroad. Starved of he necessary level of spending to sustain themselves, many companies find themselves in serious trouble.
• Without all the property-related taxes, the government can no longer afford the ridiculous wage increases it committed to during the property boom. Attempts to increase taxes to pay for them are resisted by the unions. Attempts to renegotiate are resisted by the unions. Instead of using the money to get the economy restarted, massive amounts of taxpayers money is haemorrhaged due to ridiculous public sector bill (even though the economy cannot restart until such time as the public sector is greatly "cleansed")
• Still the unions demand pay increases.
• As business thread the water to stay alive and keep employees in employment, unions demand strikes.
• When redundancies are necessary and employees are given very generous redundancy terms, unions are still not happy and we get illegal occupations/trespassing etc.

I'm sure there are lots of typos in the above, and I've probably left out a whole load, but that should give you an idea of what has been happening in Ireland over the past 15 years.

PrivateEye

The unions have problems no doubt. To give a classic story, during the Fire Brigade strike at the end of the 80s, my Dad and a few others were involved in a crisis meeting up at Liberty Hall. It was a dingey old room, tapwater for everyone, and chairs held together by nothing but sellotape.

Anyway, who arrives on scene but Radio Teilifís Éireann, cameras at the ready.

SIPTU panic, move the lads upstairs to a nicer room, and before you know it its bottled watter for everyone. True story. There's plenty wrong with the unions no doubt.


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Saying that, I think they can only be changed from within, and that its important workers do join unions for very obvious reasons. My Dad has been SIPTU or FBU depending where he's been over the years, My Ma SIPTU for 20years or so. I'm a student but whenever I've been in employment I've been part of a relevent union. The unions are not currently led by workers it has to be said, which is clearly a huge problem. Look at the kind of shakey relations that can emerge between workers and their unions at times like the Visteon occupation in Belfast or the Thomas Cook occupations. The only union I've ever been truly impressed by is the FBU in the UK. An imperfect union beats no union, and I'd hate to see what 'economic measures' we'd see introduced in a unionless Ireland if we apparently currently live in a country some people see as 'plagued' by unions.

Long Onion

You forgot to mention the fact that Ireland discovers the ultiomate secret - how to conjure money from thin air.

Take a piece of agricultural land which has an inherent vale of €15,000 per acre which is a reflection of the amount of goods it can produce. Now use a pen to zone it commercial - hey presto it is now worth €1,000,000 - that's magic!

The problem is that somewhere along the line we all invested our wealth in things with no inherent value. Gold has no inherent value (apart from making headphone sockets) money has no inherent value as you can just print more if you run out.

When we all live an a system where wealth is thoeretical we are bound to get goosed at some stage. For eveyone who thinks things are bad now, wait until the mega-inflation starts next year:(

Nodin

dotsman wrote: »

Way too much to get into here, but the headlines would be:(......)15 years.

Amazing how detailed peoples fantasies can be.

jahalpin

seamus wrote: »

Right, only posting this cos a couple of weeks back I was listening to the rahdeeo and one of the union muppets (Jack O'Connor from SIPTU I think) made some claim that 95% of people who aren't part of a union, want to be in a union, according to their survey.

Frankly I think this is complete and utter bull****. Most people I know aren't in any kind of union and consider them to be nothing but apologists for the lazy, ignorant and selfish workers, run by an old boy's club of leeches.

So I'd like to know the boardsies union "status". For the purposes of the poll, I'm not included artists' unions (such as Equity) which represent individuals/organsations not protected by normal employment law.

I have never been a member of a union and will never join one.

Union membership allows the members to be lazy and to do as little work as is humanly possible.

What most of the union members forget is that it is your employer that pays your wages, not your union and that you should do what the employer tells you to do (within reason, obviously) and not what your shop steward tells you to.

It has been shown time and again that unions actually make the worst employers as they pay their staff badly and treat them quite badly as well. The executives in the unions are exceptionally well paid and the main reason many of them seem to encourage strikes is to increase the power that they hold over their members and to distract the members from scrutinizing the huge amount of their money that is being spent on the salaries and expenses of these people.

What SIPTU seems to forget is that there is a worldwide recession on at the moment and that there is a lot less money around than before the recession which means that destroying the industry in the country by striking etc is probably not the best idea at the moment as a lot of companies will simply close and move to cheaper countries.