Union fee's, we need a reduction

Dictator

With the current level of pay cut's I feel that we as employee's need to have our union due's reduced. At the moment I'm not seeing any benifits off been part of a union. All I see is union leaders with massive wages wanting to spend their war chest they've collected over the past 10 years.

How do we go about getting these due's reduced to a level that is justified. IMHO

Winty

Leave the Union and pay no fee 100% saving, do you think they care about you?

eden_my_ass

As a non union member and private sector worker, I reckon we'll see more of this attitude, from an outsiders point of view the main trade unions seem to have seriously misrepresented their members and after losing many of them a day of pay while making unrealistic demands that the dog on the street knew weren't going to happen, it seems some heads may yet roll. I know if I was paying a fee I'd be livid!

mikemac

I was going to suggest leave your current union and join another but I do remember reading somewhere this is rarely ever done.

Unions won't "poach" a member from another union
Not sure if it's true or not, read it somewhere, possibly on boards

Welease

I stop being a union supporter years ago which it was obvious they are more interested in defending the indefencible, and feathering their own nests thus making our companies uncompetitive in a global market.

Your money would be better spent on the lottery...

mastermind2005

Hi *****,



IMPACT’s subs are set by union rules and this is likely to change over the next couple of months.



Regards,



*****

---

From: ******
Sent: November 2009 10:25
To: ******
Subject: RE: picket duty



*****,



Is there any update on impact reducing their fee?



Regards
******

Otis Driftwood

With the level of protection afforded to workers in Ireland in 2009 and the ease of access to all relevant information mean unions will eventually become redundant.

From what I can see they (Unions themselves) are just a bunch of rabble rousing old men.

In my humble opinion.

kiwipower

mikemac wrote: »

I was going to suggest leave your current union and join another but I do remember reading somewhere this is rarely ever done.

Unions won't "poach" a member from another union
Not sure if it's true or not, read it somewhere, possibly on boards

Not sure if Im totally correct but I have been lead to believe that you need so many members in a profession to join a union. Am in a small profession would like to swap unions but was lead to believe you need to get all members to agree to change. I know it was attempted by some in my profession at a different work location and it was blocked by our present union shop stewards! (Open letters sent to work places were "removed" instead of being put on a notice board.

jaggiebunnet

kiwipower wrote: »

Not sure if Im totally correct but I have been lead to believe that you need so many members in a profession to join a union. Am in a small profession would like to swap unions but was lead to believe you need to get all members to agree to change. I know it was attempted by some in my profession at a different work location and it was blocked by our present union shop stewards! (Open letters sent to work places were "removed" instead of being put on a notice board.

That would be a closed shop which ceased being legal a while back I think - open to correction.

IMO unions are outdated, I stopped paying union dues in Scotland 20 odd years ago when i found out contributions were being taken from it to support the labour party!

kiwipower

jaggiebunnet wrote: »

That would be a closed shop which ceased being legal a while back I think - open to correction.

IMO unions are outdated, I stopped paying union dues in Scotland 20 odd years ago when i found out contributions were being taken from it to support the labour party!

Sorry am a little slow. Dont know what IMO stands for or what a closed shop is, I could also be wrong on my facts as my source was work collegues when I suggested a shift from SIPTU to IMPACT.

Mrs OBumble

nedtheshed wrote: »

With the level of protection afforded to workers in Ireland in 2009

Uhh, huh? Take a read thru this forum, and Work Problems. Eg the one about the boss who makes the ladies toilets "broken" (etc) if his female staff wear a skirt - take a look at what the union's equity officer told the OP about they type of cases s/he deals with.

And protection? My last employment contract said that I had sick leave - which meant that I was allowed to not attend work if I was sick. Not get paid, mind, just not get fired for it either. How many people get let go from jobs when they've been there for 11.9 months? Protection ... yeah, right.

I agree, unions here don't appear to be doing a great job. That doesn't mean that the concept is defunct, though.

Otis Driftwood

There is no reason in this day and age,with the level of awareness and education on employment conditions that stuff like you mentioned above should be allowed fly.People need to get it through their heads to stand up for themselves.There is no excuse anymore between online resources and the citizens information centres aswell.

As for people being let go 11.9 months after starting,do you not think that if they were excelling in their job that they would be kept,cos I do.

Mrs OBumble

nedtheshed wrote: »

There is no reason in this day and age,with the level of awareness and education on employment conditions that stuff like you mentioned above should be allowed fly.People need to get it through their heads to stand up for themselves.There is no excuse anymore between online resources and the citizens information centres aswell.

Stuff like what? Sexual harassment? Well from what the equity officer is reported to have said, it sounds like it's alive an well whether or not it "should" be. No paid sick leave? Well that's just part of Irish law. Or if you want more examples, take a look in work problems where the guy is talking about his boss who got ordered to pay wages owed by a court, told the court that he'd done just that, but hasn't. That shouldn't be happening - but it is.

There is a huge difference between information (knowing what your rights are) and power (being able to do something with that knowledge). Your average worker cannot, individually, afford to hire lawyers in order to get restitution when a bad employer withholds rights. Unions even things out, by spreading the cost out, and also be knowing what levers to push to get action from particular employers.

As for people being let go 11.9 months after starting,do you not think that if they were excelling in their job that they would be kept,cos I do.

Nope. Cos I know people it's happened to. For lower-skilled jobs, the cost of recruiting is just a notice in the window, and the cost of training is just a few hours of the boss's time. Both way cheaper than having to worry about employment rights.

Dictator

Just seen the front line program, the unions have completely fluffed it, can't believe it 200k a year, there in bed with the goverment at this stage.

thecribber

What about all the electricians who spent a week on strike for nothing. While the majority of the country think they got a 4,9% pay rise. this rise was rejected by employer groups and nothing was ever paid. All the Unions achieved was to cost electricians a weeks pay. You can be sure the TEEU leaders did not lose their weeks pay.

Bearded Pickpockets.

daveyboy_1ie

My partner, her father and one of best my best friends who are all Civil Servants have all had to join up to IMPACT in the last few weeks so as not to 'cross picket lines'.

To me this is one of the main reasons Unions shout so much, it gets their members to pressure non members into joining as your either 'with us or against us'. This is one of the reasons I was slightly glad our government did something right for once and steamroll over the Unions, however wrong their actions were no civilised country can have the public finances held to ransom and dictated too by a bunch of non elected bullies. Regardless of who got us into this mess, the Unions still cannot threaten strike at the drop of a hat in this climate as its paramount to industrial suicide.

However on the flip side the Government have been very clever over the last year to steer peoples attentions away from the real reasons we are in this mess and create a divide between Public versus Private sectors and so there are as many threads created on here about that than there are about 'those B(W)anker" etc.

the_syco

SIPTU plans to enlarge it's building. For some reason, spending the members fee's in such a way seems weird.

whatnext

Dictator wrote: »

With the current level of pay cut's I feel that we as employee's need to have our union due's reduced. At the moment I'm not seeing any benifits off been part of a union. All I see is union leaders with massive wages wanting to spend their war chest they've collected over the past 10 years.
How do we go about getting these due's reduced to a level that is justified. IMHO

I think SIPTU have found a use for their war chest already
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1008/breaking62.html

Morlar

whatnext wrote: »

I think SIPTU have found a use for their war chest already
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1008/breaking62.html

Recession what recession ? I wonder if they will use cheap migrant labour to build that.

doolox

Once the unions could pay their members to strike for several weeks at a time if necessary to enforce a wage rise and win concessions from the employers.
In a time where people were starving and working 70 hour weeks Unions were necessary and had some real moral and political clout.

Now they are seen as greedy, obstructionist and non-progressive and have no real power.
The strike fund of most unions is too low to last more that a few days if workers were to be paid enough to cover their outgoings, in particular their mortgages and other loans which are now higher than in the older days of trade union power.

The government is all too aware that in a show-down the workers would be forced back to work to make money to pay their mortgages and keep the roof over their heads.

In general I see it happening that in the medium term workers will lose out in terms of wages, working hours, holidays etc which will be reduced and clawed back by employers in a bid to remain competitive in an increasingly adverse trading environment.

A time will come when we return to the bad old days of uncertainty, bad housing, food shortages and health threatening standards of living when workers will have to fight back and try and regain the lost ground.

A good few years will be needed to set the conditions in place for this to happen. Significant reduction of debt will be needed. Alternative sources of the necessities of life: food, shelter clothing etc. will be needed without recourse to debt which robs workers of the ability to withdraw their labour in search of better conditions.

In other words the present day workers will need to save like hell and reduce their spending to the bear minimum to win back the real power they have lost.

10 years ago the farmers sold their interests in cooperatives out and complained when the price received for their goods fell. The whole reason for the existence of cooperatives was to ensure that farmers interests would be served but they forgot the lessons of history.

Working people will need to restructure their part of the economy to survive sudden downturns and lack of income in order to increase their bargaining power. They will have to learn to live without heavy debt and expensive lifestyles with high consumer spending if they want to restore some stability to their lives.