Off Topic Thread 3.0

CatFromHue

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Sorry, when I said "the workers" I was meaning in a general sense rather than in just this specific case. IMO Irish people seem to be quite supportive of unions but then the unions piss them off and lose the support.

To be honest I haven't really followed this dispute.

That's due to historical things like the lock out and Jim Larkin, plus Ireland being a poor country for most of its existence.

I do hope it changes as I think the PS Unions have done more bad than good for the country. Plus they've no problem lieing, remember that Garda who had to sleep in his car........or all those allowances that are in the PS for things that the workers don't do anymore yet the Union has deemed these as a core pay now, and how often do the Unions just ignore WRC rulings yet would go mad if a company did it, or how many times the Union have called for the Minister to get involved so they can ignore having to use the WRC.

Lets not get into the HSE either but it was set up to fail and people are now wondering why it's not working.

CatFromHue

Buer wrote: »

That's generally the case. It's a very black and white assessment without having any real notion of what the background is. The root causes of the situation need to be examined in depth.

I genuinely do have some sympathy for them. But this bullsh*t erodes that sympathy hugely.

Why do you have sympathy for them?

To me this is a case of the union, over time making, BE an noncompetitive company with the help of weak management and weak governments.

Yeah_Right

CatFromHue wrote: »

That's due to historical things like the lock out and Jim Larkin, plus Ireland being a poor country for most of its existence.

I do hope it changes as I think the PS Unions have done more bad than good for the country. Plus they've no problem lieing, remember that Garda who had to sleep in his car........or all those allowances that are in the PS for things that the workers don't do anymore yet the Union has deemed these as a core pay now, and how often do the Unions just ignore WRC rulings yet would go mad if a company did it, or how many times the Union have called for the Minister to get involved so they can ignore having to use the WRC.

Lets not get into the HSE either but it was set up to fail and people are now wondering why it's not working.

That helps explain why my step son is a Commie, sorry, a social liberal. Hopefully he'll grow out of it.

irishbucsfan

errlloyd wrote: »

I dislike the position of leverage transport workers have over the government. I'm not sure what gives BE drivers the right to cause this level of disruption. It has no semblance of proportionality.

But from a purely personal level. It gives me a nice excuse to work from home.

The amount of leverage the transport workers have does have a semblance of proportionality.

In fact it's directly proportional.

irishbucsfan

CatFromHue wrote: »

Why do you have sympathy for them?

To me this is a case of the union, over time making, BE an noncompetitive company with the help of weak management and weak governments.

How did the union make BE a noncompetitive company exactly?

Zzippy

The thing about unions, and workers, is that no one wants to be on strike, no one wants to be inconveniencing others. Strike is the nuclear option that workers only vote for when they feel they have no other choice. I've lost count of the industrial disputes my union has had with my employer, but I've only been on strike one day in my career. In our field, I'd say no one even noticed.
Ultimately, while unions would like the support of the public, it's not important, and indeed, inconveniencing large numbers of people can have a desired effect of putting more pressure on the employer/government. Unfortunately widening the dispute to secondary pickets, and forcing non-involved workers to choose whether to pass a picket or not, is a terrible move, but I won't be surprised if it brings BE back to the table with improved terms.

irishbucsfan

Zzippy wrote: »

The thing about unions, and workers, is that no one wants to be on strike, no one wants to be inconveniencing others. Strike is the nuclear option that workers only vote for when they feel they have no other choice. I've lost count of the industrial disputes my union has had with my employer, but I've only been on strike one day in my career. In our field, I'd say no one even noticed.
Ultimately, while unions would like the support of the public, it's not important, and indeed, inconveniencing large numbers of people can have a desired effect of putting more pressure on the employer/government. Unfortunately widening the dispute to secondary pickets, and forcing non-involved workers to choose whether to pass a picket or not, is a terrible move, but I won't be surprised if it brings BE back to the table with improved terms.

Ultimately this one won't end while Shane Ross continues to stick his fingers in his ears and pretend its not his job to get involved.

It is absolutely inevitable that the government will have to get involved. The answer to the issue lies in increasing the subvention from the government to Bus Eireann. So they just have to keep being as annoying as possible until its no longer politically acceptable for Ross to ignore them.

errlloyd

irishbucsfan wrote: »

The amount of leverage the transport workers have does have a semblance of proportionality.

In fact it's directly proportional.

I don't think you and I are comparing the same things in terms of proportionality IBF. I guess I'll bite though, why should a bus Eireann picket be able to stop trains?

Edit: And apologies if you see this edit after posting a response. By proportionality I mean that there is no other profession that is as low skilled, as economically valuable, as unionised and as "non crucial" as transport workers (Luas drivers for instance). I can't think of a single other profession in Ireland that can negotiate in this way. Gaurds, Nurses, Doctors and the Army are banned (I think). Teachers, Air Traffic Controllers and can, but they're very highly skilled and cause less disruption. Retail workers, labourers and farm hands are probably just as economically crucial, but non unionised. So yes I do think transport workers yield disproportional power.

As I mentioned above, this doesn't necessarily apply to BE.

irishbucsfan

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Ultimately this one won't end while Shane Ross continues to stick his fingers in his ears and pretend its not his job to get involved.

It is absolutely inevitable that the government will have to get involved. The answer to the issue lies in increasing the subvention from the government to Bus Eireann. So they just have to keep being as annoying as possible until its no longer politically acceptable for Ross to ignore them.

This might be spin and i might be well wrong but i thought BE expressway was the main sticking point, the public service aspect of BE and it's subvention is working ok it's the competitive arms like expressway that are running a loss but can't get a subvention as it wouldn't be fair in a competition sense

thomond2006

Why are we paying for a Transport Minister when he refuses to get involved? Is there a need for one? I get we need somebody to set transport policy but...

Also was today's strike known to be happening before 4am this morning?! Aren't wildcat strikes illegal?

errlloyd

thomond2006 wrote: »

Why are we paying for a Transport Minister when he refuses to get involved? Is there a need for one? I get we need somebody to set transport policy but...

Also was today's strike known to be happening before 4am this morning?! Aren't wildcat strikes illegal?

To be fair, we don't have a transport minister anymore, he does Transport, Tourism and Sport which isn't exactly a small brief.

I am not quite sure of the intricacies of this particular strike. I believe the role the minister plays is deciding how much subvention to give BE. The govt position is that the publicly funded part of BE is doing okay, it is the privately run part that is loss making. Legally they can't give money to the privately run part because it is anti-competitive. The same way they can't fund Aer Lingus.

My question is what the **** the Work Relations Committee get paid for.

irishbucsfan

errlloyd wrote: »

I don't think you and I are comparing the same things in terms of proportionality IBF. I guess I'll bite though, why should a bus Eireann picket be able to stop trains?

Edit: And apologies if you see this edit after posting a response. By proportionality I mean that there is no other profession that is as low skilled, as economically valuable, as unionised and as "non crucial" as transport workers (Luas drivers for instance). I can't think of a single other profession in Ireland that can negotiate in this way. Gaurds, Nurses, Doctors and the Army are banned (I think). Teachers, Air Traffic Controllers and can, but they're very highly skilled and cause less disruption. Retail workers, labourers and farm hands are probably just as economically crucial, but non unionised. So yes I do think transport workers yield disproportional power.

As I mentioned above, this doesn't necessarily apply to BE.

Can someone be economically valuable and non-crucial at the same time? I think the disruption they've caused is direct evidence of just how crucial the transport industry is to all of us.

Also other professions have other means of industrial action (and some of those can strike, doctors can strike I believe but I don't really know the intricacies of how they can do it, I'm sure its very restricted). But any restrictions to industrial action that they abide by can only ever be by their agreement.

A BE picket can stop trains because CIE employees will not cross it, because all CIE employees are at risk of being treated in this way under the current structure. It's completely fair for them to make that decision. They're unionised in this way specifically because of the nature of the industry they work in and the difficulties that it presents to employees, which is evident in how they're being treated currently.

Podge_irl

Doctors can strike and indeed did so relatively recently for the dastardly goal of trying to bring an end to 36 hour shifts.

It is incredibly fraught with danger though from at least a PR perspective as they very easily completely lose support.

errlloyd

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Can someone be economically valuable and non-crucial at the same time? I think the disruption they've caused is direct evidence of just how crucial the transport industry is to all of us.

Just non crucial in the sense that we don't have government policy banning them from striking.

The role is economically valuable, the worker is not. They're relatively easy to replace. None of the transport operators in Ireland have any problem hiring staff. The value their skill adds to the role is a tiny percentage of the total value proposition their role gives the general public.

If you will allow me to exaggerate the explanation it might make my position clearer. Imagine for a second, there was a single person who's job it was to press a single switch in Dublin every morning that turned on all the traffic lights in Ireland. And every evening he turned them off again. His job is piss easy, probably one of the easiest jobs you can imagine. Flick a switch, on time, twice a day. His role (switching on the traffic lights) provides huge economic value - but he clearly does not deserve be remunerated proportionally for it.

People shouldn't get paid purely based on how important their job is to their organisation (which seems like your position). They also shouldn't purely get paid on how important they are to their job (which might seem like my position). But I believe it should be closer to my position that yours.



Complete sidebar, ignore if you want. I know I am in danger of writing too long a post here, but I agreed with the Luas strike. I didn't think their pay was ridiculously high, because I can't imagine how someone is supposed to raise a family or get a mortgage on that salary. They're a particularly vulnerable group of transport workers because they are private, and they end up sort of pigeon holed. If you've been a Luas driver for 10 years you probably can't do anything else. But rather than increase their pay I just think they needed some sort of company funded / state subsidized upskilling and training program. So a Luas driver can start on 33k, driving 4 days a week and being an apprentice mechanic or whatever the other day. So that when they've been doing it for 10 years and their salary is only 43k (and not getting higher) they might have the mobility to go and do something else. I don't think it is in anyone's interest to create publicly funded careers for people that reach their ultimate potential within a decade.

Zzippy

Podge_irl wrote: »

Doctors can strike and indeed did so relatively recently for the dastardly goal of trying to bring an end to 36 hour shifts.

It is incredibly fraught with danger though from at least a PR perspective as they very easily completely lose support.

:eek:

The lazy b@stards!

irishbucsfan

errlloyd wrote: »

Just non crucial in the sense that we don't have government policy banning them from striking.

The role is economically valuable, the worker is not. They're relatively easy to replace. None of the transport operators in Ireland have any problem hiring staff. The value their skill adds to the role is a tiny percentage of the total value proposition their role gives the general public.

If you will allow me to exaggerate the explanation it might make my position clearer. Imagine for a second, there was a single person who's job it was to press a single switch in Dublin every morning that turned on all the traffic lights in Ireland. And every evening he turned them off again. His job is piss easy, probably one of the easiest jobs you can imagine. Flick a switch, on time, twice a day. His role (switching on the traffic lights) provides huge economic value - but he clearly does not deserve be remunerated proportionally for it.

People shouldn't get paid purely based on how important their job is to their organisation (which seems like your position). They also shouldn't purely get paid on how important they are to their job (which might seem like my position). But I believe it should be closer to my position that yours.

What makes you think the workers are that disposable? I'm not sure what your source is on that one.

I think all the example serves to do here is betray a massive under appreciation for the working conditions and difficulty of the jobs of transport workers in Ireland.

Effectively the long-run outcome of your position is that transport workers would become minimum wage employees, as they're all as replaceable like fast food workers or supermarket workers. How they've managed to unionise and maintain their positions... must be a stroke of luck I guess.

errlloyd

irishbucsfan wrote: »

What makes you think the workers are that disposable? I'm not sure what your source is on that one.

I think all the example serves to do here is betray a massive under appreciation for the working conditions and difficulty of the jobs of transport workers in Ireland.

Effectively the long-run outcome of your position is that transport workers would become minimum wage employees, as they're all as replaceable like fast food workers or supermarket workers. How they've managed to unionise and maintain their positions... must be a stroke of luck I guess.

I have no source on how disposable BE drivers are. But 2000 people applied for 29 Luas driver positions last month. IIRC it takes 6 weeks to train them. We have less than 200 Luas Drivers in Dublin.

I am annoyed that you felt the need to have a jab at me for the example without engaging with the point I was making. You didn't seem to understand what I meant when I said there was a difference between the economic value of a role versus the worker who fulfilled it. So I came up with a completely off the wall demonstration and flagged it as thus. I never equated what a Bus Eireann Driver does with simply flicking a switch twice a day. I know you understand my point very well - I am capable of learning on the internet, so if you would like to explain why I am wrong instead of merely assuming I am biased I would appreciate it more.

Finally, I clearly don't think transport workers should ever end up on minimum wage, and I said that in the post you quoted. It is the second last line. The reason trasport workers successfully unionised when supermarket workers didn't is because huge swathes of them have them same employer (the government). So when changes negatively affected them, they all get negatively affected together.

irishbucsfan

errlloyd wrote: »

I have no source on how disposable BE drivers are. But 2000 people applied for 29 Luas driver positions last month. IIRC it takes 6 weeks to train them. We have less than 200 Luas Drivers in Dublin.

I am annoyed that you felt the need to have a jab at me for the example without engaging with the point I was making. You didn't seem to understand what I meant when I said there was a difference between the economic value of a role versus the worker who fulfilled it. So I came up with a completely off the wall demonstration and flagged it as thus. I never equated what a Bus Eireann Driver does with simply flicking a switch twice a day. I know you understand my point very well - I am capable of learning on the internet, so if you would like to explain why I am wrong instead of merely assuming I am biased I would appreciate it more.

Finally, I clearly don't think transport workers should ever end up on minimum wage, and I said that in the post you quoted. It is the second last line. The reason trasport workers successfully unionised when supermarket workers didn't is because huge swathes of them have them same employer (the government). So when changes negatively affected them, they all get negatively affected together.

I actually didn't have a jab at you, but I did take some liberties with your viewpoint as you did with mine.

Somehow this became about wages. I never said anything about the earning power of these employees or how much they should be paid. Nor did I ever say that someone should be paid based on the importance of their job versus their own replacement value. I said that any impact of their industrial action is directly 'proportional'. Which it is and always be unless the state steps in.

In reality when it comes to wages, that will never come down to the importance of your job to the economy (thankfully, or I would be paid far less) nor will it ever come down to your individual value to the company. It comes entirely down to your bargaining power versus the bargaining power of your employer. And for people like me in the private sector, the factors at play are very different to those in the public sector. And for those working for bizarre-semi-state-lets-pretend-to-be-private companies like BE it's different again.

These people are entirely correct to unionise in order to put themselves in a position to negotiate. And any scare-mongering (from elsewhere, not you) about the power of unions certainly never actually seems to translate to the real-world, some of the bizarre stuff you'd here would make you worried that these guys are getting out of their buses and driving home in lambourghinis.

stephen_n

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

End to end encryption systems on mobile devices like WhatsApp are currently unbreakable. Hence the need for a backdoor. It's only the tip of the iceberg though because you can continue to write private apps on android and defeat any backdoors. But that's at the top end of terrorism, your run of the mill radicalised Beligian/French/British guy wouldn't have access to them.

Terrorism is a complete red herring in terms of encryption, this is purely about limiting the freedom that the internet has.

Nothing is unbreakable.

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

The Trump thing only applies to ISPs in the US. The equivalent of Vodafone or Eir here.

Ehm what about Privacy Shield?

errlloyd

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I said that any impact of their industrial action is directly 'proportional'.

...

It comes entirely down to your bargaining power versus the bargaining power of your employer. And for people like me in the private sector, the factors at play are very different to those in the public sector. And for those working for bizarre-semi-state-lets-pretend-to-be-private companies like BE it's different again.

So this is what I meant when I said I thought we were talking about different proportionality!

I my opinion transport workers bargaining power is greatly enhanced by the infrastructure they control, and not the difficulty of the job they do. They are also helped by the fact that they are often negotiating with politicians and there are some historical factors as well. I think it is disproportional that such a strong bargaining position is held by a group who from a skill point of view, are reasonably replaceable.

When I said way back at the start that I thought this particular strike was highly disproportional, it was because BE drivers seemed to not only be able to shut down their own infrastructure, but two other huge organisation as well!

If we disagree that is grand - obviously. I am glad we just cleared up our perspectives. Thanks for outlining yours.

CatFromHue

irishbucsfan wrote: »

How did the union make BE a noncompetitive company exactly?

It's got some serious losses on the cards and any change by the company to fix these losses ends up with problems from the union. The last time the company went to fix some of these problems the union, I think after they went on strike, only agreed to them for a period of time of about 18 months, I think.

That stabilised the company somewhat but surprise surprise at what happened when that period of time elapsed.

The union has been a major player in how Bus Eireann operates so they have to take their share of the blame if the company starts to get into trouble, which it is in now.

I'm not anti union btw, I just think unions should operate with seeing the bigger picture that the company survival is pretty important to their terms and conditions too.

Dave_The_Sheep

stephen_n wrote: »

Ehm what about Privacy Shield?

I would hope that the EU states have the sense to not trust the Privacy Shield mechanism after all that's gone on and to stick by their principles when it comes to consumer and user protection as regards the internet. America isn't going to, China doesn't even count, so someone has to. I'm hoping its "us".

Consumer internet protection in the US is barely existant. The one I deal personally with the most is Steam, and they're getting in all sorts of knots trying to deal with non-American law as regards customers and rights and refunds.

Long may it continue.

irishbucsfan

We give the IRFU a tough auld time... but at least they're not the FAI!

https://twitter.com/mariecrowe/status/849200897821376512

CMOTDibbler

stephen_n wrote: »

Terrorism is a complete red herring in terms of encryption, this is purely about limiting the freedom that the internet has.

Nothing is unbreakable.

That's a bit tinfoil hattish tbh. The freedom of the internet isn't going to stand or fall on application encryption. But the fact that looking for backdoors to the likes of WhatsApp isn't going to actually do much for anti-terrorism forces other than at the fringes, proves (a) that these systems are currently unbreakable and (b) that they're being used.

stephen_n wrote: »

Ehm what about Privacy Shield?

Isn't Privacy Shield about data transfers between Europe and the US and not just ISPs? I'm not sure what relevance it has to this legislation which only affects US ISPs and therefor US consumers.

Erik Shin

irishbucsfan wrote: »

We give the IRFU a tough auld time... but at least they're not the FAI!

https://twitter.com/mariecrowe/status/849200897821376512

Pulling players from the 6n to play in a Sevens tournament wasn't great either though

errlloyd

Erik Shin wrote: »

Pulling players from the 6n to play in a Sevens tournament wasn't great either though

Yeah but I am pretty sure the girls in Vegas and the girls in Donnybrook were all given tracksuits!

CMOTDibbler

Erik Shin wrote: »

Pulling players from the 6n to play in a Sevens tournament wasn't great either though

That turned out to be a bit of #fakenews. Or at least as far as the 15s team and players were concerned, who were told well in advance.

Erik Shin

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

That turned out to be a bit of #fakenews. Or at least as far as the 15s team and players were concerned, who were told well in advance.

I think it's more the fact that it was done at all is the issue. Sevens is nice to look at for a weekend, but to prioritize it over the full national side....Not sitting well with me personally

sydthebeat

Erik Shin wrote: »

I think it's more the fact that it was done at all is the issue. Sevens is nice to look at for a weekend, but to prioritize it over the full national side....Not sitting well with me personally

it did the team no harm at all... and may actually have done a lot of good in the long term

molloyjh

Except it was also used to give more women game time in advance of the RWC. As there are so few women's games, particularly at international level, the more that get exposed to it prior to the RWC the better. And this helped to maximise the game time and therefore develop, in as much as they could, the squad depth ahead of the RWC.

But that doesn't promote outrage so it doesn't get the attention.