If it's a legal strike then I'm afraid you would end up in a tribunal in which you would 100% loose, end up looking a right idiot and probably loose your own job.
When you end up at the top you will realise just how much you have to go through before you can hand someone their P45.
We have one worker we have been trying to sack for months, it's very hard unless they do something very bad.

Cheers
Lee

 

legal strike?
shouldnt be fukcin allowed!!

if you dont like the situation, go and get another job, if you cant, stay where you are and wind your screaming neck in.

unions are glorified mobsters, yes, there are odd cases where they have actually helped very few fortunate people, me, Ive seen a union rep (of a very large well known union) come round and rob workers of a large % of their wage each wage in the name of subscriptions.
if you need a union to back you up, your too weak for the job in the first place.
unions = scumbag money wasters

 

***it's very hard unless they do something very bad.****

tis easy, we sack people daily, call it gross misconduct and your out the door no warnings

 

If you work for a decent company you shoudn't need a Union , However I have been a member of the T.G.W.U. for 24 years and never worked for a decent company

 

Its employers of this ILK , why we need the unions , think we are still in the 1800's

 

scoob99, I dont think I would really, but it's nice to dream

On the subject of it all being the managers fault when things go bad, I've had lots of experience of both sides of the fence.
As a postman, I was usually under the impression that is was all the management fault, but after a while, I came to realise they were only reacting to very poor deals brokered higher up the chain, and trying to make the best of a bad job. This was also true of many of the union reps I've had dealings with over the years. Now that is one job I would never do, as they take nothing but sh*t off members, and get nothing in return. At least as a manager, getting the same sh*t, we get a fairly decent wage.
I've seen our early shift union rep go from raging terrier, jumping on any problem, all guns blazing, to an almost air of indifference in less than 2 years. Mostly this is because of his own poor upper union management, but also because he has to hear the same bleating and moaning from the same people all day.
It would be nice to work for a company that had both a good union and good management, both working towards the ultimate goals of a happy workforce and high profits. The royal mail is heading in the right direction, and the last 3 years has seen a turnaround like no other, but we still have a long way to go.

chris.

 

How many tribunals have you been to?

The union is very strong where I work and usually every sacking ends in a tribunal. The only one that didn't was when we caught a worker on cctv stealing out of other work mates lockers.
We follow the legal procedures to the letter of the law otherwise it ends up costing £1000's at the tribunal.

Just because someone is lazy, incompetent and useless doesn't fulfill gross misconduct unfortunately.

Cheers
Lee

 

Four in GMB and 15 years NUM. Wow this has brought out some arrogant replys, (Peanuts - cw42) but sense preveiled in the form of Logiclee. I see our M.D. has the same attitude as two of the above. Where did it get him, eating Humble Pie, he issued a complete work force with a final notice stating P45's were in the post. Not a clever man just a Boss who thinks he can do what he wants. No one wants industrial action but when faced with attitude, its time to stand tall. No I'm not millitant.

 

When I was a Bectu Union Rep we had one General Manager who was publicly very Pro Union (Very much a Labour party member) whilst in reality tried to break every rule in the book to exploit his staff and didn’t like the staff joining a union as eventually it would stand up for the established rights of the staff e.g. Health and safety law which he choose to ignore and equal pay for colleagues in the same position and same quality of work but one he liked and one he didn’t etc.

I spent years with him trying to break rules and intimidate staff and union reps into backing down and in fact this behaviour was what led to most of the people joining the union along with it bringing good quality officials in from the TV branch to help in the theatre division. With effective officials at National level people joined the union as they saw it would stand up for them against his bulling tactics. he then got the sack after about 10 years and a new manager came in who worked with the union explained any financial difficulties (nobody wants to make the Theatre go bust) and a good relationship was established and the staff worked a lot harder and were more productive because of this cooperation. Positive suggestions to changes in working practice from staff to improve things including terms and conditions of staff but also productivity by reducing staff levels for certain jobs were received and rewarded so every body benefited.

Much of this stemmed from eventual 90%+ union membership combined with support from Talented Union Officials from Bectu Head office and a realistic approach by the union and its members to what could be achieved.

Unions when staffed by good people achieve a lot for their members

 

I generally vore with my feet if I dont like a job, however even though at our place it is very 'empoyeecentric' (too much sometimes, too many wasters and hangers on) I saw some stuff that made me want to join up, I have also seen the union protect individuals very well, who dont deserve to keep their jobs, common sense does not always prevail.

 

I'm a memeber of the teaching union ... NUT
I think most teachers are a member of one of the teaching unions.

Mostly because in this day an age of fearing that your might be accused of something. Although I doubt the union would be much help if you ever did get into a situation like that.

cath

doubt that is of much interest to you but thought I add it anyway!

 

My take on it is that if you get into a position that you need assistance from your Union, your days are numbered with that firm anyway.

Doesn't matter what the dispute is, it's too late. Go get anotehr job.

No, I'm not in one - I think they exist by feeding off the members' paranoia about being there for protection.

Just my 2p

Dan

 

God! Some of you sound like some crap Victorian style managers and also need to get up to speed on employment law!!! 'Let them buy their own bl00dy asbestos mask' I hear you say ' it's THEIR health so its THEIR cost!!!!' LOL

In my book the first duty of a manager is to keep his staff happy- not to be some tough bully boy as this is when the staff NEED unions and the manager spends his/her life managing conflict and an unhappy workforce, rather than getting on with the job! [I admit this may be easier in some industries than others mind...]

When I too was shop steward for BECTU in the TV industry some 15yrs ago, we had guaranteed things such as :

• Min 10 hour breaks between shifts (very useful if you had a LIFE!)
• Payments for curtailed mealbreaks
• Progressively increasing hourly rate for working past ten hours
• Pensions for staff employees
• Huge rates of pay for working overtime on Xmas day etc

All these things were to enure the management looked after staff and didnt exploit them - or if they did they were made to pay for it out of their profits...

All of these things are now completely out of the window of course and there is no such thing as a payment for a curtailed meal break for e.g - well how can there be as people eat their sandwich off their keyboards!!!

If you union bashers call that sort of stuff progress, well you have a different view of people's quality of life to me, and funnily enough my quality of life is FAR more important than a fat cat's bottom line!

D >waving a red flag<

 

I used to be in a union, but having asked for their assistance a couple of times it was apparent that unless I was a friend of a union rep, or that my particular circumstances happened to coincide with one of their pet projects they couldn't give a rats ***. Plus it was costing me £600 / year, so I left.

My view is that if both the company and the Union are going to shaft me, I'm not going to pay for the privilege

 

you cannt get me iam part of the union, you cannt get me iam part of the union, you cannt get me iam part of the union,till the day i die SHOWING MY AGE NOW WITH THAT SONG

 

You CAN get them mate - you just have to do it properly I've let many a muppet 'go' although it is less of a potential hassle if they have no union of course - and I actually speak as an Union member (geddit...?!!!

 

Unions do a great job for the union rep They also stick together and bully our great Labour goverment. They have helped put house price's so far out of reach of young people its amazing. Old boys sticking together and fooking everyone else should be applauded.

Do people honestly still believe in them? I know the underground managed to get a strike going for a bloke that got de-moted. He didn't get sacked, but they went for the day off thing. (Is someone driving through 10 red lights the sort of thing you would seriously go on strike about?)

[/rant]

 

Yep they have their place.

We have around 450 workers employed at our site and have three main unions for workers, supervisors/staff and management.
The unions are involved in all planning, safety and of course pay negotiations. There are weekly consultative meetings and the unions are inolved with all safety procedure meetings. The atmosphere is one of working together not against one another.

In an office environment things may be different but when your job involves highly dangerous activities then having some sort of workers group involvement is essential IMO.

On top of that we are required by law anyway to involve workers groups in working procedures, health and safety and site inspections

Cheers
Lee

 

I doubt you will get much more of a dangerous job than mine. But we don't need unions. We have correct training for the job and just sack anyone thats a liability. If your not up to the job, get another one. Don't expect everyone else to carry you.
I have been told before by a union rep that I couldn't work on a site in Manchester unless I joined his union. Yet people say that its the bosses that do the threatening

 

I'm sorry, but you what? WTF has the unions got to do with house prices? House prices are driven ENTIRELY by the Law of Supply and Demand, not by some weird backgroud dealings by unions. Hasn't even got anything to do with the government.

As for all these people who claimed the union didn't help them, without knowing the exact circumstances I can't really comment. But I can say that as long as management followed the rules then there is precious little the union can do anyway in most cases. And my experience of the union here (I work opposite the branch secretary) is that most people seeking union support don't deserve it - but tend to get it anyway.


M

 

What do you do Ben?

Cheers
Lee

 

I think he's a lion tamer isn't he?

 

Ben44 I think Logiclee works in Construction and in fact I think that is one of the most dangerous industries. More dangerous than being a fire man if I remember correctly. Any way why should people have to leave a job because the Management want the job done in an illegal or dangerous way. Unions exist for a reason but like companies some are better than others.

Meridian As for the Government affecting house prices I think you would find their policies in fact do have a direct effect as they can control the amount of land available for house building and by Tax breaks or penalties they can encourage or restrict people from wanting to buy or even build for sale houses.

 

Exactly.

Don't forget i'm posting from a management position here.

We are not really construction and I don't wan't to post the company name but the industry we are in kills 1000's of workers worldwide each year. Thankfully fatalaties are rare, but sadly still happen, in the UK thanks to our safety measures and procedures.
Saying that we still have around 8 major seriuos injuries per 100k manshifts at just our one site and accidents resulting in 3 or more days off at around 35 per 100k manshifts. Not good considerng we work over 120k manshifts a year but it's still world leading.

There is no safer way IMO than for all groups to sit down together and agree on the safest way to carry out a project.
I like to think that I'm highly trained, skilled and motivated but I've been rightly pulled up a few times on procedures I've put together that could be safer. We have HSE inspectors at least once a week but there is nothing better for safety than a workforce who are involved and consulted.

In places where management and unions are in conflict both sides need to take their fair share of the blame IMO.

Cheers
Lee

 

AFAIK (for instance) the government offers all sorts of incentives to build on brown-field sites, but almost nobody does - because they can sell green-field ones for much more than the government incentives. Sorry, the the Law of Supply and Demand trumps government policy every time. Yes, the government could rig the market substantially, but at a ruinous cost in tax terms. You also need to bear in mind that most people are NOT buying a house, and this want their property to go up in value as much as possible.

And this really ought to be a new thread...


M

 

Ben's post significantly confuses me, but if he feels safe and secure without an union that's no problem at all! Being part of a union just means that you have a large organisation that will focus on your welfare should the large organisation that you work for forget to do that for any reason. No big deal in my experience, and I've never needed them - but then I havent come across any real sharks yet Nice to have a stick if you need it!

D

 

Not always though. I had a serious accidnt in work and the unions paid my £3800 legal bill in full.

Chip