The Spring of Discontent

We now have three unions in a row who have all decided to go out on strike.

Unite has been striking against British Airways.
The RMT will be striking against Network Rail
Now the GMB will be striking against Britsih Gas.

Did I fall asleep and wake up in the late 1970's???

Perhaps they are hoping for more concessions from Gordon Brown in return for some extra funding?

They are dinosaurs from an old age hoping to try and squeeze as much money out of a business before taking it down. The union bosses do not care abuot their workers, they only care about how much power and influence they can garner in the short time between now and the next election.

What's really bad is they would rather see the businesses go down and put all the members out of work, than for the business to succeed.

I really hope they lose.

Huh.

As someone who lived through the Seventies, I've been getting odd deja vu for a while.

Is stagflation next?

Striking during a global economic crisis, yep that makes sense. The minute I read the preview of your thread, I was thinking, 70s, oh no, not again.

Why are they striking exactly.

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Originally posted by hatesfreedom

Why are they striking exactly.

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Because the want to keep the same gilt edged privileges that they had in the 70s without caring if the companies can actually afford them any more.

Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want.

I thought BA, for one, had asked its workers to do month's labor without pay?

Yes, they had.

I don't know just what the various contract disputes behind the strike might have been - but with that kind of history, I can understand a lot of anger on the part of the workers. Even if it may mean risking the company's survival. If there were even a scent of negotiations not occurring in good faith, I think there'd be a huge reservoir of anger for the unions to draw on to support a strike.

Don't forget civil servants are on strike today, too.

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Originally posted by OtakuLoki

I thought BA, for one, had asked its workers to do month's labor without pay?

Yes, they had.

I don't know just what the various contract disputes behind the strike might have been - but with that kind of history, I can understand a lot of anger on the part of the workers. Even if it may mean risking the company's survival. If there were even a scent of negotiations not occurring in good faith, I think there'd be a huge reservoir of anger for the unions to draw on to support a strike.

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Actually BA asked everyone working for them regardless of rank to work free for a month. From executive to baggage handler.

This strike is more about keeping the perks and pensions going forward from the time it was a nationally owned airline, which are no longer affordable by today's businesses.

There is probably bad faith on both sides, but Unite is using this as a political football, not as a means to assist the workers.

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Originally posted by CatInASuit

Actually BA asked everyone working for them regardless of rank to work free for a month. From executive to baggage handler.

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It's pretty easy to imagine why that would be a tougher proposition for the baggage handlers, though.

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Originally posted by Exy

It's pretty easy to imagine why that would be a tougher proposition for the baggage handlers, though.

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No kidding.

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Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

No kidding.

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Just because you are a lowly baggage handler, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be prepared for the shit hitting the fan. What would you rather do - work for free for a few months and still have a job at the end of it, or jump into a very uncertain job market where there's no guarantee you'll be employed at all?

And it needn't mean working entirely for free. You could agree to be paid back when the business was booming again.

/Shrug/

No one who works from paycheque to paycheque is going to be happy about giving up a month's pay. No amount of looking at the big picture is going to change that.

The Civil Service/public workers unions here have been taking industrial action too. It is hard to explain to some that most of those jobs are value added, ie they don't directly bring money into the coffers and thus don't pay for themselves, and that when the private sectors suffers they have to too. The public sector unions here have amassed a huge amount of perks that would be the envy of most privately employed people. Part of the problem is that a moratorium on public sector employment should have been put in place earlier than it actually was. We now have a bloated civil service and no means of easily streamlining it. We're a small country and don't need all that many public servants.

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Originally posted by Exy

It's pretty easy to imagine why that would be a tougher proposition for the baggage handlers, though.

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Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

/Shrug/

No one who works from paycheque to paycheque is going to be happy about giving up a month's pay. No amount of looking at the big picture is going to change that.

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The work free for a month was voluntary, no-one was forced to work without pay for the month. Also, it wasn't as if their entire pay was just absent for a month. It was more along the lines of getting a pay reduction instead for several months in a row.

Now match that off against the free flights and perks they get for working for BA.