Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Recently went to a briefing about my companies pay awards and was very pleased at the result, a result in no small measure directly due to the unions role in the negotiations. I know many in other companies or public services who will not get a pay increase this year, nor did they last year or the year before so you have to put this in perspective. Moreover, emplyees of the union will not get a pay increase this year so they can hardly be accused of feathering their own nests. What does hack me off a bit though is the continuing underlining pressure -well,maybe pressure is too strong a word but you get my drift-that due to the union having integral links to the TUC we must all support the Labour party. Now I recognize the need to lobby to effect changes in the law but this seems wrong to me though I guess you could argue that there isnt really a better alternative to achieve results. Dont get me wrong, I fully sign up to the majority of the values the union has (eg equal opps/anti-racism etc) and I fully recognise that many of the rights we now take forgranted would not be there without the perseverance of the unions but I have a right to support whatever policies or political party I want. Private companies are there for one thing-to make their owners/shareholders money and providing jobs to them is just a side benefit. They wouldnt give out various pay increases unless they had to, there was always a benefit to the company. For example, Henry Ford didnt pay his workers more purely out of the goodness of his heart, he did it for sound business reasons (inc loyalty/productivity and the fact that they could earn enough to eventually buy a model T themselves and hence put money back into the company) and we cannot  go back to relying on the philanthropic Quakerism of a Seebholm Rowntree or George Cadbury to look after their workers. For these reasons unions remain,for me, essential. What they must do is to move with the times and not try to be the lumbering dinasaurs they were in the past. How they manage to effect changes in law without being affiliated so strongly to the Labour party is the moot point

I broadly agree.....J...