Unions - geared up to oppose everything?

[otolith]

speedyman said:

otolith said:

speedyman said:

The government only gets a majority in parliment because of our first past the post system. More people did not vote for them when all votes are counted nationally, so how democratic is that.

Which of the other smaller minorities would you like to get its way?

Proportion representation would seem to me to be a better way to represent the electorate rather than the fake democracy we have which is only geared to a two party system.

There are arguments against our system, however we rejected a move to AV in 2011, and I suspect we would also reject a move to a PR system. And there are arguments against PR systems too, particularly those which weaken the link between constituent and representative. They also tend to make politics more opaque, with horse-trading, back room deals and minority parties gaining undue influence in return for loyalty. Basically, all democratic systems are terrible in one way or another.

[bitchstewie]

oyster said:

bhstewie said:

I think some of it is that the union exposure many of us have is limited to seeing the likes of Len McClusky and Bob Crow when he was still alive.

I think they undo a lot of the good and useful work that unions can do - "no such thing as bad publicity" really isn't true.

Bob Crow was a fantastic union leader. He was paid by his members and his members did very well out of him.

In some ways you could argue that he was as good as any FTSE100 CEO out there in terms of his results.

Oh if you were a union member I don't doubt it for the moment.

But to everyone who wasn't you probably don't remember him for those achievements because you didn't see him on TV talking about them very often, you did see him on TV threatening to cause chaos through strikes so most people probably remember him for that - I do because the media only ever showed one side of the story.

I'm not disputing the results, and he was likely very good for his members, but I think he was a PR disaster in how anyone other than his members will view the union he represented.

[rambo19]

bhstewie said:

Oh if you were a union member I don't doubt it for the moment.

But to everyone who wasn't you probably don't remember him for those achievements because you didn't see him on TV talking about them very often, you did see him on TV threatening to cause chaos through strikes so most people probably remember him for that - I do because the media only ever showed one side of the story.

I'm not disputing the results, and he was likely very good for his members, but I think he was a PR disaster in how anyone other than his members will view the union he represented.

His PR did not matter though, he got his members excellent t&c's, and that is what matters.

[Dr Jekyll]

speedyman said:

Proportion representation would seem to me to be a better way to represent the electorate rather than the fake democracy we have which is only geared to a two party system.

If a party can come up with a manifesto than appeals to > 50% of the population it will have no difficulty winning under first past the post. If no party can do so then whoever is in power can be accused of being opposed by a majority, irrespective of the electoral system.

Proportional representation is based on the theory that you can gauge support for a coalition by adding together support for the constituent parties. So if the 'drive on the left' party gets 45% of the vote and the 'drive on the right' party gets 40%. Then the resulting coalition is assumed to be supported by 85% when they announce that everyone should drive in the middle.

[deadslow]

ALT F4 said:

I'm just wondering how petty and far reaching they will go?

Well, they're paid to represent the interests of their members, just like a solicitor is paid to represent the interests of their client. If a solicitor was representing you, how petty and far reaching would you want them to go?

[speedyman]

Dr Jekyll said:

speedyman said:

Proportion representation would seem to me to be a better way to represent the electorate rather than the fake democracy we have which is only geared to a two party system.

If a party can come up with a manifesto than appeals to > 50% of the population it will have no difficulty winning under first past the post. If no party can do so then whoever is in power can be accused of being opposed by a majority, irrespective of the electoral system.

Proportional representation is based on the theory that you can gauge support for a coalition by adding together support for the constituent parties. So if the 'drive on the left' party gets 45% of the vote and the 'drive on the right' party gets 40%. Then the resulting coalition is assumed to be supported by 85% when they announce that everyone should drive in the middle.

Not sure your analogy using cars is valid. So with first past the post the uk will continue to lurch from right to left for ever like a drunk staggering down the road.

[Dr Jekyll]

speedyman said:

ot sure your analogy using cars is valid. So with first past the post the uk will continue to lurch from right to left for ever like a drunk staggering down the road.

If that's what the electorate vote for, yes. What would you prefer?

[speedyman]

Dr Jekyll said:

speedyman said:

ot sure your analogy using cars is valid. So with first past the post the uk will continue to lurch from right to left for ever like a drunk staggering down the road.

If that's what the electorate vote for, yes. What would you prefer?

It seems to me the Tory party have a lot to say about the way unions vote and want to change that.

So why not a general election if their so concerned about democracy.

Let's say a version PR, that gets rid of the two party, first past the post system which has had its day.
We have more than two parties in British politics and the current system does not reflect that reality. And we all know it.

[sidicks]

speedyman said:

It seems to me the Tory party have a lot to say about the way unions vote and want to change that.

So why not a general election if their so concerned about democracy.

We had one recently - the Tories won...

speedyman said:

Let's say a version PR, that gets rid of the two party, first past the post system which has had its day.
We have more than two parties in British politics and the current system does not reflect that reality. And we all know it.

PR was discussed and voted on recently. It lost!

[otolith]

The change in voting that we had a referendum on wasn't actually PR, but I suspect the result would have been the same had it been.

[crankedup]

speedyman said:

Dr Jekyll said:

speedyman said:

Proportion representation would seem to me to be a better way to represent the electorate rather than the fake democracy we have which is only geared to a two party system.

If a party can come up with a manifesto than appeals to > 50% of the population it will have no difficulty winning under first past the post. If no party can do so then whoever is in power can be accused of being opposed by a majority, irrespective of the electoral system.

Proportional representation is based on the theory that you can gauge support for a coalition by adding together support for the constituent parties. So if the 'drive on the left' party gets 45% of the vote and the 'drive on the right' party gets 40%. Then the resulting coalition is assumed to be supported by 85% when they announce that everyone should drive in the middle.

Not sure your analogy using cars is valid. So with first past the post the uk will continue to lurch from right to left for ever like a drunk staggering down the road.

I don't think lurching left to right will happen, unless we experience problems such as in Greece. Labour under Corbyn are to far left at the moment and will need to moderate more to centre ground. Sorry to say this but Blair had the correct idea's to achieve Labour Governments. The Tories have had to adopt a nearer centre ground for the same reasons as Labour, that is where the majority of votes are.

[Dr Jekyll]

speedyman said:

It seems to me the Tory party have a lot to say about the way unions vote and want to change that.

So why not a general election if their so concerned about democracy.

Let's say a version PR, that gets rid of the two party, first past the post system which has had its day.
We have more than two parties in British politics and the current system does not reflect that reality. And we all know it.

We've just had a general election.

In any case the point I am making is that any party with a manifesto that appeals to >50% of the population will win comfortably under first past the post. If nobody can come up with such a manifesto then whoever is in power will only please a minority whichever electoral system you use.

[Robertj21a]

It says something when Labour only got in under Blair when he changed horses and went for a manifesto that could have been written by the Conservatives !. How he got away with that is still quite incredible, and must be the bane of many a Socialist's life.

[speedyman]

Robertj21a said:

It says something when Labour only got in under Blair when he changed horses and went for a manifesto that could have been written by the Conservatives !. How he got away with that is still quite incredible, and must be the bane of many a Socialist's life.

All parties change or they die. Camerons government is nothing like Thatchers. The convervatives have had their times in the wildernes to.

[crankedup]

Robertj21a said:

It says something when Labour only got in under Blair when he changed horses and went for a manifesto that could have been written by the Conservatives !. How he got away with that is still quite incredible, and must be the bane of many a Socialist's life.

Very much so, however,are there really any true red socialists in the UK?

[speedyman]

Only if you read the daily mail, there's commys everywhere according to them. Even doctors are now raging trots.

[crankedup]

speedyman said:

Only if you read the daily mail, there's commys everywhere according to them. Even doctors are now raging trots.

One of my older bro's lives politically on the left, he still has the 'Morning Star' newspaper. His lifelong pal went onto a highly successful career with, IIRC, The Bank of America. They still remained pals dispite very opposing political views, political discussions were extremely low on the chinwag list. Martin went on to become a multi millionaire whilst bro' didn't, but he was not driven by money. Martin was ruthless in all business, whether at work or employing people for his home maintenance jobs.
Martins father was a true communist, not a PH commie, a true communist, his son seemed to take an opposite POV.! Unusual relationships if you include the politics!

[skyrover]

crankedup said:

Very much so, however,are there really any true red socialists in the UK?

read the guardian comments section.

[hairyben]

Derek Smith said:

When working in a factory I was part of the union committee. Life as a union rep bore no relationship to what I've read on PH. We were lied to by the bosses, time and time again. We'd have an agreement and they'd go back on it. The lads were once offered enhanced rates to get a special job out and it wasn't paid.

^that

I joined the contracting side of an electric board mid 90's as the dust of privatisation was settling; significant wage cuts were agreed to by the union as part of the "necessary" streamlining process but without going TL:DR not only were all the promises regarding further wage cuts, job losses, pension protection all renegated on but they persisted in carrying a the top-heavy ivory tower of management with their public-sector mentality, game playing, annual top-down re-organisations etc. Eventually they ran the whole outfit into the ground - As I understand it M.E.B. (contracting), not so long ago an institution, a huge electrical contractor covering many major cities and 10% or so of the country, no longer exists in any form - compare that with say the profitability of british gas in-home services and the scale of their incompetence should be clear. The sad thing is if the union had tried to fight them harder we might have had a different outcome, yet many on here would refuse to look past "bloody trotskys wah wah"

dcb said:

1. Germany doesn't have the us'n'them culture of the UK.

This is the crux of the matter. I hear constantly of how the striking British worker killed the british car industry, but british workers build loads of cars very successfully - under the management of ze germans, le french, re japanese. Oh look, all countries with massively strong union cultures too. Tell me, who couldn't do their job again?

[Derek Smith]

Indeed.

I worked in a print firm, 5-year apprenticeship. On top of that I paid for two years of evening classes, one year two nights a week and the second year just one. I treated the job seriously.

The firm treated us as the enemy despite us being compliant. In my twelve years as a printer I was never on strike. Once we worked to rule, that was after the firm refused to pay what they had agreed to pay before the work was completed. The men were furious. The firm did no more than make a call to the NGA union, down came and officials who told us to work normally.

Much in the right leaning press was made of the belligerent print unions, including mine, with the move of papers away from Fleet street. Did you read of what happened at The Guardian where the ethos between the management and unions was much different? Of course not.

There were print firms where the union rep, Father of the Chapel in the jargon, would be part of the management team for operational matters. These tended to have little turnover of staff and were difficult to get into.

Both Crow and Scargill increased the wages and working conditions of their members. They did their job. You could, and perhaps should, suggest that there were only short and medium term targets of both, but boy, you could, and must, say the same about management of all the firms I worked for.

One firm I worked for bought a second hand machine from a company sell off. They got it cheap because it was yesterday's technology. The only problem was that no one knew how to work it. There were no courses available as the company had gone bust and despite advertising for staff, got no replies. It was installed and removed within a couple of months. If they'd asked the FotC he'd have told them. But they were management, we (although this happened before I joined the company) were just the ones who knew all about the work the company got paid for.

Whilst the massive fail was not typical, such attitudes were. In the end I didn't bother telling them when they were wrong as it only ended up with me being told to get on with it.