UNITE shows it's true colours
Discussion
Dave 500 said:
mattmoxon said:
Tanker drivers earning £40k - fair enough I can't say I'd like to be driving around with 6000+ gallons of highly flammable material 10ft behind me. Danger money I believe it is called.
When did the last one go bang?http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2746953.stm
But when things do go wrong, you have Buncefield.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire
Which is thought to have been caused by fuel vapour escaping and as it is heavier than air, rolling down-hill until it was ignited.
Edited by mp3manager on Monday 10th January 02:11
Its amusing to see the PH-Massiv, who usually act as though they feel sorry for Bill Gates as he struggles by on a meagre income, showing their jealousy towards tanker drivers (who they seem to presume are beneath them, along with all other vocational licence holders), for earning more money than them.....
I know that forums bring out the worst aspects of some peoples characters; but there are some prize bell-ends here.
An HGV licence-holding public shcool boy.
I know that forums bring out the worst aspects of some peoples characters; but there are some prize bell-ends here.
An HGV licence-holding public shcool boy.
Dave 500 said:
mattmoxon said:
Tanker drivers earning £40k - fair enough I can't say I'd like to be driving around with 6000+ gallons of highly flammable material 10ft behind me. Danger money I believe it is called.
When did the last one go bang?Big enough for you?
GC8 said:
Its amusing to see the PH-Massiv, who usually act as though they feel sorry for Bill Gates as he struggles by on a meagre income, showing their jealousy towards tanker drivers (who they seem to presume are beneath them, along with all other vocational licence holders), for earning more money than them.....
not care that they earn more than me, driving on a very large bomb every day is not fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb4pas_7JLo&fea... looks better than our link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb4pas_7JLo&fea... looks better than our link
Eagerbeaver said:
My experience in the recent years has been that unions have done nothing but lose us jobs and make us uncompetitive.
You think we (as a nation) have been competitive? How so? We've had North Sea oil to prop us up for a decade or three, whereas Germany (for instance) has had to absorb a bankrupt communist state, at terrific expense.So which country still has an enviable production capacity, and which country is the world's biggest exporter? Who's cars does the world like to buy?
I think you might need to redefine your definition of 'competitive'.
r11co said:
GC8 said:
Its amusing to see the PH-Massiv, who usually act as though they feel sorry for Bill Gates as he struggles by on a meagre income, showing their jealousy towards tanker drivers (who they seem to presume are beneath them, along with all other vocational licence holders), for earning more money than them.....
x2 - the PH notion of 'jealousy' never fails to amuse me. It seems we have a significantly large number of people on this site who are convinced that the world is jealous of them (see any thread where a car is vandalised, taxes are put up or someone launches a protest about pay and conditions), and yet it seems they're consumed with jealousy themselves.I'm constantly accused of jealousy on here day-in day-out by angry people seemingly incapable of enjoying anything unless it cost them a fortune, such are their high standards they're oh-so-eager to share with us all. I assure you all - I am not. PH is a permanent monument to the fact that money can't buy you happiness.
heebeegeetee said:
Eagerbeaver said:
My experience in the recent years has been that unions have done nothing but lose us jobs and make us uncompetitive.
You think we (as a nation) have been competitive? How so? We've had North Sea oil to prop us up for a decade or three, whereas Germany (for instance) has had to absorb a bankrupt communist state, at terrific expense.So which country still has an enviable production capacity, and which country is the world's biggest exporter? Who's cars does the world like to buy?
I think you might need to redefine your definition of 'competitive'.
I have spent much of my working life in industry and I have seen the same thing happen time and time again. Forced pay rises get paid for out of money that should have been invested R&D, marketing, expansion etc. Funds are not available for these areas so we end up with a stale product that is overpriced compared to our competitors overseas, we lose market share, we either move overseas or get bought out by a foreign competitor. Either way, the poor bods who were "helped" by the unions end up being out of work and eventually getting work at a more "realistic rate".
That is what I mean by competitive.
There is no disputing your statements but the UK took a long time to get to where it is today and so did Germany. What do we do to reverse the trend?
elanfan said:
What makes me sick about these union leaders is their assumption that all their members support them in their political agenda. I'm a Unite member and politically opposite to this t
t - unfortunately I do not have any say in his views. The unite membership is undoubtedly weighted in favour of labour supporters but being also a white collar union I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a health percentage of members that do not agree with his views.
In my opinion there should be legislation banning the political aspects of unions - if Red Len wants to be a politician let him stand for Parliament (and let's see how far that gets him). Unions should be representing ALL of their membership not just the percentage that suits them. Just hope Mr Cameron has a little of Mrs Thatch's backbone
Don't unions have to ballot their members before calling a strike, not just assume the members are in support?t - unfortunately I do not have any say in his views. The unite membership is undoubtedly weighted in favour of labour supporters but being also a white collar union I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a health percentage of members that do not agree with his views.In my opinion there should be legislation banning the political aspects of unions - if Red Len wants to be a politician let him stand for Parliament (and let's see how far that gets him). Unions should be representing ALL of their membership not just the percentage that suits them. Just hope Mr Cameron has a little of Mrs Thatch's backbone
Eagerbeaver said:
I have spent much of my working life in industry and I have seen the same thing happen time and time again. Forced pay rises get paid for out of money that should have been invested R&D, marketing, expansion etc.
Funny. I recently heard a description of the financial sector in the UK (ie. the one 'industry' that the UK was supposed to be successful in for the last 2 decades) that was similar to the above, only it was massive bonuses (wage rises!) and dividends paid out to shareholders that would have been better re-invested or at the very least retained as capital reserves on the balance sheet, which would have largely avoided the UK financial meltdown.....Edited by r11co on Monday 10th January 18:31
IMHO the unions are getting windy because they know that a side effect of the Coalition delivering efficiency savings - a.k.a. getting things to trun properly, as they should have been all along - is a diminution in unionsied workers and a massive reduction in their political relevance. Since the unions and Liebor are are interdependant this is, of course, a happy coincidence for the ConDems.
Unions [i]can[i/] work - Germany proves this - but only when they are facing in the right direction. However, that employment legislation - the majority of which is Eurpean and not British - makes them largely redundant and perhaps an expensive irrelevance in the present day.
Unions [i]can[i/] work - Germany proves this - but only when they are facing in the right direction. However, that employment legislation - the majority of which is Eurpean and not British - makes them largely redundant and perhaps an expensive irrelevance in the present day.
Eagerbeaver said:
heebeegeetee said:
Eagerbeaver said:
My experience in the recent years has been that unions have done nothing but lose us jobs and make us uncompetitive.
You think we (as a nation) have been competitive? How so? We've had North Sea oil to prop us up for a decade or three, whereas Germany (for instance) has had to absorb a bankrupt communist state, at terrific expense.So which country still has an enviable production capacity, and which country is the world's biggest exporter? Who's cars does the world like to buy?
I think you might need to redefine your definition of 'competitive'.
I have spent much of my working life in industry and I have seen the same thing happen time and time again. Forced pay rises get paid for out of money that should have been invested R&D, marketing, expansion etc. Funds are not available for these areas so we end up with a stale product that is overpriced compared to our competitors overseas, we lose market share, we either move overseas or get bought out by a foreign competitor. Either way, the poor bods who were "helped" by the unions end up being out of work and eventually getting work at a more "realistic rate".
That is what I mean by competitive.
There is no disputing your statements but the UK took a long time to get to where it is today and so did Germany. What do we do to reverse the trend?
They don't work as hard as us either, though i think that thanks to better management they still manage to be far more productive.
heebeegeetee said:
I imagine that german workers have a wage rise most years, and germany has usually been an expensive country, with high wage costs. They also have strong unions.
They don't work as hard as us either, though i think that thanks to better management they still manage to be far more productive.
The unions in Germany are strong but the partnership between the unions and the employer appears to work better. I say better - there is a partnership with many shared goals whereas my experience of unions in the UK is that they start with the principal that they are going to get screwed so they screw harder - hence we're all screwed.They don't work as hard as us either, though i think that thanks to better management they still manage to be far more productive.
In Germany, productivity and quality based pay incentives are also more widely accepted. The average British worker of the 70s only saw this as piece work. The result of piece work being that we are all screwed.
Regarding working harder - the German working hours are not as long as typical UK hours in the industries I've been involved in but I have seen them work smarter. There were more shop floor originating initiatives which generated improved productivity and of course improved income for everyone.
What really upsets me though is the way that "emerging" economies are showing us up.
My friend at a well known household products Company lost his job as a process worker as the plant moved to Eastern Europe. He was involved in the technology transfer and the guys there were producing a noticeably more product than in the UK at a fraction of the wage cost.
Our Company has recently moved a plant to Romania and the work ethic there is unbelievably good.
Eagerbeaver said:
heebeegeetee said:
I imagine that german workers have a wage rise most years, and germany has usually been an expensive country, with high wage costs. They also have strong unions.
They don't work as hard as us either, though i think that thanks to better management they still manage to be far more productive.
The unions in Germany are strong but the partnership between the unions and the employer appears to work better. I say better - there is a partnership with many shared goals whereas my experience of unions in the UK is that they start with the principal that they are going to get screwed so they screw harder - hence we're all screwed.They don't work as hard as us either, though i think that thanks to better management they still manage to be far more productive.
In Germany, productivity and quality based pay incentives are also more widely accepted. The average British worker of the 70s only saw this as piece work. The result of piece work being that we are all screwed.
Regarding working harder - the German working hours are not as long as typical UK hours in the industries I've been involved in but I have seen them work smarter. There were more shop floor originating initiatives which generated improved productivity and of course improved income for everyone.
What really upsets me though is the way that "emerging" economies are showing us up.
My friend at a well known household products Company lost his job as a process worker as the plant moved to Eastern Europe. He was involved in the technology transfer and the guys there were producing a noticeably more product than in the UK at a fraction of the wage cost.
Our Company has recently moved a plant to Romania and the work ethic there is unbelievably good.
heebeegeetee said:
The germans aren't moving all their factories to eastern europe though.
No not all but just a few that we deal with that have moved manufacturing East include;Audi Hungaria (manufacture the TT)
Siemens Hungary
Siemens Poland
Tyco
ZF (transmission manufacture)
Egis (pharmaceutical)
BASF
VW
Mercedes Benz
Freudenberg
Etc - etc
Other western companies include Caterpiller, Terex, Rolls Royce, Alstom, Saint Gobain etc etc.
Didn't Ikea make their fortune by moving manufacture of their flat pack goods to Poland as the Swedish furniture union was trying to screw them?
The Germans did have the benefit of cheap labour from Turkey though which helped in the 80s and 90s. We didn't see that until the Poles came to the UK but by then the country was pretty much done for in terms of manufacturing.
One company we deal with that I've had a lot of personal knowledge of is a multi million $ manufacturer power generation eqquipment. In the 70s/80s the plant was just outside Manchester. There were some fantastic engineers there and it was known locally that "it was a good screw" to work there. The plant moved to France where there was "better productivity". Next thing is the French lads are up the road and the plant moves to Poland for "better productivity".
It nearly brought a tear to my eye to visit the Polish plant recently which had been open about 10 years. They had the same equipment making updated versions of the same items as they were in the UK in the 80s on about the same rate of pay as we were paying in the 80s (in some cases less). There are some great engineers there. Talking to the local Polish lads, they were telling me "it's a good screw here"!!!
I woke up this morning to the news of the potential for industrial action at Heinz in Wigan. Just ignore the 3.2% rise that is being offered because if you dig deeper there are strings which mean change for everyone. Nobody likes change when it means they are worse off but every comapny is under pressure to increase profits. If the foke at Heinz were on low wages and poor bonuses I could accept it but I know some of the people there and the conditions are actually very good. The biggest bone of contention appears to be that you lose bonus if you are off sick more than 11 days a year. The management offering this to try to reduce absenteeism and their target is 4%. Not exactly unreasonable if you are trying to run high volume plant that needs a reliable workforce.
I feel sorry for the poor folk who will go with the flow and probably take strike action. They probably believe that in this world economy it is unreasoanble to expect some concession to remain competitive. They'll lose money and in the worst case - lose jobs.
Unions were introduced to protect the workers - whose going to protect the workers from the unions?
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