If it were legal most firms would pay higher wages to non union members - its a fallacy that unions always negotiate the best T&Cs. Significant numbers of people have lost their jobs because of the actions of unions - my own industry has seen huge factory closures, the PLC I work for has closed 13 in five years - the first to go are always those where UNITE has a significant presence.

Are you suggesting that if you are not a union member - I have never been a union member - that if the union calls a strike in the firm you work for you should also strike?

I only ever had experience of working in one unionised industry, electrical contracting in the 1970s where every qualified electrician was a member of the EEPTU, it being virtually compulsory especially if you wanted to work on larger projects.

From memory they were a "mild" union in that we didn't have any strikes for the ten years I was in that trade and annual pay increases were simply agreed with the employers trade organisation, the ECA and others, from memory Frank Chapple was considered to be a moderate leader and from inside the trade he certainly kept a level playing field - reading a quick resume of his union in Wiki its obvious that he ruffled a few feathers in the TUC with his policy of single union agreements and they eventually evicted the EEPTU from the TUC



The only thing that ever caused us problems as employers was the strict dogma of no bonus payments on building sites, there were two rates for the two grades of electricians and they were considered to be the rate for the job, overtime rates were pre-agreed and that was that.

Of course in the real world both employers and employees would apply bonus schemes to contracts, we did it all the time, it was actually my job to survey the sites and work out the bonus targets for each section of work, and then pay them when complete within the time allotted - all of this was strictly against the union code and we would have had strikes called if they had found out, truth is that no-one told the union because it benefited everyone, our electricians earned the bonus on top of their standard rates for completing work quicker than estimated, and the company made more profit from doing so - we only ever had one very strong union electrician and he and I would spend hours sitting on drums of cable discussing his political views which rested somewhere to the left of Marx until eventually he'd look at his watch and declare that he'd better get on because he was on a good bonus run this week and he'd lost two hours already gabbing to me.

And THATS where I learned of the power of money over principal

Boasting about being a scab makes you look like a complete w@nker.

Without trades unions most firms would be paying subsistence wages for working in horrendous conditions. Improvements to pay and conditions that have benefited the workforce have rarely,if ever, been instigated by employers. Collective bargaining also suits many large employers because of its simplicity. I know you will argue that all of that is in the past and there is now no need for unions but I would counter that with asking you to look at what this government wants to do to the national labour force.

Cameron is busily stamping his feet for reform of the EU and repatriation of powers back to the UK. Most of what he wants to exercise greater control over is labour law, basically he wants to reduce or remove the safeguards that have been achieved over years of struggle. Thatcher's Right to Buy and the big bang had nothing to do with empowering the individual, it was all about creating a workforce of compliant wage-slaves. By shifting the emphasis from savings to ever-increasing personal debt, she achieved this without most people noticing.

I'm not surprised that you've never been a member of a trade union but while you've been enjoying a pay freeze (a cut effectively), has the same happened to the executives of your orgnisation or their shareholders? If I was ever in a situation where non-union labour decided to cross a picket line, there's little I could do about it, apart from ignore them, on a personal level, afterwards.

Bang on. The one thing that rarely gets mentioned is how Thatcher and, in fairness, the political classes have allowed a major fracture to occur in the average working relationship. Before the 1980s employees could expect that their loyalty would be rewarded or that's how people felt. When the relaxation of employment law came it made it much easier for companies in the UK to fold/close down business operations in the UK and move them overseas. This isn't the case in countries like Germany and France where employment law dictates that such sweeping and wholesale changes to local economies have a much more stringent process for this that normally hinders such multinationals. In the UK we don't have that kind of employment protection.

As this happened so the UK workforce has realised that if you commit yourself to a company there is no guarantee that you will share in its success. Even companies which are successful in the UK have seen some of their operations move overseas. One of my recent employes was a £250m business in Liverpool which has an 80% market share, year-on-year growth in double figures (for over 20 years) and makes a lot of money from it. Its parent company, Danone, moves in and is slowly moving personnel and production from the Liverpool site into its cheaper subsidiaries and factories overseas. That is the company's prerogative in the modern day of course, however, this is a very successful business built by talent and individuals from the Liverpool area, providing lots of jobs to the local area through it.

Organisations want commitment and effort from its workforce but when work is so transient it undermines that, creates insecurity within individuals and eventually long-term mental health problems for the UK workforce and social problems that we have to pick up as taxpayers. Alternatively we ignore them and then face epidemics of whole communities that slowly die and become trapped in the welfare cycle that the political classes then demonise.

The Sin Bin should be rename Jurrasic Park

Flying pickets, the Closed Shop and intimidation.

Now we are seeing the REAL "socialist" come out.

Spot on.

Haha

You really are a bitter and twisted Communist who is living in another era aren't you?

Ironically you are exactly the reason that many of us supported Thatcher and saw the need for change.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with a Trade Union that behaves reasonably and is there to ensure fairness, there is everything wrong with them having too much power and breeding the kind of lovely person that you come across as.

Thatcher chewed you up and spat you out like a discarded piece of chewing gum. No wonder you are bitter.

Does it?

What happened to democracy and freedom of choice?

True. A similar paradox arises when large companies and multi-national corporations demand tax breaks and employ tax avoidance techniques.

Those companies demand a well-educated, healthy and secure workforce while simultaneously trying very hard to avoid paying for the welfare policies that will provide them with such a workforce.

No-one forces people to work for a particular company. Last time I checked, slavery was still illegal.

I really cannot understand this feeling that the employee is somehow "entitled" to anything.

I've always been very simple about these matters. I go to work, I get paid. If I believe this is a good arrangment I stay, if I believe it isn't, or believe I could get a better one, I move.

It's not rocket science. I've never had a chip on my shoulder, never thought the world owed me a living. The last 3 years are a classic case - a wage freeze, coupled with inflation is effectively a pay cut. I have two choices- to stay in the current role or to leave.

As for the employer, well they will pay the employee whatever is needed to maximise profit. And why shouldn't they? They are the ones taking the risks, they should make the decisions.