Ba Strike

[La_Dolce_Vita]

no its called comman sense.

if a company is losing cash and has to take cuts etc to keep going

is it not better for the staff etc to work with the company to reduce these costs to keep themselfs in a job. or just bight of the hand that feeds me.

 

if i worked for a company and they came to me, look you not getting a pay rise for 2 years cause we cant afford to pay you anymore at the moment.

i have 2 options except that or leave.

these ppl took the job knowing what wage they were going to get in the first place and where in most contracts does it say you will 100% get a pay rise.

so if they were happy then they should be happy now. if not leave.

No, it's not common sense. It's the outlook of someone who affords priority to the employers and to profit, and one that ignores the human element in this because you believe that the current system of economics/work which is hierarchical, features property ownership, and workers have no control over their work and where there is no democracy is right. I disagree entirely. We are not privileged people to be employer, we are slaves who have no choice but sell ourselves and give up control of our productive lives for a price. And when we are so utterly dependent on a wage simply to exist, we are going to try and maintain our security and get by day to day.

 

The current manner in which the means of production are controlled by the few create an antagonistic system of workers vs employer. It cannot be any other way. But while that system exists, we should support those whose survival and welfare is at stake. If that means a company goes bust and workers have to THEN find another job, so be it. It's a shit system that doesn't work very well, but the workers are the ones who get the very rough deal from it.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

The thing is the union cannot win this and they know it. But there is a big power struggle at the top of Unite at the moment (nothing to do with BA), and they are playing with BA over this leadership battle. It is horrendous that these power hungry union bosses can play with the very livelyhoods of these 40,000 workers like this and try to blame BA. This is 1970s union tactics at play.

BA is already playing with the livelihoods with groups of BA workers. It is already pressuring many of them to accept particular conditions of work, such as trying to get them to work part time or asking them to voluntary work (which just takes the piss!).

I am not a fan of the unions, but they aren't the problem.

However, I do have a few minor concerns over the methods the union use in taking action, as there were reports of the undemocratic nature of the decisionmaking, but I don't know whether I even trust the reports.

[gazza]

no its called comman sense.

if a company is losing cash and has to take cuts etc to keep going

is it not better for the staff etc to work with the company to reduce these costs to keep themselfs in a job. or just bight of the hand that feeds me.

 

if i worked for a company and they came to me, look you not getting a pay rise for 2 years cause we cant afford to pay you anymore at the moment.

i have 2 options except that or leave.

these ppl took the job knowing what wage they were going to get in the first place and where in most contracts does it say you will 100% get a pay rise.

so if they were happy then they should be happy now. if not leave.

No, it's not common sense. It's the outlook of someone who affords priority to the employers and to profit, and one that ignores the human element in this because you believe that the current system of economics/work which is hierarchical, features property ownership, and workers have no control over their work and where there is no democracy is right. I disagree entirely. We are not privileged people to be employer, we are slaves who have no choice but sell ourselves and give up control of our productive lives for a price. And when we are so utterly dependent on a wage simply to exist, we are going to try and maintain our security and get by day to day.

 

The current manner in which the means of production are controlled by the few create an antagonistic system of workers vs employer. It cannot be any other way. But while that system exists, we should support those whose survival and welfare is at stake. If that means a company goes bust and workers have to THEN find another job, so be it. It's a shit system that doesn't work very well, but the workers are the ones who get the very rough deal from it.

 

like your fantasy land would be any diffrent. it would not be history has proven that

[Cambon]

BA is already playing with the livelihoods with groups of BA workers. It is already pressuring many of them to accept particular conditions of work, such as trying to get them to work part time or asking them to voluntary work (which just takes the piss!).

I am not a fan of the unions, but they aren't the problem.

 

For the majority of BA staff all that has been asked of them is no pay rise this year. Most have accepted that. ALL BA staff are paid highly by comparison to most airlines. Tell me, if you earned, say, £30K a year where the average airline paid £20K a year for your job, and your boss said to you "Will you work for free for one month and not have a pay rise at the end of the year, and in return we can can continue to pay you £30K per year. Otherwise, we may have to review your salary down."

 

What would you do? Nearly all who were approached saw sense and did it.

 

BA is doing everything in it's power to not go bust and therefore support it's 40,000 staff, which probably transpires to well in excess of 100,000 livelyhoods. BA are not the problem here.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

like your fantasy land would be any diffrent. it would not be history has proven that

What fantasy land? History hasn't proven anything. How do you come to this idea?

 

Cambon

BA is doing everything in it's power to not go bust and therefore support it's 40,000 staff, which probably transpires to well in excess of 100,000 livelyhoods. BA are not the problem here.

Oh but they are. British Airlines recognised they were in trouble and resorted to making big cuts on their work force and pressuring airline staff to work voluntarily or part-time. In Oct 2009 they informed staff that there would be big changes to working conditions and staff numbers would reduce. The Union tried to stop this.

And the Unions and cabin crew have offered concessions. BA has rejected them completely.

 

I don't see the relevance of the pay of other cabin crew in other companies. A comparative with other people is in fact not relevant. The BA crew are accustomed to that pay level and expect to be receive pay increases, as they should! And two years is a significant period of time to go without one.

[sarahc]

Oh that's made my day...thanks fella.

 

So you dont read right wing middle-England friendly journalism....you watch it instead.

 

Oh no, have they been secretly brainwashing while I've been reading the news on their web site? Will I wake up one day and inexplicably send all my money to Murdoch :-)

 

 

Do you know Murdoch's history with unions? And why anything owned by him may not have a particularly favourable angle towards unions? Here's something to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute

 

It always pays to know the background of whichever news source you choose.

[mæŋksmən]

Oh that's made my day...thanks fella.

 

So you dont read right wing middle-England friendly journalism....you watch it instead.

 

Oh no, have they been secretly brainwashing while I've been reading the news on their web site? Will I wake up one day and inexplicably send all my money to Murdoch :-)

 

 

No you will just go on forums and talk crap based on their distorted world view.

Very popular if your a zionist.

[Right-Wing]

Oh that's made my day...thanks fella.

 

So you dont read right wing middle-England friendly journalism....you watch it instead.

 

Oh no, have they been secretly brainwashing while I've been reading the news on their web site? Will I wake up one day and inexplicably send all my money to Murdoch :-)

 

 

Do you know Murdoch's history with unions? And why anything owned by him may not have a particularly favourable angle towards unions? Here's something to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute

 

It always pays to know the background of whichever news source you choose.

 

Oh NO, I am going to send him all my money, I'm 100% on his side ... the brainwashing must be complete.

 

Employer employees employee to do a job.

Employee says he's not going to do what he agreed to in his/her contract, i.e. do a proper days work, because he/she is going on strike.

 

In my opinion there is only one course of action. Sack the employee for breaking their contract and give their job to someone who will be grateful for it. Strike should equal sack everytime in my opinion.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I think you are yet again devalueing the importance of the worker's welfare and ability to get by in life but this time over-exaggerating the importance of an employment contract. (Though I am not too sure if you're just trolling - anyone who would put Thatcher as their avatar pic has to be taking the pic or truly nutty.)

 

You might be forgetting that in this modern society you either have to sign control of your productive life away through employment contracts or you won't live. (Although some may become self-employment.) I don't have a choice about signing contracts to further my interest of feeding, clothing and providing shelter for myself. In such a way there are not really voluntarily contracts. I think it can be appreciated that such a way of things depreciates the significance of abiding by the contract.

 

Though again you seem to be arguing that the worker should be grateful for a job. Nobody should be grateful for simply having employment, not in today's society. It isn't a privilege, it's (almost) a necessity.

 

Trying to gauge just where you stand on matters by asking what you think workers should do if they had an issue with their employer.

A hypothetical and very unlikely story but say a factory employer in rather poor economic climate recognises that by switching off the heating in the factory he could make big savings. He never puts the heating on and this therefore makes the workers very cold at work. He also decides that he isn't making enough profit so decides to reduce wages by half.

What should the workers do?

[kevster]

You might be forgetting that in this modern society you either have to sign control of your productive life away through employment contracts or you won't live.

All of the contracts I've signed allow me to give notice of terminating that contract if I so wish. Hardly signing control of my life away

[kevster]

 

A hypothetical and very unlikely story but say a factory employer in rather poor economic climate recognises that by switching off the heating in the factory he could make big savings. He never puts the heating on and this therefore makes the workers very cold at work.

There is plenty of legislation that prevents that sort of thing from happening.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

All of the contracts I've signed allow me to give notice of terminating that contract if I so wish. Hardly signing control of my life away

You can terminate your contract but then you're are out of the job. You then have to re-enter into a contract to work. And such contracts are all very similar and involve the person signing over one's freedom and control of their work.

 

There is plenty of legislation that prevents that sort of thing from happening.

Forget the legislation, pretend it doesn't exist.

 

I am just trying to gauge Right-Wings stance to better understand his way of looking of things or rather how anti-working class he is.

[Cambon]

Oh but they are. British Airlines recognised they were in trouble and resorted to making big cuts on their work force and pressuring airline staff to work voluntarily or part-time. In Oct 2009 they informed staff that there would be big changes to working conditions and staff numbers would reduce. The Union tried to stop this.

And the Unions and cabin crew have offered concessions. BA has rejected them completely.

You are a troll and I claim my £5.00.

 

The union is barely talking to the cabin crew over this. They are being particularly difficult. Even this new bit about the ground staff is a simple matter of BA writing to it's ground staff to ask their opinions on proposed options for new working practices. The union get wind of this and basically say " What are you doing talking to your staff? You talk to us not your employees."

 

Last week, the TUC who are acting as conciliation agent, said to BA - if you put your most recent offer to the cabin crew back on the table we think we can get Unite to accept it, as they were very close to accepting it before. BA's response was - ok it is back on the table provided they don't announce strike dates before considering it, or the offer will be withdrawn. The Unite leaders knew ecactly what they were doing when they announced the strike dates the next day. And, they were not acting in the best interests of the BA employees.

 

The point that nobody seems to be picking up on this is that the Union cannot win. BA is about to merge with Iberia and they got the go ahead (finally) for a tie up with American airlines.

[jimbms]

The other thing that a lot seem to be missing is that this along with the looming rail strikes will do nothing to help the one eyed jock in the now soon to be general election across, how easy is it to manipulate ill feeling for the left wing by the general public by careful manipulation of the unions.

[kevster]

And such contracts are all very similar and involve the person signing over one's freedom and control of their work.

Contracts of employment are there to protect the rights of the employee as well as the employer.