Unions - The Labour Party - Class - Politics and all that stuff

[DavidF]

Quite a few political minds on this forum. And lots of people who have a view on current affairs ect. I was just thinking about the Labour party and the unions and the left wing politics in general. I thought I would fire out a few questions/points to see what you peoples thoughts were. So here goes. -
1. Why have we got to left any more ? - I will embellish a little on this - I think and feel it is now unfashionable and almost seen as "dirty" to proclaim yourself as a left wing politic supporter. I believe the media have all got together with the majority of right wing mp's politicians and created a completely secular class system where you only have a voice if you have been privately educated and are in the upper middle class or the elite.
It has been shown in studies done that most of the media these days have come from private education backgrounds. This is also reflected in MP's - Hop many currently serving MP's at westminster have come from state education ? How many have come from a working class background ? Not many if any is my answer. How can this be considered to be representative of the general uk public ?
2. Why do the public despise the unions so much ? The unions could and should be our collective voice. Why have we all followed the mantra that unions are bad and if you subscribe to unions you will end up with rotting rubbish in the streets and your electric will go off - this is what happened at one point in the 70's. But what about the 70 years before hand when unions fought for the people ? Why have we now discarded all of that hard work ?
I like to think of the film "The Life of Brian" and the scene where they are debating round the table and the head honcho says what have the romans ever done for us ? Only to be met with a whole barrage of positive things they had done - I think of the unions position nowadays like that.
What have the unions done for us ?
1. Wage agreements
2. Health and safety
3. Workers rights
4. Minimum wage negotiations
5. Created the labour party - as a voice for the working classes
6. Equal rights for women
7. Equal rights for ethnics
The list goes on and on far too much to mention - here is a youtube video parody showing whati mean


So why is almost everyone so anti union ? Why does the labour party not follow their paymasters orders ? (the conservatives do exactly what their paymasters order them to do). The Labour party was created by the unions ffs. We the people created the unions. How has it come to the point where we essentially have turkeys voting for christmas ?

Along similar lines, Why do people support benefit cuts/caps ? Benefits are a safety net. They are for you/me your family to fall back on if and when times are hard. Why the big clamour for cuts to benefits when they represent a tiny percentage of where our money goes ? If we need to generate cash we need to reform the tax system, But you very rarely hear anything in the media about that and when you do it is generally lip service. Do people not realise that when these cuts hit it is going to mean whole sections of the country do not have any people living there who are able/willing to do the menial jobs ? Say we empty London of all benefit claimants (Remember most benefit claimants work BTW) who is going to clean the loo's ? Who is going to sweep the floor ? Who is going to cook your burger and fries or bring you your drinks/meals at the restaurant ? Or should these people work all day and then travel for a couple of hours just so that we can cleanse london of the low paid benefit recipient ?

Apart from pensions most of the benefit bill goes on to private landlords - Not to the benefit recipient. What about building more council houses to ease the problem ? Why not do that instead of capping benefits - supply more housing and you will sort out the housing prices and rent prices at the same time as getting the economy moving in the correct direction.

Ok im done for now. just fancied a little rant about stuff that goes through my head from time to time. What are you peoples views ? Do you even care ? Can you not afford to care ? Or can you actually afford not to care ?

[blacksheep]

1. Wouldn't say that was the case at all - its far from trendy to be right of centre
2. Strikes are a pain in the ass - the only unions that are left represent people who (at least at first glance) seem better off than average. E.g. Tube drivers (on £55+k), civil servants with nice hours, protected jobs and final salary pensions etc - it's people voicing that they don't want their money spent on these areas where they don't feel they get value for money.

As for benefits, would you prefer your tax money to pay for someone else to live without putting in or for services you benefit from? Schooling, policing, infrastructure, healthcare and so on - personally I'd prefer someone to get the cancer treatment or the operation (not tits) that they need over someone having a spare bedroom paid for by the public.

[DavidF]

Strikes work in as a last resort. They are what got us the "rights" which we enjoy and take for granted. The "elite" would simply never have given us any concessions IF we didn't have and use the option to withdraw our labour.
Also 2nd point you make unions these days represent well paid workers with all the perks ect ect ? While I know thats not really the case to be fair even if its partly true does it not actually prove the worth of the unions ?
Only those at the top end of the civil service have these "gold plated" pensions. In many cases these people worked for a smaller salary than they would have got in the private sector to "enjoy" these pensions AND they have contributed a fair amount towards that pension pot from their own wages.
Another point about public sector workers....they have NOT had a pay rise for many years. They have been forced to accept longer working hours for the same or less cash and they have had their "gold plated" pensions removed. This is basically like me saying to you I will pay you 100k in 40 years time Blacksheep as long as you work for me at 10% under market rate...then after 30 years i use media/press releases to show all the people who got the extra 10% that you are getting 100k at the end and they are not....i need public backing to cut your 100k down to 50k and voila there is nothing you can do about it......that's what has happened in a nutshell.
As for benefits - as I stated above most benefits go to private landlords. Ontop of that the biggest benefit bill is for pensions. Think out of work benefits count for 5% (from memory) of the total bill. So no im not using tax to pay for someone to stay in bed....im paying my tax to enable the guy/girl who sweeps the street to be able to do so without having to commute 3 hours to enable them to do it as i said above.
Also bedroom tax ? Totally agree with it as long as the government can 100% offer a suitable sized property BEFORE charging any tax - No alternative ? No tax. Why not target the biggest problem then ? The pensioners are 1. The biggest receivers of benefit and 2. The biggest under occupiers. (BTW I don't agree with targeting pensioners I am just throwing the question out there) - You know why they don't target pensioners ? They are the biggest block of the voting public......upset them you have zero chance of being elected.
Even today some labour mp was on about making it so that you could not claim any benefits if you didn't vote......again can you guess why ? It has been proven that the biggest block of stay at home voters are labours "core"....they don't vote for them any more because they feel unrepresented, so rather than vote for someone else they just don't bother. Weird but true.
BTW those services you mentioned Schooling/policing/healthcare.....you do realise that these are the nasty wasteful public sector workers that are not useful to society dont you ? Again the media propaganda machine has peoiple thinking public sector worker is a quango or a gay/black/left handed/womans rights benefit advisor.....it's just not the reality. My brother has worked in the public sector for 30 years now....he is the guy who goes round and picks up special needs kids in the morning in his bus ...takes them to school safely and returns them home at the end of the day in safety....also in between times he delivers school meals from a-b and various other filler jobs....all public sector.

[DJ OD]

Great post.

I think a lot of the state of current affairs these days is not just due to the politicians but also due to changes of attitude with the general public. The UK has become a blame and claim culture. People are very quick to blame anyone and everyone for problems, without really looking at the bigger picture.

Being left or right wing doesn't really carry the baring it used to. As to whether it's "trendy" or not, I think it's more a case of the majority of people don't understand the concept.

Unions IMO are a collective voice for the public/workers. The problem is they have inherited the same attitudes of the public. Blame and claim. Nowadays they are seen as a way to get what you want, not what is neccessarily good for all. Because of this "gimmie gimmie gimmie" attitude (or at least thats the perception we are fed by the media) people now resent unions. Believing them to be always complaining and striking for anything and everything.

The unions have lost their way, modern politicians haven't a clue and the public are happy to blame someone for their failures.

A classic example of a union cocking up is last year when the union for my company were argueing about the warehouse staff pay rise. They were offered something like 2%. The union laughed it off and said we want 4%, to which the company said no chance. It went on and on for months, and in the end went to arbitration who ruled in favour of the company citing that any pay rise in the current economy should not be written off. By this time the companies offer of 2% was retracted. In the end they settled for 1%. The staff blamed the union, despite them voting to refuse the initial 2%.


DJ OD

[Geko]

2. Strikes are a pain in the ass - the only unions that are left represent people who (at least at first glance) seem better off than average. E.g. Tube drivers (on £55+k), civil servants with nice hours, protected jobs and final salary pensions etc - it's people voicing that they don't want their money spent on these areas where they don't feel they get value for money.

The Union is the reason why they have these benefits.

[CzarJunkie]

The media is the reason socialism, the unions and any kind of social policies get a bad name. The average British person is a fuckwit who will believe anything they read in the Sun or Daily Mail. Media moguls like Murdoch are in an endless war with the left and that's why we get politicians like Blair representing the 'left'.

Socialism is the politics of humanism, social justice and equality. It beggars belief that anyone, other than the top 1% of earners, would think socialism is a bad thing. That's the power of the media. They have the majority believing they can become one of the 1% if only they had the shackles of socialism removed from them. It's pure propaganda and it keeps the 1% in control while the rest of us pay the fucking bills.

[DavidF]

Glad to see my post/rant got people thinking. As for unions being gimmie gimmie gimmie - that's their job. If they are not doing what you want you use that X in the NO box. If you are unhappy with you unions structure at any level from on the floor shop steward all the way to the very top you have a chance and a voice (if you are in the union) to 1. Voice your concerns and 2. Challenge that voice and position...Simply put you can vote them out and if you can/want to do better you can stand yourself.
How the story of the 2% pay offer ended up....well I don't know the in and out BUT 2% is a cut in wages in terms of inflation ect. Arbitration is just an anti union objective put in place to take away the power of the union. Unions have such diminished powers these days...But thats part of my point/moan It shouldn't be that way. The people deserve the right to voice their opinions. They also deserve the right to withdraw their labour if they feel strongly about an issue..too often we hear of courts overturning strike votes ? Not right IMHO.
I don't know the position of your company but what I do know is the top 10% in the rich list seen their income (Not just wealth but income) shoot up at a faster rate since 2010 than ever before. So when the company director/owner turns round and declares he/she is on their arse you have to explore weather or not they are being economical with the truth.
In short the elite/richest are using this economic downturn to put the working classes (You and I) back in our place.
Another thing that I forgot to mention in my opening post/rant is minimum wage....great idea shit implementation. How can you have a situation where the tax payer has to subsidise a multi national billion dollar company to pay it's staff a wage that they can survive on ? Tax credits / Child Tax credits / housing benefits ect these are wage top ups because the people on minimum wage could not do their job and live in a house/flat travel to work and eat without these top ups. Im an electrician and as I do mostly private domestic work these days im ok.....but I have friends who along with me were earning £15-£20 per hour 10 years ago, (South east kent/london) Now when I was last down their I spoke to one of my old mates and he put his head down and told me yeah im working for £100 for 10 hour days at the moment.....and he is not alone. I understand about the economy ect BUT the houses prices continue to rise/rent goes up food and fuel goes up so how come the wages don't follow unless you are in the top 10% ? I know this - you phone a company and ask for your house to be rewired it will not be 50% cheaper than it was 10 years ago.....but the lad who is doing the job may well be costing his employer 50% less......How is that achieved ? Agencies and the erosion of workers rights because the apathy of "what can the union do for me". I was as guilty as the next man and I kick myself for my short sightedness .....only now even self employed I am back in the union and supporting the rights of the working classes.