Crossing picket lines - is it ever ok?
- Thread starter glenquagmire
- Start date
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
If that's referring to our situation, the NJF employers' side refuses to discuss anything other than pay and a few token statements on equality issues.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Has the organisation got >50 employees?
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
I expect all of the individual colleges do, yes.
_angel_
.
I don't think you can even get a doctors note for one day's absence. Doesn't it have to be three days.
Even if you wanted to you'd have sod all chance of getting a same day appointment.
There's no way that can be fair.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I'm assuming there isn't a separate vehicle for information and consultation with the workforce in the more complete sense than how you described the role of the NJF.
So a way of applying pressure back on to the employers if they try and intimidate re these picket lines would be to get 10% of the workforce (cross union and non union) to request that the employer makes arrangements for a fuller version of information and consultation - either by extending the role of the NJF or by having a separate vehicle for it. It would help for the future and be a pain for the employer in return.
More here: http://www.berr.gov.uk/employment/employment-legislation/ice/index.html
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
Interesting stuff, cesare. I might bring that to the next NJF.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
It's worth having a good read up of it & links there. As a piece of legislation it seems to be under utilised by TUs and non unionised employees at.
In my old man's time crossing the line meant a whole lot more than just being called scab.
biff curtains
Fred West or Fred Housego
Call a sickie.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
there was an interesting article in the last Labour Research about the ICE regs and how they were affecting organising & negotiating practises. Many TU's have been hesitant to call on them as they could be seen as undermining existing TU agreements. That doesn't seem top have been much of a problem so far, as most of the non-union 'reps' are shown up as bloody useless compared to the trained and experienced union bods.
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
But that was then this is now. Attitudes have changed a lot. Some of these changes in legislation and attitude are for the better such as the abolition of the closed shop and others have been devastatingly negative such as the secondary picketing ban and the general reduction in voluntary workplace solidarity.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
What was so wrong with the closed shop? At least we didn't have to waste time and energy trying to persuade people of the benefits of trade unions, and at least we had no free loaders who benefit from the collective bargaining without paying their subs.
I am not convinced that the secondary picketing ban has been "devastatingly negative", though, since all it means, in effect, is that workers can only picket their own workplace. That would be fine if there were enough people to picket/strike, which there would be, if there was a closed shop.
Also, there would be more "workplace solidarity" if people were automatically a member of the trade union, as in a closed shop.
The trade union would be more likely to speak for the full workforce if there was a closed shop, so that everyone had an interest in what was being said in their name....
I am not convinced that the secondary picketing ban has been "devastatingly negative", though, since all it means, in effect, is that workers can only picket their own workplace. That would be fine if there were enough people to picket/strike, which there would be, if there was a closed shop.
Also, there would be more "workplace solidarity" if people were automatically a member of the trade union, as in a closed shop.
The trade union would be more likely to speak for the full workforce if there was a closed shop, so that everyone had an interest in what was being said in their name....
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
See, I'd see them as a way of strengthening and extending TU negotiating bodies/agreements where they're already in place. Yeah, it's in the interests of employers to keep the non-union reps untrained innit.
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
I had the misfortune to work for the press prior to the Wapping revolution and saw and had to deal with the closed shop and that turned me off it for life.
On one occasion a photographer who owned his own wire machine but ran it himself instead of having an over paid NGA member doing it. This poor fucker was just trying to own a living but the unions had decreed that you needed to be an NGA member to operate what was in effect a glorified fax machine. The poor bastard lived in terror of the NGA finding out about this and blacklisting him. Also the print closed shops held back the introduction of new technology and caused Fleet Street to hang onto the hot metal process far far longer than really needed to.
Now I don't agree with how Murdoch broke the print unions but by fuck were changes needed in that game.
Also the TGWU closed shop at Fords in Dagenham on the delivery section ran a racist 'family connections' scheme for the allocation of all the best delivery jobs which meant that ethnic minority workers were never given a chance to apply for the better jobs.
The closed shop might look like a good idea in theory but its a disaster for workers and organisations.
If you can't convince people that its in their interests to join a union then its the union which has failed to sell the product to the worker. The closed shop just makes unions lazy if they don't have to work for their members.
The closed shop was a horrible abusive thing and its about the only thing in the Tories Employment Acts that I feel was any good. I'd repeal the rest of them tomorrow but keep the ban on the closed shop.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
So, tell me, from your allegedly vast experience of trade unions, why you think the outlawing of secondary picketing is so "devastatingly negative"?
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
When you have done that, I wonder if you could also explain how all the examples you gave above related to the closed shop, because I don't see the connection.
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
... presumably because Ken supported them, & Boris didn't.....
Ah, but kbj thinks that secondary picketing should be reinstated. He is nothing if not inconsistent
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Because to be effective not only should the main site of a employer in dispute be picketted but also subsiduries etc. If all a union can do is put six people outside one site then they may well not as well be there. Picketting subsiduraries and suppliers are also a way of informing the workers there of the nature of the main dispute.
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Ah, but kbj thinks that secondary picketing should be reinstated. He is nothing if not inconsistent
Secondary picketting I don't have a problem with. The closed shop I do have a problem with as I've experienced it and fucking hated it for some of the reasons I gave above
If a union has to rely on a device like the closed shop then that particular union has lost the argument. If people have to be forced into a union it doesn't exactly do wonders for the idea of workers coming together in free association.
If you can't convince the workers to join freely and without threat then there is something wrong with whats being offered.
mate you get this totally upside down .. are you against freedom of speech cos nazis abuse it?? are you against alcohol cos peoplel abuse it??? yes people ABUSED the closed shop ( we live in a depoliticised and selfish world) .. but the form of the union, closed shop and strike are NOT themselves wrong and are inseperable. There is NO union without a closed shop and strikes .. THAT is why we have been fucked for the last 3 decades
you do go on about how bad fleet street was .. what do you expect them to do??? every other fucker in the city has a fucking closed shop .. why should we w/c people not have them to increase our price??? and they supportted the miners .. did you ?
you can NOT build a fairer society IF you deny people the blocks to build that society .. you are very nieve if you think it will just be done on good will
and the press is SOO much better now we have new technology isn't it??
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
kbj's anti-closed shop arguments are just as bollocks as the rest of his. They were bad because some poor bloke couldn't run his own business from inside the Times offices! poor lamb. And the Ford scheme would most likely have run whether or not the factory was a closed shop. Pure bollocks.
The abolition of the closed shop was just a great excuse for free loading twats to get something for nothing.
The abolition of the closed shop was just a great excuse for free loading twats to get something for nothing.
dennisr
the acceptable face
and very likely made up bollocks (give the obvious timescales)
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Get yer fucking facts right. The photographer was an independent freelance who had the wire machine installed in his own premises.
The Ford TGWU scheme only operated because the TGWU were effectively recruiting workers for the plumb jobs.
The abolition of the closed shops forced unions to be more responsive to members.
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Rubbish as usual coming from you. To clarify. The fords thing carried on long after the closed shop was rightly abolished as a form of 'custom and practice' thing until it was challenged by ethnic minority workers in the courts.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
like the PCS right? like all the other unions are soo responsive to their members?
sorry mate i think you are totally wrong on this. i appreciate your wariness of the abuses you have seen but you are denying people the tools to stop worse abuses by the bosses
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
But I didn't understand how the examples you gave related to the closed shop, rather than just bad practice or bad organisation or, in one case, racism.
Do you accept that, if there was a closed shop, the union would, potentially, be more accountable to the workforce, rather than less?
What about freeloading? Do you think it's acceptable that people refuse to join a trade union, but are allowed to benefit from the hard work, and collective action of that union?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
so, you've just shown that it was implemented due to the closed shop! Well done
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