Crossing picket lines

[fanta]

I'll tell you when it's right to cross the picket line. When I feel that it's right. Picketers have no right to stop me from crossing their 'line' and prevent me from working if I wish to.
Try and prevent me from MY right to earn MY living, and you get a punch in the face. Easy.

It is amazing how hard some people are on the internet!

 

[diond]

It is amazing how hard some people are on the internet!

I'm not hard at all, but just very short tempered with bullies.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

I'll tell you when it's right to cross the picket line. When I feel that it's right. Picketers have no right to stop me from crossing their 'line' and prevent me from working if I wish to.
Try and prevent me from MY right to earn MY living, and you get a punch in the face. Easy.

I used to partially have that attitude when I was younger and self employed. Now I'm an employee I can see the situation a bit more clearly and differently.

I would like to add that I wouldn't have got violent with a picket when I was self employed I would have just walked through becuase a) I had nothing in common with the strikers cause and b) if I didn't work I didn't get paid.

 

[Markyd]

I'm not hard at all, but just very short tempered with bullies.

Who bullies who here?

I have been on several picket lines and have never tried to stop anyone crossing it other than with a polite request and discussion. You appear to be ready to use violence straight away.

Didn't think that was your way guy from what I've seen around. Think your bang out of order.

 

[Combustible]

Similar to the Dockers for Enoch what about the Ulster Workers Strike?

 

[diond]

Who bullies who here?

I have been on several picket lines and have never tried to stop anyone crossing it other than with a polite request and discussion. You appear to be ready to use violence straight away.

Didn't think that was your way guy from what I've seen around. Think your bang out of order.

I suppose I should have made the distinction that I meant physically stopping me from crossing a picket line, when I said prevent. I am not out of order, nor am I being a bully. I am merely standing up for my democatic right to choose not to, and if anybody is going to try and stop me physically then I will use reasonable force back.

However, I will say this. The amount vitriolic anger bubbling away on the UNISON debate posts do not lend me much hope that picketers would be all that good natured and accommodating if/when people decide to cross 'their line' against their wishes.

 

[Markyd]

I suppose I should have made the distinction that I meant physically stopping me from crossing a picket line, when I said prevent. I am not out of order, nor am I being a bully. I am merely standing up for my democatic right to choose not to, and if anybody is going to try and stop me physically then I will use reasonable force back.

However, I will say this. The amount vitriolic anger bubbling away on the UNISON debate posts do not lend me much hope that picketers would be all that good natured and accommodating if/when people decide to cross 'their line' against their wishes.

Ok the distinction is important. And I accept that. No one should be physically intimidated from doing what they want unless that action is personally harmful to another.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Ok the distinction is important. And I accept that. No one should be physically intimidated from doing what they want unless that action is personally harmful to another.

I agree there with you Markyd. I think the defiition of harmful might go into a grey area if for example untrained managment types or foriegn workers were brought into a safety critical area for example driving a train or something similar. Then you have an example of protecting the innocent public from harm.

 

[nightbreed]

This is a good discussion .
As a trade unionist I would not cross a line under any circumstances. If it was a fascist line I would simply stay at home 'sick' , so they wouldnt use scabbing as ammunition against me.
I can understand when pickets get angry. I remember having a tenner waved at me by a scab crossing the line. The pickets remembered that when we went back to work.
Its a principle issue and will never be out of date, old fashioned or behind the times when you still have employers and governments using victorian methods to bully and intimidate the workers.

 

[STFC]

A mate of mine, who works for Gloucestershire County Council, said that 7 out of 22 from his office were on strike on Tuesday. He reckoned a total of about 250 from a workforce of 1200. He didn't get any hassle for working, not that it would have bothered him anyway. He said that there was a bigger turnout from the City Council, but they are "more lefty"!

 

[KeyboardJockey]

A mate of mine, who works for Gloucestershire County Council, said that 7 out of 22 from his office were on strike on Tuesday.

That is about the same turnout in my office proportionally.

 

[badnewswade]

I love the way that when people don't agree with some quite basic principle (or even law) nowadays they say it's "out of date"...

Reminds me of George W Bush- the man who said that the Geneva Convention was "out of date", as well as various other basic human rights.

I think I have more respect for the out and out scab that was on here than whining liberal pussies who think that common decency is "out of date".

Lovely modernity, eh, blairsuckers? A world in which all the values which gave you spoilt fuckers your wealth and your cars and your apartments are "out of date". Let's see how long you last in it, shall we?

 

[Markyd]

I love the way that when people don't agree with some quite basic, principle or law they say it's "out of date"...

Reminds me of George W Bush- the man who said that the Geneva Convention was "out of date", as well as various other basic human rights.

I think I have more respect for the out and out scab that was on here than whining liberal pussies who think that common decency is "out of date".

This a random saying or does it have relevance to anything?

 

[badnewswade]

This a random saying or does it have relevance to anything?

Yes, it has relevance to all the spineless tossers of this world who've been regurgitating the party line that not being a FUCKING SCAB is "out of date".

Bollocks to that.

 

[Markyd]

Yes, it has relevance to all the spineless tossers of this world who've been regurgitating the party line that not being a FUCKING SCAB is "out of date".

Bollocks to that.

Ok
I thought you meant that strike breaking was alright!

sorry bud

 

[scott_forester]

In what situations do people think that it is acceptable?

I think that it depends if you agree with them or not, if group of politicised but charming Christians linked arms around Tesco’s on a Sunday saying there shouldn’t be Sunday trading I doubt many people would not cross their lines. What makes Union backed action so sacrosanct?

My views of Union’s are pretty tainted (maybe unfairly) since my first and only experience being a union member with the CWU. In the eight years I was in it I came to the conclusion that all but one of the full time union officers were fleckless lazy fuckers – for instance a member of the National Executive who lived local only came in my building to use the free international phone calls to ring his family - who just wanted a easy life and complained they weren’t getting promoted even thou they never actually did any work. Last straw being when my colleagues and I attended a meeting trying to get them to fight our case regarding a horrendous bullying manager and the only thing they were interested in was getting us to vote for a suit allowance for union officers … I kid you not. We actully got more joy complaining to the HR department.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to cross a picket line to piss people off, but the presence of one I didn’t support wouldn’t stop me crossing it.

 

[junius]

I agrre with the principal here. Crossing a picket line makes the bosses laugh. I have never crossed one and never will no matter what!

Anbody who does is failing their co-workers in my opinion.

There must be an awful lot of 'scabs' amongst the working class following Tuesday's strike e.g. teachers in schools that did not close.

Saying that such workers are 'failing' is simply middle class posturing. It also misses the point. Blame their unions, which won't touch solidarity action with a barge pole - in the UK such action is illegal and union barons will go out of their way to warn off members from supporting fellow workers.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I am merely standing up for my democatic right to choose not to

And with a bit of luck your co-workers will stand up for their democratic right to treat you like scabbing vermin until the end of your worthless days.

 

[Markyd]

There must be an awful lot of 'scabs' amongst the working class following Tuesday's strike e.g. teachers in schools that did not close.

Saying that such workers are 'failing' is simply middle class posturing. It also misses the point. Blame their unions, which won't touch solidarity action with a barge pole - in the UK such action is illegal and union barons will go out of their way to warn off members from supporting fellow workers.

Middle class posturing!

What the fuck do you know about me? Which bit of me or my opinoin is working class?

What has the class system to do with this?

All theorectical bollocks. This is real life where people are people nad any outmoded class system is a double irrelevance.

 

[junius]

This is a good discussion .
As a trade unionist I would not cross a line under any circumstances. If it was a fascist line I would simply stay at home 'sick' , so they wouldnt use scabbing as ammunition against me.
I can understand when pickets get angry. I remember having a tenner waved at me by a scab crossing the line. The pickets remembered that when we went back to work.
Its a principle issue and will never be out of date, old fashioned or behind the times when you still have employers and governments using victorian methods to bully and intimidate the workers.

It's also a principle that if there is a 'fascist line' you don't lie at home in bed. All other things being equal, anti-fascists should seek to break such strikes, not ignore them.

 

[scott_forester]

It's also a principle that if there is a 'fascist line' you don't lie at home in bed. All other things being equal, anti-fascists should seek to break such strikes, not ignore them.

100% agree

 

[junius]

Middle class posturing!

What the fuck do you know about me? Which bit of me or my opinoin is working class?

What has the class system to do with this?

All theorectical bollocks. This is real life where people are people nad any outmoded class system is a double irrelevance.

TheoRECTical eh?

Try dealing with my point about blaming union tops, not workers. Then, I will make a grovelling apology.

 

[Markyd]

TheoRECTical eh?

Try dealing with my point about blaming union tops, not workers. Then, I will make a grovelling apology.

if it made sense I would!

So have a go at my typing! and.....

What is a union top?

 

[junius]

if it made sense I would!

So have a go at my typing! and.....

What is a union top?

No, you're typing's fine. It's the spelling...

A union top? A union leader. Sorry for using jargon.

 

[Markyd]

No, you're typing's fine. It's the spelling...

A union top? A union leader. Sorry for using jargon.

No honest the spelling is fine its the typing

20 years of union involvement and I have never heard that phrase used.

Unoin leaders are not the issue we are talking about Scabs. To divert the agrument away suggest to me that you have an issue with trade unions in general. And I probably would agree with some of what you say.

But we are talking about normal day to day workers standing by each other and being united. A unoin is only as strong as its members.

 

[junius]

So were those teachers, told by their union leaders to cross picket lines, scabs?

 

[spring-peeper]

just realised this is uk - sorry.

 

[badnewswade]

The fact is there has been a hell of a lot of backsliding and lack of discipline. If nobody gives a shit about anyone else and only looks out for number one then they have no right to complain when society falls apart at the seams. The dickheads who go on about how they have the right to cross picket lines and scab are probably the same people who whine about anti social behaviour and crime, yet they are happy to take the food from another man's mouth in this way.

Fuck 'em, I say.

 

[badnewswade]

Oh, and they probably complain about dole scroungers and immigrants as well. Incessantly. Ha!

Well, fuck you, ya scabby bastards, at least I'm not a frigging scab.

 

[scott_forester]

Oh, and they probably complain about dole scroungers and immigrants as well. Incessantly. Ha!

Well, fuck you, ya scabby bastards, at least I'm not a frigging scab.

I complain about all scroungers.