Shell Drivers strike

[nightbreed]

Strikes rarely achieve anything, inconveniences thousands (maybe millions) of innocent people who tend not to care, and pisses off people more than gain support.

Yes, I agree that employers shouldn't be able to treat employees like shit, but as fuel distribution is an essential service in today's society, I'm not convinced a strike and what may effectively become a complete national disruption is the way forward.

Unions are a throwback to the days of old Left Wingism, in all honesty, that has no place in today's society.

If you think some employers are shit how do you think employees should deal with them? Leaving and getting another job is a cop out and doesnt resolve the issue.

Its the rightwingism of the last 20 odd years thats got the economy into the mess it is now. To dig up the quaintly old fashioned view that Unions are the cause of all that is ill in society is not worthy of further comment.

Back in the real world there is a good overview of the dispute here including further confirmation of reports on solidarity action by other tanker firms.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Leaving and getting another job is a cop out and doesnt resolve the issue.

It's not a cop-out, it's just plain dumb:- you go from one shitty job to another, and without allowing yourself the ability to effectively fight back, none of these employers improve their working conditions.

 

[nightbreed]

It's not a cop-out, it's just plain dumb:- you go from one shitty job to another, and without allowing yourself the ability to effectively fight back, none of these employers improve their working conditions.

Another way of looking at it. Either way its better to stay and have a go in my view.

 

[chegrimandi]

If you don't like the salary and conditions of a job, then get another job. I'm sure nobody is holding the tanker drivers to ransom by making them stay in the job.

Strikes are sooo last century. You'd have thought that in this day and age, especially with plenty of unemployed people, there'd be people more than willing to take on some of these jobs that the people doing them apparently don't like.

great post. what a devastating critique of trade unionism.

 

[chegrimandi]

you normally find criticism of industrial action are motivated by 2 things.

1) this is inconveniencing me, in X,Y or Z - selfishness
2) jealousy of that industry/those workers who work collectively to try and improve their working conditions. - self interest. 'None of my lot would do that poor me etc etc'

 

[ajdown]

great post. what a devastating critique of trade unionism.

Trade Unionism critiques itself. What exactly is this drivers strike doing except pissing off thousands of people and causing mass inconvenience?

 

[nightbreed]

What exactly is this drivers strike doing except pissing off thousands of people and causing mass inconvenience?

What are the Oil company bosses doing rolling around in the huge profits they are making and huge bonuses they are taking while tanker drivers AND the driving public suffer?

 

[rover07]

Trade Unionism critiques itself. What exactly is this drivers strike doing except pissing off thousands of people and causing mass inconvenience?

Its costing Shell a lot of lost revenue.

Withdrawing your labour is everyones right, its a negotiation tactic.

A company is just as reliant on its workforce, as workers are on the company. In fact more so. If workers can get more money by striking then thats up to them.

Its no different to the company saying...'if you dont like it here, get another job'

 

[Steve Booth]

May you live in interesting times...

Trade Unionism critiques itself. What exactly is this drivers strike doing except pissing off thousands of people and causing mass inconvenience?

This is unfair. We all go along from day to day and month to month, year to year in the same old routine. Then something happens. I can remember the 1970s when there were really big coal and power strikes. Things got interesting. The lights went out. We all got sent home from school. We weren't pissed off / inconvenienced. It was exciting. It brought down the government.

That Andrew Marr History of Modern Britain thing was on TV last night. 1984 and Orgreave. NUM versus the Police. Now that was some battle that was. Inconvenienced? Stuff that - Thatcher smashed up the Miner's communities. They were defending their jobs, their way of life, their communities. Workers have the right to do that.

Back in the late 1970s there was a fuel strike. That was interesting too - the government wanted to call the troops in to drive the fuel tankers. If memory serves me correctly this was in the 'Winter of Discontent'. Pre-Thatcher. A Labour government......

Then there was the September 2000 fuel strike. I had to walk from Galgate to Lancaster. Normally people just zoom past along the main road, but there wasn't much traffic, and somebody from the village gave me a lift, when they wouldn't have normally have done that. In abnormal conditions, people discover that there are other people whom they need to take account of. There is more cameraderie. Remember Blair in full Churchillian mode, appealing to the strikers on the TV news 'We have 24 hours to save our country'. Newspaper photographs of empty supermarket bread trays. Did we panic? Were we inconvenienced?

This Saturday (14th June 2008), a slow moving lorry blockade protest took place on the M6 Motorway, between the Lymm Truck Stop (A50 junction) and Carnforth. The truckers drove up the motorway and back down again. We were driving down the motorway and must have been just in front of the truckers as they returned. On almost every publically accessible over-bridge between Hampson (junction 33) and around Leyland, there were many supporters, waiting. On one bridge, a banner was hung, which said 'United we stand - Divided we Fall - The Calm before the Storm'.

The local evening TV news showed some of the blockade, and it was linked with the Stanlow Shell tankers' strike in the bulletin. Recently, there was another lorry blockade protest on the motorways around Manchester. Saturday also saw a blockade on the M5 near Bristol. There is all this anger out here about stuff, so how do you propose to sort this out? Do you want to ignore it, because it is 'incovenient'?

In my opinion it is wrong to brush aside people who are fighting for better wages or working conditions on the spurious grounds that it inconveniences us. We need to be involved.

 

[Urbanblues]

Strikes are sooo last century.

Tell that to the owner of Grangemouth. He'll be sooo pleased to hear your news.

 

[The Black Hand]

what part of that is your own words attica and why have you not included it inside a quotation code. why is it relevant to this thread at all.

and again why are you posting up reems and reems of cut and paste oddessy with no explaiantion?

you of all people are the absolute last person before tony blair to talk about solidarity when every single thing you post is etirley against groups working together to achive a common purpose because of your prolier than tho comments

Nonsense.

 

[The Black Hand]

great post. what a devastating critique of trade unionism.

Hmmm. Oh.

 

[The Black Hand]

This is unfair. We all go along from day to day and month to month, year to year in the same old routine. Then something happens. I can remember the 1970s when there were really big coal and power strikes. Things got interesting. The lights went out. We all got sent home from school. We weren't pissed off / inconvenienced. It was exciting. It brought down the government.

That Andrew Marr History of Modern Britain thing was on TV last night. 1984 and Orgreave. NUM versus the Police. Now that was some battle that was. Inconvenienced? Stuff that - Thatcher smashed up the Miner's communities. They were defending their jobs, their way of life, their communities. Workers have the right to do that.

Back in the late 1970s there was a fuel strike. That was interesting too - the government wanted to call the troops in to drive the fuel tankers. If memory serves me correctly this was in the 'Winter of Discontent'. Pre-Thatcher. A Labour government......

Then there was the September 2000 fuel strike. I had to walk from Galgate to Lancaster. Normally people just zoom past along the main road, but there wasn't much traffic, and somebody from the village gave me a lift, when they wouldn't have normally have done that. In abnormal conditions, people discover that there are other people whom they need to take account of. There is more cameraderie. Remember Blair in full Churchillian mode, appealing to the strikers on the TV news 'We have 24 hours to save our country'. Newspaper photographs of empty supermarket bread trays. Did we panic? Were we inconvenienced?

This Saturday (14th June 2008), a slow moving lorry blockade protest took place on the M6 Motorway, between the Lymm Truck Stop (A50 junction) and Carnforth. The truckers drove up the motorway and back down again. We were driving down the motorway and must have been just in front of the truckers as they returned. On almost every publically accessible over-bridge between Hampson (junction 33) and around Leyland, there were many supporters, waiting. On one bridge, a banner was hung, which said 'United we stand - Divided we Fall - The Calm before the Storm'.

The local evening TV news showed some of the blockade, and it was linked with the Stanlow Shell tankers' strike in the bulletin. Recently, there was another lorry blockade protest on the motorways around Manchester. Saturday also saw a blockade on the M5 near Bristol. There is all this anger out here about stuff, so how do you propose to sort this out? Do you want to ignore it, because it is 'incovenient'?

In my opinion it is wrong to brush aside people who are fighting for better wages or working conditions on the spurious grounds that it inconveniences us. We need to be involved.

Yes. Very good.

 

[shagnasty]

Went to get some baccy at our garage all he had was diesel no petrol at all its a shell garage

 

[Wolveryeti]

In my opinion it is wrong to brush aside people who are fighting for better wages or working conditions on the spurious grounds that it inconveniences us. We need to be involved.

They're not fighting for better wages or working conditions as a principle. They're fighting for better wages or working conditions for themselves.

I don't blame them. But it's a very hard sell seeing how this could ever be beneficial for me and most other people really.

 

[JimW]

it's a very hard sell seeing how this could ever be beneficial for me and most other people really.

By maintaining standards for wages and conditions these workers are helping keep the bar somewhere more reasonable for all of us.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Nonsense.

really so they were your own words were they?

which part?

 

[belboid]

They're not fighting for better wages or working conditions as a principle. They're fighting for better wages or working conditions for themselves.

I don't blame them. But it's a very hard sell seeing how this could ever be beneficial for me and most other people really.

For themselves, their colleagues,everyone who might come into the industry in years to come. And even if you are not one of them, or one of their family, or a future drivers family, or someone who might benefit from the micro-economic effect of them having more money to spend, you may well still benefit. Anyone winning through strike action benefits us all as it gives a bloody good indication of how we can all win better terms and conditions, and, with specific relation to petrol tanker drivers, it just strikes me as quite good for all that they won’t have to put in really bloody long hours to take home a decent wage. It strikes me as ever so slightly dangerous to have someone driving a bomb on wheels if they’re a bit knackered or whatever.

 

[belboid]

Excellent, what you've done is take something written by a locked up yank, added your own words in the middle in the form of yet more grudge based abuse, and tried to pass it off as your own 'work'. Great stuff.

What seems bizarre(r than normal) here is the use of an eco-action polemic to support a strike by petrol tank drivers. Irony or something else??

 

[Wolveryeti]

By maintaining standards for wages and conditions these workers are helping keep the bar somewhere more reasonable for all of us.

I am completely baffled as to how you jump to this conclusion. Since when has anyone ever been able to use the perks of someone in a completely different profession to successfully justify an improvement in their own?

For themselves, their colleagues,everyone who might come into the industry in years to come. And even if you are not one of them, or one of their family, or a future drivers family, or someone who might benefit from the micro-economic effect of them having more money to spend, you may well still benefit.

The microeconomic effect is far from being so obviously beneficial as you think. What if the execs spend/invest all their money on local businesses and the truckers spend all theirs on foreign imports. It's just a silly thought experiment, but it demonstrates that the benefits of trickle-down spending are much more complex than being able to proclaim that it is always better for the economy to have wealth spread as thinly as possible.

And even if this effect were noticeable (which I doubt), what would happen first - a few pence whacked on the price of foodstuffs, or the feedthrough of this microeconomic manna from heaven to people on fixed wages, who don't directly benefit from the trickledown effect like e.g. shopkeepers do?

Anyone winning through strike action benefits us all as it gives a bloody good indication of how we can all win better terms and conditions

This is patently bollocks because of the nature of employment in some industries (especially low skilled ones) means they will never enjoy significant union clout.

and, with specific relation to petrol tanker drivers, it just strikes me as quite good for all that they won’t have to put in really bloody long hours to take home a decent wage. It strikes me as ever so slightly dangerous to have someone driving a bomb on wheels if they’re a bit knackered or whatever.

Well, this isn't really about them being tired. They just want a larger slice of the company pie. I would too if I were in their situation.

That having been said, I still don't believe it's going to be good for me and a lot of other people.

 

[dennisr]

That having been said, I still don't believe it's going to be good for me and a lot of other people.

me, me, me - how very 2nd century BC, 1st century BC, 1st century, 2nd century, 3rd century etc etc

 

[articul8]

I know you're joking but its worth think about how recent this attitude it. It's very much Thatcher/Reagan and beyond, neoliberal consumerism. Certainly pre-Reformation, such emphasis on the individual in abstraction from life of the community would have been plain unthinkable.

 

[chegrimandi]

That having been said, I still don't believe it's going to be good for me and a lot of other people.

bingo - the selfish nothing in it for me/its affecting me anti strike argument...

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

attica which part of your cut and paste odessy are oyu claiming you wrote please....

we're waiting...

 

[belboid]

This is patently bollocks because of the nature of employment in some industries (especially low skilled ones) means they will never enjoy significant union clout.

true to a certain extent, but that doesn't alter the fact that even such people will be able to benefit-albeit to a smaller extent - from a generalised increase in militancy and power.

Well, this isn't really about them being tired. They just want a larger slice of the company pie. I would too if I were in their situation.

Not so. A part of the objections are that they are having to do more overtime to bring home the same wage they took home ten years ago. More overtime = more tiredness = more danger.

 

[The Black Hand]

really so they were your own words were they?

which part?

No they weren't all mine by a long way. I just didn't like your stupid construction of a 'point'. It was nonsense because your last paragraph was lying crap, and particularly offensive. Get some serious politics boy.

 

[The Black Hand]

attica which part of your cut and paste odessy are oyu claiming you wrote please....

we're waiting...

You can hold your breath.

 

[The Black Hand]

What seems bizarre(r than normal) here is the use of an eco-action polemic to support a strike by petrol tank drivers. Irony or something else??

WEll you or t'other tossers aren't doing anything so i thought I'd wind you lot of do nothing prats up

 

[belboid]

Golly, are you god now Attic? You know what everyone is doing? You got a secret conspiracy of miners to spy on us all? Or are you just full of shit.

Don't bother answering, this might be an interesting thread if you don't keep playing your pathetic games.

 

[The Black Hand]

Golly, are you god now Attic? You know what everyone is doing? You got a secret conspiracy of miners to spy on us all? Or are you just full of shit.

Don't bother answering, this might be an interesting thread if you don't keep playing your pathetic games.

I notice you've done nothing as I thought, and you got aggravated cos I was right again. Truth hurts pal. Good.