The Black Hand
Unclean
Here's the link to where I got it from - you work it out.
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1411791&postcount=6
Shell Drivers strike
- Thread starter The Black Hand
- Start date
Here's the link to where I got it from - you work it out.
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=1411791&postcount=6
The Black Hand
Unclean
It is interesting, far more interesting without you though. Fuck off and create your own threads rather than parasiting on mine
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
so is it a cut and paste oddsey with limited refference to the original posing as your own words or is it a quote with no comment of your own?
cos it's one or the other so stop wriggling answer the question eh?
captain C & P
The Black Hand
Unclean
No. Sorry for the delay in replying.
The Black Hand
Unclean
I'm not wriggling - are you stupid or something? Haven't you worked out I am not doing what you want? Cos you should have got the message by now!!
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
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.
i twas niether lying crap or unserious.
you repeatdly havea i'm more radical than you attitude on here and are commonly regarded as a bit of light humour on here...
you do continually use reems of c&p without any comment consistantly pass up any point which doens't fit into your narrowed world view point and berate others for there action being not enough... p&p is littered with threads started by you linking to other things without any comment or bein disengeious to other groups...
if serious poltics equates to be consistantly negative about other peoples efforts actions or causes becuase they don't further my own poltical leanings then i'll pass all the same...
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I notice you've done nothing as I thought,
you've 'noticed'??!! So you're in the room with me! Blimey, I can't see you, are you hiding under the desk?
You're a pisspoor liar. Matches your pisspooor politics I suppose. Do tell us what 'direct action' you have undertaken to support the strikers tho
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
yup saw your response after i psoted and have responded above however what is it you beleive i want from you...
The Black Hand
Unclean
No lies there pal, just good intuition.
Funnily enough I didn't come on here to abuse you as I am sick of the likes of you. You are soooo boring and predictable - that's the ultra left for you
The Black Hand
Unclean
The Black Hand
Unclean
Are you drunk?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
more drivers come out on strike after 11 drivers employed by Scottish Fuels were reportedly suspended for refusing to cross the picket line. Cracking stuff. http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_7456000/7456413.stm
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
dennisr said:
Actually that's quite ironic considering how tribal the politics of unionisation are.
chegrimandi said:
All in all very nice smears. Not very much substance to defend the wooly assertion that people in general will benefit from this though.
What is this benefit?
I am living in a country with VERY militant unions at the moment (argentina), with the current farmers union restricting supplies of food into the country because they think a 40% export tax on their products is unjustified. Quite besides the short term increase in food prices from their action, the bad timing (it is winter here, so peoples' budgets also stretched) - if they succeed the price of food will inevitably go up as it is more profitable to export, thus making the lot of the sizeable amounts of poor here that much more miserable.
Unions are just the same as cartels. Unless you have some system to control wage pacts as in the Swedish system, it just results in very imbalanced transfers of wealth to sectors with union clout. (tanker drivers, tube drivers). This is not socialism, but tribal politics - looking after ones' own. It is decried when rich interest groups try it on - I see no reason why I should not be able to call something for what it is when I see it in other areas.
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
no but by god whenever one of your threads comes up i wish i was paralitic...
If a job was so bad that an unacceptable proportion of the workforce left, the employer would have to increase wages. So yes, leaving a job does drive up wages.If everyone who didn't like their pay/working conditions just left their job then there would never be any improvement!!! I can't believe you are seriously suggesting this ajdown
Should all teachers stop teaching because the salary isn't quite right, or should they try and improve their conditions? What about nurses? What about firefighters?
yes, give up any sort of fighting and get another job - that'll solve things!
Do you actually believe in what you posted above or are you trolling?
nightbreed
Im Bored
Bollocks with a capital B!!I would like you now to produce evidence to substantiate that!!
It's common fucking sense
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well that logic works if there are not adequate people to replace those who left, if it takes time to train the staff, or if some other aspect of the job makes high staff turnover unacceptable.
This isnt true for every job, an extreme example would be relatively unskilled jobs that they are used to filling with very young people who will put up with minimum wage, and where most will leave within a year or 2.
So Id say the nature of the job and the state of the job market in that sector, go a long way to determining what power the workforce can muster.
This isnt true for every job, an extreme example would be relatively unskilled jobs that they are used to filling with very young people who will put up with minimum wage, and where most will leave within a year or 2.
So Id say the nature of the job and the state of the job market in that sector, go a long way to determining what power the workforce can muster.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
DapperDonDamaja said:
Firstly, belboid is wrong in conceding that some workplaces are too unskilled to ever attain decent union clout - any industry can do so, provided there is a mass popularity for the ideals of the Union movement. Not only this, but Unions can get away with all sorts of activities currently considered to be 'unreasonable' and 'repugnant' in our lovely civil society today (more active campaigning, disciplining scabs, etcetera) in such a situation, which has existed in the past in Britain and many other countries in the world.
Secondly, with reference to your situation in Argentina: I would argue that the situation with farmers is one which vindicates the argument that farmers, peasants, small-holders, etcetera, are not working class. They have different interests from those of the working class. As a socialist I wouldn't automatically jump to their defence in some kind of dispute over export tax.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
but that wasn't what I said at all. tho if anyone has any doubt that some places are a damned sight harder to organise than others, they are an Uberfool
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
It's common fucking sense
hang on the workers are leaving in droves due to the pay should we put it up and affect profit or lower it and employ workers with less rights than this arsey lot we've just lost thus being both profit boosting cost saving and getting the same level of service what say you mr money bags? what what...
common sense it isn't. real actuality it isn't. load of old toss it is...
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Honestly, the Dutch Provo movement is pretty well-known. I'd bet most people here know of them.
Here's a book on them.
nightbreed
Im Bored
It's common fucking sense
A lot of employers want a turnover of staff. Its what suits them.Its cheap. It keeps wages low. Its why you cant claim unfair dismissal until you worked one year.Its why employers use agency labour.
Its called being 'flexible'.
Its what employers call 'fuckin common sense'
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
Let's take an example: Unionising cleaners
There are lots of people who can clean, including a large informal sector working without employment rights etc. How would you go about coordinating a strike with so many people? How could you stop the strike instantly being broken by the many illegal immigrants in London, keen to do any kind of job. How could you afford to pay so many workers to survive the strike (or indeed get such low paid workers to pay dues in the first place)?
The problem here is not a lack of inspiration from other sectors or cowardice on the part of the workforce, but the way employment in their sector is organised. It's hard to see how 'union militancy' in general could help change that.
Its a bizarre argument to say that peasants are not working class. And some of these people on strike do jobs identical to city dwellers, and thus presumably under your definition could strike fairly and qualify for working class status. What exactly is your definition of working class?
Either way, the point with the Argentina reference is that this idea of the working class being some kind of monolithic whole, the entirety of which reacts well to the same medicine (agressive unionisation) is a nonsense to begin with.
What happens over here is that every union presses for wage increases at the start of the year to cover inflation, causing a big kerfuffle and disagreement over which increases are fair or not. Some win, some don't, inflation is high, because people overstate their rightful claims on the countries' wealth via their wage bargaining. This feeds through into higher interest rates, which constrain the economy (because uncertainty over future inflation adds a premium). And loads of really poor people are getting fucked over by the food thing.
The Black Hand
Unclean
Very good that man.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
very bad example. The T&G here have organised a 'Justice for Cleaners' campaign for the last three or four years. They have helped to raise cleaners'
pay substantially. Sometime by strikes, sometimes simply by threats of strikes. And that is a mainly migrant workforce - often 'illegal' migrants.
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
belboid - he said: "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." [my bold]
you said: "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."
I don't think I've extended the logic that far by inferring you're telling me that 'to a certain extent' unskilled workers will 'never enjoy significant union clout. Seeing as, y'know, that's what you said.
You and dennisr should get together and gas on this old bird over a pint sometime. The peasants aren't working-class - not in a Marxist sense. Peasants are, in relation to their economic situation, small businessmen. As are farmers. They may be right down there at the bottom of the pile, but it doesn't mean they have any vested interest in collective solidarity with other sections of the oppressed. They can live off their own backs, thankyouverymuchly.
Rightful? You're saying those who produce the wealth and run the services have some 'rightful' claim to a fraction of the wealth they produce, and no more? Surely, we all have a 'right' to the products of our labour? I happen to agree with you that collective bargaining runs contrary to the nature of a capitalist system - that you cannot have a healthy capitalist state whilst workers are remunerated to the full extent of their labour input (or 'over the odds', as the market would have it). But then, I'm not really all that interested in the smooth running of the capitalist system either.
And that's socialism, folks!
you said: "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."
I don't think I've extended the logic that far by inferring you're telling me that 'to a certain extent' unskilled workers will 'never enjoy significant union clout. Seeing as, y'know, that's what you said.
DapperDonDamaja said:
You and dennisr should get together and gas on this old bird over a pint sometime. The peasants aren't working-class - not in a Marxist sense. Peasants are, in relation to their economic situation, small businessmen. As are farmers. They may be right down there at the bottom of the pile, but it doesn't mean they have any vested interest in collective solidarity with other sections of the oppressed. They can live off their own backs, thankyouverymuchly.
Rightful? You're saying those who produce the wealth and run the services have some 'rightful' claim to a fraction of the wealth they produce, and no more? Surely, we all have a 'right' to the products of our labour? I happen to agree with you that collective bargaining runs contrary to the nature of a capitalist system - that you cannot have a healthy capitalist state whilst workers are remunerated to the full extent of their labour input (or 'over the odds', as the market would have it). But then, I'm not really all that interested in the smooth running of the capitalist system either.
And that's socialism, folks!
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
Practically very single tube driver is looked after by the RMT... The same can hardly be said of cleaners and the TGWU. They may win victories against big employers of cleaning staff (in the city... the underground which also benefits from RMT clout), but they can do jack shit for the majority of cleaners who are hired informally, or work for employers who employ small quantities of staff/arent' bothered by their PR image.
So if I wasn't one of the lucky cleaners I can't see why I should be cheering for the tankers, if it means my (relatively fixed) spending power is likely to take a hit. It's just one sector of society getting richer, while the rest of us get poorer.
I do buy into your evangelisation argument a little bit. I'm not the union-hating demagogue that I'm portrayed as being sometimes. I do however believe that the justice of a strike hinges on whether potential society wide benefits outweigh the disruption and spending power hit to sectors which are often the least able to bear them. In some cases I've been convinced, in others not. I am fairly convinced that most anyone who isn't a trucker or in their family will see fuck all benefit from these strikes.
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
To hell with what Marx thinks. Why can't you argue using the English language, in which the common definition of a working class person is one who labours physically for a wage? And what about the many millions of peasants who own no capital of note at all? Their situation is identical to city workers - they work for capitalists and all. I think your definition of socialism is weird and not particularly socially inclusive, which one would think is an important requirement.
With a fiat money system, you get situations which allow a sum of the total wage claims in paper money exceeding the market value of what the country produces, this being inflationary. This is what I'm trying to say. You have a right to the products of your labour, but if you overstate it whilst calculating it in your wage bargaining deals and get away with it, everybody else will take a hit in a capitalist economy. It will eventually also cause inflation when other people realise they've been screwed and set off a chain reaction. This would happen even in your socialist utopia in which workers were entitled to what you consider the entire value of their efforts.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
go back to school and learn about the use of language then dear boy. i think that is quite clearly not what i meant at all, tho it is true, as i said before and you chose to ignore, that some sections of the workforce are pretty much always likely to be less unionised than others. if you disagree with that please argue the point
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