Trade Unions

the other ct · Trade Unions

Is anyone here a member?

Up here there seems to be quite a bit of industrial action. Aside from the postal strike in the last few months the fire service and bus drivers have all had walk outs, nearby the bin men are out and before the summer council worker and refinery workers were picketing.

I deal with the press enquiries on behalf of a large NHS organisation and my view is the two main union who deal with our employees are fairly useless. They seem to be very self serving and mainly interested in boosting their image or profile, rather than serving members. I don’t know how much the subs are (the reps keep away from the admin staff as a rule) but they seem to offer really poor value for money, unless you are in and out of disciplinary meetings.

It isn’t that I’m against them, but has the work environment (people changing jobs and even industries more often) and their own organisations (mergers making them larger taking them away from their members) changed so much that they are no longer effective?

So use extremes like strikes to prove they are still relevant rather than being low key and perhaps being more use to members?

DradusContact

Im a member of Unison, and yes, they are totally useless. Our two reps in work couldnt organise a piss-up in a brewery. In my current redudancy situation they have been no help at all. If im here after this ill be joining another one. I think that beacuse you dont get paid for being a rep, only the odd-balls do it.

I think i pay about £7 a month.

Humphrey The Pug

I used to a member of a Union when I worked for Sainsbury's, you had to be TBH as they are a shit company to work for and are always looking for ways to stab you in the back.

Since I have been in the Motor Trade I haven't been a member and I wouldn't have a clue where to begin looking. Though with the company I work for being a memeber of a Union could be quite helful as they are quite an Old School business and sometimes don't striclty follow the rule book, "we do it our way" and "that's not how we do i"t, those sort employees, however on a whole they are pretty good to work for though.

I could've done with being a Union member at my last but one employers as they totally ballsed up the redundancy process for the dept. and seemed to get rid of myself and my colleague as our faces didn't fit, certainly my performance record didn't warrant me being made redundant, unfair dismissal my Mum said, she was a Union rep for the NASUWT and knows her stuff.

garry

I've never been a member.
I would never be a member.
No-one in my company is a member of a union.

Blarno

I used to be a member of GMB.

It wasn't worth the tenner a month so I knocked it on the head.

Giant

gonnabuildabuggy

Helen is, she had some employment problems with illegal practices by the local council and it was cheaper than a solicitor. Gordon (local rep) did a cracking job and the HR department (who had been by passed by her erstwhile boss) were very embarrassed when what had been happening was revealed. She left but with a very reasonable payout for what was a part-time job (although boss thought he's bully people into full-time working for one day a week money).

All the ones I hear on the radio at the moment seem very self-serving and I feel sorry for the sheep following.

A postie from Somerset was on the radio last week saying he was coming out on strike because of how his London colleagues were being treated although things were fine for him!

Another talked about couriers making no difference because the postie did the "final mile" - sadly total Bo**oc*s - I've just shifted my small parcels onto DHL so they are doing themselves out of a job - reminds me of Arthur Scargill - started out with a small house and a large union, ended with a large house and a small union.

SpecB

My sister in law is a postie and joined the union because you get ostracised if you don't.

The union is not telling the workers what is going on at all - all they are telling them is when to strike and it is driving her nuts as she would rather be working and earning.

The unions all appear to have similar agendas and they are not in the interests of the workers as they purport to be and have lost all credibility in my view. They just seem happy to run whichever company they happen to be in dispute with at the time into the ground.

Boxer6

DB

Might be a naive statement, but if you are that diss-affected by the job that you are doing then f*ck off and get a different one.

gonnabuildabuggy

Frank Bullitt

Not a member, never will be.

As a way of getting some support for people who need it they can be invaluable, but as a tool to cause mass distraction they have no place in society.

The Fire services were damaged by striking and I think the same is true of posties - general support turns to distain. Apart from some ebay shit does it actually make a difference if your post doesn't turn up on time?

tali

I am not a member of a Union and have heard too many anectodal stories of their uselessness.
However, i strongly belive in the fundamental right to strike.The prescence of Unions is vitally important - without them the ruling classes would be probably sending kids to clean chimmneys.

SambaFi

Bryan M

I quit my union membership on Friday - I didn't agree with the stance over the Mail strike - In reality though only apathy kept me in because they did bob all for me

DaveGibson

Being at work from the late sixties, I was in employment at the height of union power, however, I never joined one. A couple of stories from the time may illustrate things.

While with Rolls-Royce a colleague was a pretty solid member of the local branch of ASTMS (Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs). Quite independently, both he and I left RR and ended up working together at Leyland Cars, Longbridge. He didn't immediately join the union branch at Longbridge but after some six months or so, the local representative sought him out and told him that he was now six months behind in his subs and he must pay immediately or else. This chap's attitude was so obnoxious that my colleague told him to get stuffed (it may have been a bit stronger than that). He was never again a union member.

The following year, while our office was being re-built and asbestos was being removed, we were housed in a Portakabin in the yard. The nearest toilets were 20 yards away so, naturally, we started to use those. Within a couple of days we had a visit from a pompous shop steward who told us, in no uncertain terms, that these toilets were for his shop floor members and that we, office workers, must use those at the other end of the office block, past where the asbestos was being removed. If I tell you that the office block was half a mile long, you can imagine the response he got.

Bryan M

From my experience the Union reps are not out to look after the majority of the membership, merely the chosen favorites/clique

Rodge

Never been a member. My wife is a member but that's because she's working for the health authority, she's not active in it.
I think the idea of them is good but the leaders are militant idiots. They don't care about anything other then their pockets.

Grampa

Used to be a member of the print union (forget their name now - GMPU? - long since swallowed up into a more general union) - despite all the bad press they got over the papers move out of Fleet Street in the 80's, for a general printer they were a very good union. Everyone in our company including all directors was a member, and the head guy in the area (forget his title) would regularly pop in to see how things were going, moan about companies where they had militant workers with heads up their arses etc.

They always took a very fair approach over things like wage rises, from both an employer's and employee's point of view, for instance if a company was not doing too well (common in print), they would tell the employees not to be daft enough to insist on money that wasn't there. They would also be even handed in a dispute - I remember being on the employer's side of the fence when one of our guys contacted said area guy over a silly grievance - he came down, looked at all the facts and told the employee to stop being a tw*t.

If all union reps had been like this guy, it would do wonders for UK industry.

Mike Amos

I was a rep for nupe, some time ago. Fact is I got no support from the union office and my first week in the 'job' entailed dealing with the restructuring of nurse grades. To say that we got a piss poor result would be an understatement. The senior rep was off sick more than she was at waork with a bad back and no-one else in the union gave a sigmoid colon about the nurses on the ground.

After two months I just did not bother to call them and after six months I was informed I had resigned from the union. Glad they told me or I would have continued paying subs.....

I have to agree that most of these unioin top dogs seem more interested in keeping their inflated lifestyles than helping the working person. Perhaps we really DO need a revolution. Government AND unions that could not find a bog in a bathroom.

Big Blue

From the stories above and experience in the workplace it seems that all too often shit floats to the top.

Martin

'G'

I'm a member of the Nationwide Staff Union. They are virtually powerless, but they have an excellent weekly draw, where the top prize is around £20,000.

You get what you pay for.

Boxer6