A lot of the reps I’ve met, worked with are simply terrible and sadly do it to get out of “work”, and only in it for themselves.
It’s really hard to convince other people they’d do better and should go for it.
Cos for years and years unions have been spinless and populated by the weak willed or incompetent..
I’ve been in unions, where the rep would go out and have rounds of golf with the management…
And yes we were part of unite…
Because everyone can see the type of person who runs unions and are repulsed by them.
Lots of businesses either don’t recognise a union making it more difficult to organise or they actively brief against joining them as it’s better for them.
Never liked the idea of giving my hard earned cash to a bunch of useless layabouts who would in turn give my money to rich politicians who’re also useless cunts.
I tried to join a union in my old job. Got a call saying I couldn’t join because my local branch was a specialised one, only dealing with Royal Mail employees. Haven’t bothered since.
Becuase many unions are shit. Usdaw in particular seems to employ union reps who’d rather get close to management and enjoy perks to keep them sweet than fight for the workers.
Surely union membership is almost pointless for the first two years anyway since your employer can get rid off you for almost any reason.
Even afterwards, it depends on the union and your sector.
Unions aren’t very effective after Thatcher seriously reduced their effectiveness in law. Still the workers who have a recognised union and utilise it tend to be the better paid workers in the country and do better than average so despite the union busting done at a national level unions still work out better for their membership than not.
I hope people start to realise with these pay cuts that the unions members get what they deserved and the rest didn’t and change their tune and join together to start to collectively bargain. Its the only way the inequality starts getting reduced as no government is going to fix the massive gap between rich and poor.
Unions require militancy and radical action to be effective. Not some glorified HR department that’s just the companies bitch.
This came about after Thatcher made such action illegal, due to the effectiveness of general strikes.
Years of being told that unions were bad and strikes were only done by lazy, greedy workers is not going to be done overnight. I think if unions can prove to the public with the strikes planned over the summer (and the ones that will inevitably take place come winter) then we will see membership shoot up in 2023. It will take time but unions need to prove to workers that they can get the results people want.
Is it a class thing where people get shunned or frowned upon?
Big companies wouldn’t be spending so much money on union busting if unions were ineffective. Unions are the reason why we have weekends and people don’t routinely get killed in the workplace. For those whining about unions being spineless, join one. The more members they have, the more power they have.
13 comments
A lot of the reps I’ve met, worked with are simply terrible and sadly do it to get out of “work”, and only in it for themselves.
It’s really hard to convince other people they’d do better and should go for it.
Cos for years and years unions have been spinless and populated by the weak willed or incompetent..
I’ve been in unions, where the rep would go out and have rounds of golf with the management…
And yes we were part of unite…
Because everyone can see the type of person who runs unions and are repulsed by them.
Lots of businesses either don’t recognise a union making it more difficult to organise or they actively brief against joining them as it’s better for them.
Never liked the idea of giving my hard earned cash to a bunch of useless layabouts who would in turn give my money to rich politicians who’re also useless cunts.
I tried to join a union in my old job. Got a call saying I couldn’t join because my local branch was a specialised one, only dealing with Royal Mail employees. Haven’t bothered since.
Becuase many unions are shit. Usdaw in particular seems to employ union reps who’d rather get close to management and enjoy perks to keep them sweet than fight for the workers.
Surely union membership is almost pointless for the first two years anyway since your employer can get rid off you for almost any reason.
Even afterwards, it depends on the union and your sector.
Unions aren’t very effective after Thatcher seriously reduced their effectiveness in law. Still the workers who have a recognised union and utilise it tend to be the better paid workers in the country and do better than average so despite the union busting done at a national level unions still work out better for their membership than not.
I hope people start to realise with these pay cuts that the unions members get what they deserved and the rest didn’t and change their tune and join together to start to collectively bargain. Its the only way the inequality starts getting reduced as no government is going to fix the massive gap between rich and poor.
Unions require militancy and radical action to be effective. Not some glorified HR department that’s just the companies bitch.
This came about after Thatcher made such action illegal, due to the effectiveness of general strikes.
Years of being told that unions were bad and strikes were only done by lazy, greedy workers is not going to be done overnight. I think if unions can prove to the public with the strikes planned over the summer (and the ones that will inevitably take place come winter) then we will see membership shoot up in 2023. It will take time but unions need to prove to workers that they can get the results people want.
Is it a class thing where people get shunned or frowned upon?
Big companies wouldn’t be spending so much money on union busting if unions were ineffective. Unions are the reason why we have weekends and people don’t routinely get killed in the workplace. For those whining about unions being spineless, join one. The more members they have, the more power they have.