Eddie Dempsey from RMT answers questions on ‘Are Unions being Greedy?’

9 comments
  1. Just saw this interview and thought it was absolutely ridiculous, the interviewer continually saying how they should be grateful and stop being greedy, despite being told a dozen times that pay is being cut.

    Interviewer seemed determined to make Dempsey look bad, and unions to look greedy, to the point it almost became satirical.

  2. I was enjoying this right up until Anne and Terrence piped up. Why are they involving the opinion of an 81 year old blathering on about rationing and the war? Interview a nurse who spends two months pay a year travelling to work

  3. It’s interesting that in capitalism we expect corporations to exploit their market and workers as much as possible, yet when workers negotiate as hard as possible for compensation closer to the value of their labour they are scoffed at.

  4. I love that linda thinks her son should accept the life he has in a super market on low wages instead of thinking he should be paid more.

    Fucking hell linda, get a fucking clue.

  5. The logical extension is that the workers are not happy with their pay rise and cannot afford to continue in the role(s) as their spending power is eroded. As such they look for new roles which pay more and the railways become understaffed. That leads to wage increase to attract new staff, because they can’t recruit on the old wages, and an effective pay rise.
    Can we not just shortcut this process?

  6. Is there a name for the idea that in the economy the activity of the wealthy should be considered immutable and that there is otherwise a zero sum game within the working class which doesn’t involve the rich? Because that idea is implied a lot and seems to underpin a lot of anti-union sentiment in this interview.

  7. As frustrating as it was to watch, I hope the interviewer is just trying to play devil’s advocate there and isn’t really that dense.

    That’s the first time I have seen Eddie Dempsey on something. The RMT have some bloody brilliant leaders. He was excellent at getting his point across while surrounded by such idiocy.

  8. Fucking hell this is depressing – how they’ve wheeled out a geriatric Widdicombe to shout ‘we’re back to the 1970s’ again and again – what an excellent contribution…

    Also, I don’t logically see how the ‘wage-price spiral’ is a reasonable argument (please someone with expertise correct me on this), as wages are a small component of money in circulation, so whilst causing an knock-on effect on inflation, it would be relatively small (and therefore a stable system). Also, wage rises are not increasing the total quantity of money in circulation in the economy – of course everyone is ignoring the rampant ‘quantitative easing’ that’s happened in the last decade…

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