Without trades unions most firms would be paying subsistence wages for working in horrendous conditions. Improvements to pay and conditions that have benefited the workforce have rarely,if ever, been instigated by employers. Collective bargaining also suits many large employers because of its simplicity. I know you will argue that all of that is in the past and there is now no need for unions but I would counter that with asking you to look at what this government wants to do to the national labour force.

Cameron is busily stamping his feet for reform of the EU and repatriation of powers back to the UK. Most of what he wants to exercise greater control over is labour law, basically he wants to reduce or remove the safeguards that have been achieved over years of struggle. Thatcher's Right to Buy and the big bang had nothing to do with empowering the individual, it was all about creating a workforce of compliant wage-slaves. By shifting the emphasis from savings to ever-increasing personal debt, she achieved this without most people noticing.

I'm not surprised that you've never been a member of a trade union but while you've been enjoying a pay freeze (a cut effectively), has the same happened to the executives of your orgnisation or their shareholders? If I was ever in a situation where non-union labour decided to cross a picket line, there's little I could do about it, apart from ignore them, on a personal level, afterwards.

Bang on. The one thing that rarely gets mentioned is how Thatcher and, in fairness, the political classes have allowed a major fracture to occur in the average working relationship. Before the 1980s employees could expect that their loyalty would be rewarded or that's how people felt. When the relaxation of employment law came it made it much easier for companies in the UK to fold/close down business operations in the UK and move them overseas. This isn't the case in countries like Germany and France where employment law dictates that such sweeping and wholesale changes to local economies have a much more stringent process for this that normally hinders such multinationals. In the UK we don't have that kind of employment protection.

As this happened so the UK workforce has realised that if you commit yourself to a company there is no guarantee that you will share in its success. Even companies which are successful in the UK have seen some of their operations move overseas. One of my recent employes was a £250m business in Liverpool which has an 80% market share, year-on-year growth in double figures (for over 20 years) and makes a lot of money from it. Its parent company, Danone, moves in and is slowly moving personnel and production from the Liverpool site into its cheaper subsidiaries and factories overseas. That is the company's prerogative in the modern day of course, however, this is a very successful business built by talent and individuals from the Liverpool area, providing lots of jobs to the local area through it.

Organisations want commitment and effort from its workforce but when work is so transient it undermines that, creates insecurity within individuals and eventually long-term mental health problems for the UK workforce and social problems that we have to pick up as taxpayers. Alternatively we ignore them and then face epidemics of whole communities that slowly die and become trapped in the welfare cycle that the political classes then demonise.

The Sin Bin should be rename Jurrasic Park

Flying pickets, the Closed Shop and intimidation.

Now we are seeing the REAL "socialist" come out.

Spot on.

Haha

You really are a bitter and twisted Communist who is living in another era aren't you?

Ironically you are exactly the reason that many of us supported Thatcher and saw the need for change.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with a Trade Union that behaves reasonably and is there to ensure fairness, there is everything wrong with them having too much power and breeding the kind of lovely person that you come across as.

Thatcher chewed you up and spat you out like a discarded piece of chewing gum. No wonder you are bitter.

Does it?

What happened to democracy and freedom of choice?

True. A similar paradox arises when large companies and multi-national corporations demand tax breaks and employ tax avoidance techniques.

Those companies demand a well-educated, healthy and secure workforce while simultaneously trying very hard to avoid paying for the welfare policies that will provide them with such a workforce.

No-one forces people to work for a particular company. Last time I checked, slavery was still illegal.

I really cannot understand this feeling that the employee is somehow "entitled" to anything.

I've always been very simple about these matters. I go to work, I get paid. If I believe this is a good arrangment I stay, if I believe it isn't, or believe I could get a better one, I move.

It's not rocket science. I've never had a chip on my shoulder, never thought the world owed me a living. The last 3 years are a classic case - a wage freeze, coupled with inflation is effectively a pay cut. I have two choices- to stay in the current role or to leave.

As for the employer, well they will pay the employee whatever is needed to maximise profit. And why shouldn't they? They are the ones taking the risks, they should make the decisions.

?

When i look to join a company, i look at the pay, terms/conditions etc.
If i'm not happy i look elsewhere.
Why would i join a company i wasn't happy with and then moan and strike when i knew what i was getting into.
Quite recently my company went on strike about not getting the 6% pay rise it asked for, when companies are shutting left right and centre and people are taking pay cuts i personally found it vulgar asking for 6%.

I was quite happy to not get a rise at all, my opinion, my right.

Besides i don't go to work to make friends, if i upset people who disagree with it so be it, my life, my mortgage, my principles and i can easily look at myself in the mirror.

I personally think you're a wa-k-r if you feel the need to force your way of thinking on to me, there's a name for people like you and i didn't think it was anything to do with socialism, unless it's the Hitler form of socialism you subscribe to?