| TUC - Out of Touch? 14:34 - Sep 11 with 6808 views | exiled_dictator |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9533863/TUC-Congress-T-shirts-rejoicing
Commemorative T-shirts rejoicing in the moment when Baroness Thatcher dies are being sold at the annual trades union gathering in Brighton.
Yes, she was a three times Prime Minister who made decisions which affected many people in many ways, but attacking an 86 year old with serious health issues seems a bit low to me.
She is still a human being, and this kind of political message is in my opinion poor. Deeply offensive.
(stands back, lights fuse and waits for bang.) |  |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 18:40 - Sep 17 with 929 views | finney |
so all the shite we are in is down to the unions?
Not bankers or bent governments? |  | | |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 20:50 - Sep 17 with 905 views | hamptonhillhoop |
What's the alternative, no pay rises or improvements in conditions for public sector workers?
We do actually need public sector workers [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 20:51 - Sep 17 with 903 views | BlackCrowe |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 21:23 - Sep 17 with 888 views | kensalriser |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 18:40 - Sep 17 by finney |
so all the shite we are in is down to the unions?
Not bankers or bent governments? |
You know it's serious when Finney can make perfect sense in two lines. |  |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 02:35 - Sep 18 with 859 views | DylanP |
From this post it sorta seems as though you don't really understand how government budgeting works. It isn't that complicated.
On one side of the equation is the income or revenue. That is where the tax payer is along with other types of government revenue -- customs payments, property tax, VAT, etc...
On the other side of the equation is the expenditures. Every part of the government has a budget, which is the amount of money assigned to it. They have to stay within that budget. So if teachers get a pay raise, it doesn't have any impact on the taxpayer -- taxes don't suddenly go up as a result. Rather, other elements of the school system budget get squeezed.
So to recap, taxpayers are on the revenue side of the budget. Public sector pay raises are on the expenditure side. The two aren't directly related. While theoretically, if expenditures go up it could increase pressure to increase revenue, in practice there are so many different factors impacting budgets that it is never that direct or immediate. Yes salaries may go up, but petrol prices may go down, sugar prices may stay flat, technology advances may decrease overheads, and so on. |  |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 02:35 - Sep 18 with 859 views | DylanP |
Double Post [Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 10:32 - Sep 18 with 820 views | Lblock |
One mans Thatcher is another mans Scargill......
I'm in the pro-Maggie camp but I must admit the passing of time has made me hate all politicians equally.
George Orwell was spot on |  |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 10:38 - Sep 18 with 819 views | kensalriser |
Is there a trade union for FTSE fat cats? If so, they seem to do rather better at 'holding the country to ransom' (TM right wing press) than any bunch of blue collar workers. | |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 11:33 - Sep 18 with 805 views | TacticalR |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 10:32 - Sep 18 by Lblock |
One mans Thatcher is another mans Scargill......
I'm in the pro-Maggie camp but I must admit the passing of time has made me hate all politicians equally.
George Orwell was spot on |
Some still love Big Sister, and so do everything they can to defend her reputation.
Orwell was an interesting character. Some claim him as an anti-Socialist Cold Warrior because of '1984', others as a Socialist because of works like 'Road to Wigan Pier' and because he joined and fought with Andreu Nin's Marxist militia (POUM) in Spain. |  |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 12:45 - Sep 18 with 940 views | TacticalR |
That article completely misses the point. The point is not that the head of the TUC gets paid much more than his members (which is true), the point is that nobody has the slightest idea who he is. | |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 12:56 - Sep 18 with 925 views | baz_qpr |
These things do make me laugh, its like criticising the head of Oxfam for being paid a 6 figure sum when they should be a volunteer. The guy is running a huge organisation with large overheads and a large number of staff serving other trade unions.
In any given exhibition hall there are probably 100+ stands selling or giving out 1000's of products and promotions, no organisation can control or be responsible for every product / promotion of a 3rd party in its exhibition.
Seriously this is classic "we think your a moron" stories designed to stir antipathy towards the unions |  | | |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 14:09 - Sep 18 with 899 views | real_loftus |
TacticalR makes an interesting point. I'm sure location plays as much a part in your views as any political upbringing or idealism. I know things got pretty desperate for the mining communities, but down south it was quite different and viewed differently. Unless you came from a staunch left wing family, for "most", Thatcher was the one who was going to give the Unions a bloody nose, and in most peoples eyes, the Unions deserved it. 3 day weeks, rolling power cuts, rubbish piled 10ft high in the streets and Britain rapidly descending into chaos. She took them on and won, and the nation got dragged off its knees and started to work again. You probably wont believe it, but my family's roots are in the Communist party, my grandfather almost stood for parliament for the Commies. But the 70s changed all that, and most people down our way were sick of the country being held to ransom by the unions. Conservatism offered a brave new world of freedom, small government, personal wealth and opportunity. Like the principles of Communism, all fine in principle, but rarely delivered in practice.
Like someone eloquently put it- it doesnt really matter what side you're on, they're all khunts at the end of the day. |  |
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| TUC - Out of Touch? on 17:57 - Sep 18 with 877 views | nadera78 |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 14:09 - Sep 18 by real_loftus |
TacticalR makes an interesting point. I'm sure location plays as much a part in your views as any political upbringing or idealism. I know things got pretty desperate for the mining communities, but down south it was quite different and viewed differently. Unless you came from a staunch left wing family, for "most", Thatcher was the one who was going to give the Unions a bloody nose, and in most peoples eyes, the Unions deserved it. 3 day weeks, rolling power cuts, rubbish piled 10ft high in the streets and Britain rapidly descending into chaos. She took them on and won, and the nation got dragged off its knees and started to work again. You probably wont believe it, but my family's roots are in the Communist party, my grandfather almost stood for parliament for the Commies. But the 70s changed all that, and most people down our way were sick of the country being held to ransom by the unions. Conservatism offered a brave new world of freedom, small government, personal wealth and opportunity. Like the principles of Communism, all fine in principle, but rarely delivered in practice.
Like someone eloquently put it- it doesnt really matter what side you're on, they're all khunts at the end of the day. |
Yes, quite right. All of Britain's problems in the 70's were attributable to the unions. It had absolutely nothing to do with 70 years of industrial decline and zero investment from business 'leaders' only interested in taking money out.
Take, for example, the Clyde shipyards. When they closed in the late 1970's the men working there were using the same machinery their grandfathers had been using at the turn of the century. Is it any wonder they had been unable to compete with Korean shipyards with modern technology and workers earning pennies? Too many people looking for short term profits instead of ensuring their businesses were sustainable.
Or perhaps we should look at the management structures? We had huge engineering firms that dominated globally, and yet we live in a country where becoming an engineer is, to this day, looked down upon. The result of this snobbishness was that these companies were placed under the leadership of men completely unqualified for the role. Who needs knowledge, being the right sort of chap is far more important. I mean, a man who's read Classics at Oxford is exactly the sort of chap one wants running an engineering firm.
Don't get me wrong, some of the union leaders were idiots who hastened their own demise and damaged their members' interests, but it is a complete and utter fallacy that they were to blame for our near collapse in the 1970's. The decline had been going on for many decades, and there were many other people far more culpable. |  | | |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 21:00 - Sep 18 with 806 views | FDC |
| TUC - Out of Touch? on 18:52 - Sep 16 by TacticalR |
Perhaps it's worth clarifying exactly what unions are.
At a party George Bernard Shaw once asked a woman: 'Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?' and when she replied 'Yes', he then asked her if she would sleep with him for a pound. She replied 'No, what do you think I am?' He replied 'We know what you are Madam, we are merely quibbling over the price'.
The unions merely quibble over the price of exploitation. They do not try to challenge exploitation itself. |
Bingo.
In fact, capitalism's tendencies are such that without the unions historically playing the role of curtailing some of its greatest excesses (as described by Dylan), capitalism would probably have eaten itself out of existence by now.
Which is obviously quite the conundrum for the workers movement.
And to point out that union bosses are creaming the whole process and in cahoots with capitalists is to state the bleeding obvious. |  | | |
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