The Unions Strike Back

Goooood evening people of the internet. This is another politically charged rant, so I hope people don’t mind what I have to say, if you wish to comment and disagree, then go ahead. Everyone’s allowed their own opinions.

I’ve just been watching the news. The TUC conference seems to be angry at the Labour leader Ed Milib(l)and. He said that it was a bad idea to strike when there were disputes over pensions back in June (2011) and the unions were still talking to government officials. For once, I actually agree with the labour leader. He has a very good point. Strike action should be a last resort, to be taken only when all talks have completely broken down and even then when there is no possible way out of the arguments. However, the current TUC committee seems to be of the opinion that they have the right to strike over anything and everything that ruffles their feathers even the slightest bit (I.e. every time someone asks them to do their job). Surely doesn’t this completely undermine the whole point of striking? A strike is meant to create a situation that suddenly deprives the industry involved of needed labour so that the bosses have to agree to demands in order to keep companies going. If, however, there are strikes so often that there’s no inconvenience and there becomes a separate infrastructure for the hiring of scab labour, then this becomes a complete farce of a concept and unions have no methods of attempting to force companies round to their points of view.

The sheer anger that was shown by people attending the conference shows how these people seem to have no idea how to campaign for anything. They seem to want to play their biggest card at the very start, therefore giving them nowhere to go and showing their position from the very start.  When companies realise that this short-sighted tactic is becoming the norm it is going to make union action a completely outdated concept when there are simple ways to predict and outmanoeuvre strategies such as these. When people get angry at there being a lack of support from politicians over immediate extreme action, they have only themselves to blame when no-one listens. I have exactly the same point of view about the student riots from last year.

The government proposed to put up tuition fees at universities, so people went on marches to show that they were against these. (I even went on a small, local one) but when people decided that the only way to make the point was to start smashing up London, then that’s when I have a problem. If you want a government to take notice of you, then you send people to talk to them, and maybe back it up with a human presence. But the last thing that’s going to persuade people that you have a valid viewpoint is to start having a temper tantrum like a small child. Liken it to a small child having a paddy. The last thing that their parent should do is give in to their demands just to make it shut up. It’s the same with the student protests. When violence broke out, there was never going to be a possibility for a favourable outcome. Free education is a PRIVELAGE not a right. An economically stable country where the only people with degrees are the intelligent ones who are studying to do  proper subjects should go to universities and get degrees, and there should be separate schemes for people going into other types of work. People seem to want a degree in anything at the moment (Harry Potter studies, Beatles studies. Just two stupid courses that I’ve seen advertised at unis recently) which undervalues the whole reason for having a higher education system in the first place. Surely the whole point in a degree is to differentiate between people of different levels of academic achievement. Which doesn’t happen when absolutely everyone has a degree in something. At least the new £9000 fees will force fewer people to go to university and therefore the degree will once again be worth more. However, the way that the government is persuading fewer people to go into higher education is by splitting the country, not by intellect or any academic achievement, but by wealth. Which is no way to decide who is eligible for further education or not.

People at the moment seem to be obsessed with violent protest, and then people get angry when the police get nervous and, in order to keep themselves safe, and to try and minimise damage, they come out in force, heavily armed and in full riot gear. The riots over this summer (2011), have had people attempt to defend them and call them protests, however there was nothing that any of the protesters really knew that they were protesting about. It was taken just as an excuse to loot shops and destroy cars. The idea of having a coherent sense of protest and successful union action is rapidly becoming a solely historical thing. Radical and hysterical action is eroding any respect that the Unions had.

Keep the peace internet folk.