[DaveO]

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 2:39 am  

Horatio Yed wrote:

Are you being facetious? Granted the financial scales are different but the mentality isn't.

What mentality is that? Low paid workers (as most are) not wanting to carry the can for the bankers screwing up the economy because they, the public employes, are easy government employed targets?

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 7:44 am  

Dally wrote:

Why - are nurses a 'special case.'? I have spent quite alot of time in hospitals in the last few years and have been shocked at the almost complete lack of nursing care. I am taling childrens wards here - and apparently its as bad in old folks wards. Appalling. So many of them prefer chatting than work. On one occasion an older nurse who had just come back after a 20 year break was aghast and trying to do everything herself - she couldn't believe how standards had slipped and how lazy everyone was. I had to say to her that I was glad it wasn't just me who thought that!

Having been out of hospital for 8 weeks, all I saw on my orthopaedic ward was hard-working, understaffed, dedicated nurses. I have never seen morale so low either. I don't doubt what you say in your experience, but I've had 5 ops in the last 2 1/2 years and not once had I had a complaint about a nurse.

A few examples: 2 staff nurses for over 30 ladies. One staff nurse heavily pregnant and came in and was immediately sent home as she was sick. That left 1 staff nurse for a 13 hours shift and she even had time to come down to theatres with me. Second example: on my discharge the nurses put my prescription into pharmacy at 8am. By 2pm when no prescription was forthcoming, one particular staff nurse went down to pharmacy every half hour from 2pm till it was finally ready at 4.30pm. She didn't have to do that but did.

Imo its not the nurses who can't be bothered, they are let down by a system thats overloaded and bureaucracy thats in place.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:22 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

anyone who flies into Belfast City Airport can see how well Howland Wolf are doing!!

Didn't he sing 'Smokestack Lightning'?

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:35 am  

SBR wrote:

... I got bored of you skirting around the issue. Yes, inflation means things cost more now. However what is the difference in real terms and how does that compare to the increase in wages for all but the top few?
It also occurred to me that the claim was far too vague and wide reaching to ever be corroborated. I mean, what is the 'cost of living'? How can that be succinctly quantified? I guess at least it may be possible to put a figure on the average increase in wages for all but a given top earning x% of the population. But you haven't even managed that.

That's okay – I got bored ages ago of you being an apologist for what anyone with a grain of morality/ethics can see has been happening and can see is wrong.

But this is risable: "inflation means things cost more now." Just for one, the cost of housing has not gone up, over the last 30 years, by the rate of inflation.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:40 am  

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

... at least 15-20 years if you expect somebody to seriously contribute to their own retirement...

They already do. When you opt into one of the pension schemes, you agree that some of your pay will be deferred and go into that scheme instead.

BrisbaneRhino wrote:

... One thing everybody should look at when planning for their retirement (if they have the ability to do so - most funds worth their salt will enable you to do a bit of diversification in a general sense) is to try to diversify some of your investments. The sharemarket is always a bit of a rollercoaster, and whilst returns over the long-term are generally good, you can face significant short to medium term volatility in the value of your shares - a real problem if you face retirement on a maturing investment during a sharemarket collapse. I know quite a few older people here who are really worried about having to postpone their planned retirement as they simply cannot afford to stop working.

So if people want a decent retirement, they have to become wizards at playing the financial game, yes?

That, I'm afraid, is part of what's gone seriously wrong. People have to trust their lives to a bunch of gamblers.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:41 am  

Horatio Yed wrote:

Give over mate, everyone makes out that all doctors and nurses are amazing people, selfless and full of virtue, i know a few and guess what some of them are right see you next Tuesdays. Just like not all soldiers are heroes, put i suppose it goes against the populist BS that people peddle in mindless fashion. Not everyone is a paragon of virtue regardless of profession.

Please link to the post where anyone has claimed this.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:27 am  

Rock God X wrote:

Translation: I am unable to answer any of your points, so I'll try to make out that it's you that's stupid.

How very boring, generic and predictable of you

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:29 am  

El Barbudo wrote:

Seemed like fairly simple questions to me.

I'll put it even more simply.
Do you really believe that people on, say, minimum wage have enough spare cash at the end of the month during their working years to be able to create a large-enough pension-pot to see them through their retirement without dying of hypothermia or malnutrition?

It depends when you start, really. Start one early enough (and keep it up) like you're advised to, then yes.

I'm sure you know, however, that there will always be some kind of safety net for people who have been physically unable to, though. I doubt ANY government would be so callous as to remove that.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:56 am  

Horatio Yed wrote:

I'm not equating it to the whole union experience you sarky sod, and neither is that my reasoning for not being in a union as i've never been in a union, i don't personally see the need for them, i've asked for a pay increase in one of my jobs and negotiated it myself and i'm a honest hard worker so i don't need them to fight my corner either, the world helps those that help themselves

You would expect me to agree with your post, but I just don't.

Contrary to what the some think on here, I'm not against unions. I'm just against the way most of them conduct themselves, especially when compared to places like Germany, where it works well. That's the frustrating bit - that the Germans can make it work, but we can't.

Unions are great where there are large numbers of workers in an organisation. I employ 10 people, all of whom do different things, with their package appropriately reflecting this, so it's not hard to sit down once or twice a year with everyone and discuss their wages (amongst other things, such as performance, training etc).

You can't however, do that when there are 500 of you. That's where unions can serve some purpose - it's a time saver for the management, as well as a trained negotiator fighting your corner if you're a worker. With respect to, say, factory workers, they're unlikely to be good negotiators, which is why is should - in theory - be good to be in a union, so all that is done for you. And were I in control of a company with so many employees, I wouldn't object to the workforce being unionised if the union stuck to the theory and worked WITH me, rather than trying to oppose me all the time for no reason other than - it seems - to justify their existence.

The problem, however - ignoring for one minute the perception that ALL management is unscrupulous - is that unions invariably fail to understand the situation the employer finds himself in. A fall in income ALWAYS means that costs need to come down; if your personal outgoings are £15,000 per year and you earn £20,000 (ignoring tax for the minute), you're OK.

BUT supposing you suddenly experience a fall in income to £14,000? Or even you suffer a fall to £17,000 but your outgoings increase to £18,000? You're then cash flow negative, and you have to make some savings. The problem we have, is that the general public - with respect to them - don't seem to get that this applies to businesses, and our country, as well as them individually. A company that turns over £2m per annum sounds good, but if their costs are £2.5m, then they either have to try and boost income or cut costs. They can't 'just pluck' half a million from somewhere any more than you personally can 'just pluck' a couple of grand from nowhere.

It is therefore the job of the unions to understand this, and reach a compromise; too often, we see unions tabling their objections and demands, then proposing strike action when they don't get it. Every so often you'll get a union leader out to make a name for himself, which again, sets the union cause back even further. Just as people dismiss management as being 'all the same', the same gets said of the unions FOR THIS REASON.

And yes, management SHOULD INDEED talk to the unions to allow this to happen, but first of all the unions need to demonstrate that they're worth talking to and reasonable to deal with, otherwise they will continue to be treated with the current level of disdain.

Re: Bloody Trades Unions ballsing it up again : Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:00 am  

Rock God X wrote:

Someone has to have overall budgetary control over the thing. If everyone is negotiating his/her salary individually, someone needs to keep an eye on the overall cost. Can't have individual managers handing out pay rises willy nilly. And then there are all the other conditions to think about. Should each worker negotiate changes to his annual leave entitlement, pension arrangement, sick pay, working hours, overtime arrangement etc individually too? Can't see it working out, really.

Well obviously, common sense tells you that each manager has control of his own department's budget, and will therefore know what he can and can't spend.

They're called MANAGERS for a reason.