Stikes : Tue Dec 06, 2016 11:17 am  

I was travelling to work this morning and there was a noticeable number of messages being passed on the radio about strikes on the railways this week both on the over and underground in and around London

Just made me think about which industries tend to have more strikes than others. Recently we’ve seen train companies, prison service, teachers going on strike

Why don’t we see such a prevalence of strikes in the technology, banking, engineering and similar sectors?

Re: Stikes : Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:49 pm  

Exiled down south wrote:

I was travelling to work this morning and there was a noticeable number of messages being passed on the radio about strikes on the railways this week both on the over and underground in and around London

Just made me think about which industries tend to have more strikes than others. Recently we’ve seen train companies, prison service, teachers going on strike

Why don’t we see such a prevalence of strikes in the technology, banking, engineering and similar sectors?

It's down to the numbers of employees and the number of Trades Unions involved.
In many of the old Industries, there still remain large numbers of employees, belonging to relatively few Unions, therefore making is easier fro them to gather support and speak with one voice.
In many industries, there isn't any Union membership and striking just isn't an option, unless there has been severe mis- treatment of the staff.
Plus changes in the law, brought about during the Thatcher era, make it significantly more difficult for Unions to take action.
Some of these changes may be for the better but, equally, the squeeze on wages that there has been for the last six or seven years probably wouldn't have been possible in the 80's (or before).

Re: Stikes : Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:23 pm  

I was thinking along those lines. It tends to be in the public sector or maybe in industries that were traditionally public or ones Labour would like to re-nationalise.

Having worked in Engineering and more recently technology its really something I’ve not been exposed to. Last exposure was UKAEA as an apprentice in the early 80’s.

I was recently over in Spain with work and attended a workers council meeting which was interesting.

Re: Stikes : Tue Dec 06, 2016 3:08 pm  

Exiled down south wrote:

I was thinking along those lines. It tends to be in the public sector or maybe in industries that were traditionally public or ones Labour would like to re-nationalise.

Having worked in Engineering and more recently technology its really something I’ve not been exposed to. Last exposure was UKAEA as an apprentice in the early 80’s.

I was recently over in Spain with work and attended a workers council meeting which was interesting.

There was the tory idea of having a workers representative on the board of all the larger companies, which could be a decent idea. However this appears to have been shelved, along with looking after the poor and less well off. Bloody politicians

Re: Stikes : Tue Dec 06, 2016 3:25 pm  

Members of the workers council in Spain, and I think there is something similar in France have 'guaranteed' jobs whilst on the council for 4 years!! Nice position to be in.

Re: Stikes : Wed Dec 07, 2016 12:57 pm  

You also have to factor in the nature of the customer base, some customers are held captive by effective monopolies and some are not. I'm constantly inconvenienced by Southern Rail strikes, although I think it's the DfT that is to blame for deliberately engineering the dispute, rather than the Unions and the TOC (although they are ****s too). The thing is I don't have a sensible alternative to using Southern trains. I commute between 2 and 3 hours a day, but if I were to try and replace the train part of that it would be 5 hours plus. Southern have an effective monopoly over part of my commute. But if a supplier I can easily switch was hit by a strike and it affected me, I'd just switch to another supplier, that's the beauty of competition (the caveat being the cost of switching).

Re: Stikes : Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:19 pm  

Kelvin's Ferret wrote:

You also have to factor in the nature of the customer base, some customers are held captive by effective monopolies and some are not. I'm constantly inconvenienced by Southern Rail strikes, although I think it's the DfT that is to blame for deliberately engineering the dispute, rather than the Unions and the TOC (although they are ****s too). The thing is I don't have a sensible alternative to using Southern trains. I commute between 2 and 3 hours a day, but if I were to try and replace the train part of that it would be 5 hours plus. Southern have an effective monopoly over part of my commute. But if a supplier I can easily switch was hit by a strike and it affected me, I'd just switch to another supplier, that's the beauty of competition (the caveat being the cost of switching).

Which in effect is what we had. My line is served by Southern, Gatwick Express and Thameslink. It's not that long ago I could travel into London Bridge and it was cheaper than travelling into Victoria. Then up popped the Tories and all three became "owned" by Govia. Prices went up, competition died and we now have a god awful mess.

Initially it was all a bit of an inconvenience. It is now effecting people's lives and the way they live those lives. My tolerance is very low and blood pressure now very high, but I have no alternative so have to suck it up. It's a ******** joke. Except nobody is laughing, apart from the shareholders who are happily subsidised by UK Plc.