Where do we start with how stupid this is?



1) What sort of "private sector practices"? Zero hours rip off contracts? Untrained staff such as at Winterbourne?



Or do you mean more like the irresponsible, gambling banks? Or that non-union bastion of truth and virtue, News International?



Or the 'sack staff if they won't tell lies' variety of private employer that I've personally expended? Or just the incompetent ones who sack staff when they can't do the job themselves? Or the ones who get you to sign a contract - and then decide that you're out of order when you won't simply change the terms of that to increase their personal pay but not yours?



Do you means those sort of private sector practises, perchance?



Or the ones mentioned by more than one poster here, before now, who now put profit before service and pride in that service, and expect their employees to do the same? Is that the sort of utopia you're thinking of?



2) I hate to break it to you, but there are unionised private workplaces out there. More than one has been mentioned here. Like Vauxhall, where the atrocious union saved a couple of thousand jobs. Crummy, reprehensible behaviour, eh?



3) How do the Germans do it, eh?







Because there really are so many jobs going at present these days ...

I have! If you want to see the evidence we've got 15 years of files here to demonstrate that and their flagrant disregard for the law. If you are ever passing this way you are welcome to look at them. Otherwise, you may have to wait to see if Mrs D gets round to writing a book to name and shame the whole shower of them.

As someone who has spent alot of time in hospitals in recent years in my opinion alot (not all) of younger nurses are lazy and uncaring.

I left 4/5 years ago for the private sector, I am paid roughly double what I earned in the public sector for an easier job with less stress and less responsibility. Where the sickness rate is roughly the same. Not that that's relevant anyway.

Why are they underpaid? Because the majority were on minimum wage or just above after actually having their wages reduced after Agenda for Change. But that wasn't the main problem. The main problem was them being under resourced and under valued, this naturally affected motivation and efficiency.

The notion they could just leave is utterly ridiculous and belongs in Sal's Real World.

Not that elements of the media have contributed to this over 30 years or more, so that swathes of the population (and we see some here) just accept the lie because it suits them.

Having been a patient a three or four times in the last half-dozen years, I have to say that, in my experience, ALL the staff I have encountered have been caring, competent and efficient.

Locations were Manchester, Halifax and Paddington.



But then, I don't act the @rse telling them their job.

My father would not have lived into the 1960s were it not for the NHS. They diagnosed stomach cancer and operated – incredibly radical and risky surgery for the time, removing half his stomach. Coming from a tiny rural Cornish background, his family would quite simply not have had the money for such treatment in the days before the NHS.



In the 1970s, the NHS diagnosed the pernicious anaemia that can set in as a result of that sort of surgery. If they hadn't, the best-case scenario was that he would have lost the use of his legs. He will continue to receive six-weekly injections for the rest of his life to control this.



In the 1980s, they performed major surgery to (in effect) tidy up his insides and sort out an issue with his bile duct that was a direct result of the original, life-saving surgery, but which had been causing increasing bilious attacks.



In the 1990s, he had stents inserted to prevent a heart attack.



A couple of weeks ago, they removed a cataract from one eye (managing to get him in just as such surgery is being rationed).



He has never had anything but praise and thanks for the NHS and what it has done for him – and that includes for all the staff that have looked after him over the years. The last time I talked to him, he was intending to write to the trust to thank them for making the cataract surgery so pain free and straightforward, with results that he could see within days.



He continues not simply to be alive – but to be active as a direct result of the NHS and its remarkable and dedicated staff.



And that is without mentioning the care my mother received at the beginning of the 1970s, when she had to have a hysterectomy (and credit also to the local authority, who ensured she had visits from a home help while she was recovering). Or my father's father, who lived to a ripe old age as a direct result of care he received from the NHS in middle age.



Of course the system is not perfect – there is not a system in the world that is.



And 100% of all staff will be perfect – 100% of staff will never be perfect in any organisation or company anywhere in the world.



But even my conservative and Conservative father would say, from almost a lifetime of experience, in many parts of the country, that to suggest that there is something like universal bad service is a load of BS.

Unions, are they evil?

No, they are not evil. It's a very stupid question. If the only thing you've got available to sell is your labour or brains, then you are letting down your own personal PLC and your shareholders such as your family etc, by not getting the best deal possible, under whatever circumstances pertain at the time. It only stands to reason that the smart way to achieve this is collectively. The top union by far is the legal profession, followed by the 1st division club of senior civil servants, followed by the BMA. Very effective, united and hardly a bunch of trotskyist militants.

People should really try to see beyond the constant black propaganda put out by the media. The only newspaper that gets anywhere near the truth is the FT.

The best businesses and business people aren't against unions, they are for whatever aids growth and profit and having a committed, happy workforce is a good start in achieving this.

Robin Day used to say that only two UK newspapers told the truth: "the [iFinancial Times[/i, which has to tell the truth for the business class, and the [iMorning Star[/i, which tells the truth for the workers".



But otherwise –

Well I sincerely hope that thos who voted this shower into power and can't afford to pay healthcare insurance for ALL eventualities are ready for the shock because that will be what we return to. There is no doubt in my mind that we will see more cases of people dying because they simply cannot afford the treatment required.

well said

Interesting - perhaps you can explain why sickness in the union dominated public sector is much higher than in the private sector?



Maybe you could also explain what went on with the rail franchise fiasco - was that not caused by the good old public sector?



Also the culture of lying within the police - two examples only this week - are the police public servants?



The most efficient car plant in the UK has no union influence - perhaps the two things may be related?



BBC handing out payments so its stars can avoid tax - another example of public sector behaviour



If you think News International is the only news organisation who operated in an unethical manner you are deluded.



In Germany the unions know their position - the companies rule the roost.



You holding out the public sector as a bastion of morality is yet another laughable post of yours - your myopic views on some subjects do you no favours.