Why we need powerful unions

[dudeness]

Why we need powerful unions



Old cliches never die; they do not even fade away. No sooner does Tony Blair agree reluctantly to set up a forum for unions to discuss public service changes with ministers than we hear again the gibes from employers and their allies in the national press and the Conservative Party about "beer and sandwiches at No 10". No doubt the cartoonists are sketching cloth caps and carthorses. Yet some of the bosses who offered soundbites on the perils of unions getting "special access" had probably come fresh from a "working breakfast" in Downing Street for which we mere mortals are not to know either the guest list or the agenda. The problem is not beer and sandwiches but champagne and canapes; since 1997, big company bosses have attained an intimacy with government that surpasses even what they enjoyed under the Tories. That explains why ministers go through all manner of contortions to hive off public services on favourable terms to the private sector; why Britain still has one of the least onerous, least effective regimes of corporate taxation in the western world; and why this government continually drags its feet on European directives designed to improve the workers' lot. (snip)

http://www.newstatesman.com/nsleader.htm

[sam sarrha]

1. unfortunately most people think unions are just for striking to get more

money.... not so. the shop stewards intervene between incompetent supervisors and the workers to protect the security and productivity of the company. I used to work at Boeing's only non union shop in El Paso, TX, Boeing bought out Rockwell, and kept the management dinosaurs that ruined Rockwell. El Paso has an inherent sweatshop mentality and if you have an obvious problem with your work that will put the company out of business if it isn't resolved soon... and you take your concerns to management... 'YOU' become the BIG F'n PROBLEM. Boeing went from over 2000 employees to a little over 200 when i was layed off. they had a guy messing up over $80,000 dollars of boxes a week... week after week. if they had had a union, the shop steward would have saved that contract...we could have got past the lower level management bottlenecks... and i might still have a job... at 1/4 the union rate... but a job.