Debate

I see the self righteous egotists are blowing their own trumpets again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11278570


Union Bosses are prepared to put further burdens on the country in the hope of raising their own self esteem.
Self comes before country in their eyes.

In the words of a famous polition, 'You have never had it so good'.

Since Nu-Labour came to power money has grown on trees, then they over produce their fruit when Gordon Brown became PM, now is the time to prune those trees.

When/If the egotist have their way I hope that they give up their salary like they will ask their members to.

Unions have too much power. Why should they be allowed to ask people to make sacrifices in times of hardship?
Personally I would ban unions. The law gives a minimum wage and Health and Safety provide minimum conditions so why are they needed.

According to research the living financial requirement is around £14,500/ann. so would'nt it be right to stop benefits to people who earn over £20,000/ann?

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I'm not so sure Antibrown - It was the Unions who fought for and won the minimum wage. They also fought for many Health and Safety laws in place today. Who is to say that these things will be safe if there are no Unions.

I also remember the Miner's Strike. Maggie Thatcher was determined to break the miners and their union for all time and people in Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire (as well as other counties) suffered terrible hardships during those bitter days. A lot of these areas and communities were laid waste and have never recovered. Our mining industry and many of the associated industries were deliberately decimated in the ensuing years. I do believe Scargill was not good for his Union - Maggie hated him and this hatred contributed to the destruction. In a perverse way Scargill helped her. It was all very short sighted. The cheap imported coal is now getting very expensive and we are now trying to build up industries and mine coal again. Budge has got very rich with what remains of the mining industry and the NCB has gone. I believe they still have need of an effective Union.

I am not and have never been an active trade unionist, but workers must have the unions, for example the RCN, UNISON, USDAW, which I do not believe are too strong and powerful.

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I don't normally support the unions, but I think they have a right to protest this time about the Governments ill thought out cutbacks.

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I don`t see how making thousands of police, military personell and other staff unemployed is going to help the finances of the country. I just means there is less money spent.
Germany has begun to pull out of its recession without cutbacks.
And I notice there is no suggestion that there should be fewer Chiefs - just fewer Indians.

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Germany has been prudent in the past(very few Germans use credit cards and borrow money) unlike countries who are even in a worse state then we are such as Ireland and Greece and to a lesser state France who have based their Government spending on credit.


Something has to be done to reign in Public spending and only time will tell if the Coalition has got it right.

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I used to be a strong union man, I even became an official.

We would try to negotiate with management and as a last resort turn to strike action.

When I left the union in 1990 I did so because the top union officials had an agenda whereby they wanted to make names for themselves, one I knew personaly even went on to serve in the labour government and is still an MP, they did not care about the hardship to families that strikes brought.

I started my own business and refused to have unions in it no matter how hard they tried to get a foot in the door.
The workforce, admittedly only a few, were given the option of having a union or dealing directly with me about any problems.

They chose the latter and always said it was a wise choice.

We never had any disagreements that the workforce themselves could not sort out.

It all comes down to four little words, 'Listen to the workers', a good listener
is better than a good talker any day in getting things done to the benefit of all.

Yes, Maggie reduced the unions power and rightly so in my eyes, they had got too strong.

I do not know what the outcome of the cutbacks will be, good or bad but anything that reduces the
country's debt can not be all bad.

Germany do not have the amount of debt that the UK have.

It was Gordon Brown who said ' We are in the best position of all country's to come out of this recession first'.

He was wrong when he sold our gold reserves, he was wrong when he called a voter a bigot and he was wrong predicting our outcome of the recession.

I just say people should give the coalition a chance. They have not asked anyone to reduce the amount of jobs, they are only asking for cutbacks in spending.

Coucils waste to much money on visits to foreign country's etc, the police waste to much money on unnecessary
paperwork(as any officer willl tell you), Education waste to much money on new furniture when there is nothing wrong with the old furniture, the government waste to much money on quango's which achieve nothing. These are just a few of the items that I noticed when I was working.

My work took me into Eduction offices and schools, police stations, council offices, health and safety offices
and Fire stations etc where waste was evident for all to see if they had an ounce of common sense.

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What is that phrase often used about WW1-lions lead by donkeys?

I too remember the miner`s strike-a southerner manging a team with a miner`s wife and a copper`s wife-not easy.

But I saw Scargill as a donkey-all talk but seemingly more interested in defeating Maggie than the best deal for his members

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The fact is AB that very few people listen effectively and make an effort to really understand what the other person is saying. It is not always easy to listen effectively now because the ever lowering school education standards mean people are finding it harder and harder to communicate clearly. Text talk, jargon, media buzzwords, lack of time, and a whole host of other things don't help.

It must have been 25 years ago when an electronics company (I think it was STC) made an effort to help people listen effectively, they published brochures and provided free lessons to anyone (not just employees) and were on TV and Radio often.

Of course their primary objective was to improve working relationships, which they did achieve, but I recall that the company spokesman also said that they hoped it would help in the wider society.

STC did well and grew very large and was taken over I think but the 'Listen effectively' campaign has sadly disappered from their agenda, I guess the modern media are not that interested

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Loso, I do not think it has anything to do with Text, Jargon, Buzzwords etc. I think it is because people are to engrossed in their own little world and what they want to say so they do not listen properly to what is actually being said, they just assume they know what people are saying or do not care about what is said.

I was once sitting in on an exercise where a person was learning interview techniques and he did what most people do after the interviewee answer his question, he jumped to the next question not realising that the interviewee had given a mischievous answer.

Asked 'How many children have you?' the interviewee replied 47.

Hence the silent listening.

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Your discussion post is quite thought provoking Antibrown and I will make an attempt to say what I feel in reply to your two posts, although I am no politician.

I think that the art of truly listening is a very hard skill to learn and some people never get the hang of it. Often people willfully don't listen, in an attempt to achieve their own goals. Most things are about compromise and some are never going to meet folks halfway.

What you say about listening is fine when a company is starting up and small. Communication is usually excellent then - people know each other as individuals and everyone is motivated towards working well together with a common goal to achieve success.
Unfortunately, I believe exploitation is still in many workplaces and there are many who think that their workforce is expendable, easily replaced, and they have very little commitment to the people who work for them.
Many employers will not listen to their workers or involve them in any decision making. There are some very bad employers around, whose only goal is to make money for themselves, whilst giving as little as possible to those who help make them rich. There are also some very indifferent employees who have little commitment to their jobs.

It would be interesting to understand more about why you became anti-union. Did it make a difference to your ideas once you had your own business to make a success of and saw things from another perspective ?

I agree the Unions had got out of hand and there was a lot of arrogance and muscle being thrown about. Maggie also wanted things all her way and negotiation and communication ended up going right out of the window during the miner's strike. Maggie and the Union Leaders went head on with each other in a power struggle and neither would make any compromise. I think Maggie was a bit of a megalomaniac and was just as bad as the unions at that time. As our first female Prime Minister I thought she might bring something differently refreshing into politics, but I became ashamed and sorry I had voted for her. I never voted Conservative again.

I really do believe that “power tends to corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” - (John Dalberg-Acton). I remember reading and analysing George Orwell’s Animal Farm as a child. My father introduced me to it when I was about twelve and we had many intense discussions over it. It was the first "serious" piece of literature I read and understood. His book made a great impression on me which has stuck.

We must have opposition and challenge in our society and politics, the pendulum of power must not swing too far in one direction. This is why I believe two party in politics is the only sytem that works - I think other parties weaken the elelction process - It was inevitable that the lib.dems would have to join up with one or the other of them and it will be a long time before either the conservatives or labour are redundant and drop out of the political arena - they will adapt a little as public opinion demands.

I think the coalition must be given a chance - they are now the Government and we have nothing else at the moment, but I am worried that things will go too far and many people will be hurt in the process.

There is always waste - waste of money and waste of resources. Not all advantage is spent wisely when the times are good. Private industry puts money in it back pocket and is as guilty as public organisation who are made to spend surplus. On an individual level our household could do with a trim down - we can save on some things. But spending money actually does make the World economy go round so to speak - Everyone saving is not good for recovery - I think its all a matter of balance and proportions - spend/use some, owe some, save some.

This coalition government may end up being very unpopular in their endeavours and they must get the balance right, or halfway right, and that is going to be a very tricky thing to achieve.

Sorry to have gone on a bit - I am perhaps a bit boring sometimes.