The years of discontent, 2022/23

[101]

Unreal, to put this through when there is an interim PM and it wasn't on their manifesto. They have just stuck through a major erosion of employment rights with no mandate to do so.

[BFTD]

12 minutes ago, 101 said:

Unreal, to put this through when there is an interim PM and it wasn't on their manifesto. They have just stuck through a major erosion of employment rights with no mandate to do so.

Eroding employment rights was a major reason for leaving the EU. Anyone who claims otherwise is either at it or thick as mince, considering how well warned we all were.

The troubling thing is that there'll be a number of people in minimum wage, zero hours jobs who'll think, "good, why should anyone else have the rights that I've been denied?"

[Left Back]

22 minutes ago, 101 said:

Unreal, to put this through when there is an interim PM and it wasn't on their manifesto. They have just stuck through a major erosion of employment rights with no mandate to do so.

You think governments only enact things that are in their manifesto?

That’s incredibly naive.

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, Left Back said:

You think governments only enact things that are in their manifesto?

That’s incredibly naive.

Further hobbling of trade unions is also deeply unlikely to have affected their election performance if they had included it in their manifesto.

It might even have helped.

[Left Back]

2 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Further hobbling of trade unions is also deeply unlikely to have affected their election performance if they had included it in their manifesto.

It might even have helped.

Good point.  Would have gone down stonkingly well in the red wall seats that delivered the huge majority.

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, Left Back said:

Good point.  Would have gone down stonkingly well in the red wall seats that delivered the huge majority.

What has the labour movement ever done for those areas, eh?

[101]

10 hours ago, Left Back said:

You think governments only enact things that are in their manifesto?

That’s incredibly naive.

Things that dramatically change the country yes. This basically means going on strike is no longer going to be very disruptive seeing as they have to give 2 weeks notice getting agency staff in for a lot of sectors is going to negate striking.

The public should absolutely be consulted on if they think employment rights should be cut even further, I know the Tories have done this trick before of folk voting against their own interests, Brexit being the most notable. But surely you don't have to be very political aware to think this is a bad idea and something you would vote against.

[Boo Khaki]

Great way to ensure a return to the belligerent, confrontational picketing we used to see, which no doubt the Police will be expected to step in and resolve. I would hope that Police forces and individual officers would, in 2022, be little bit more sympathetic to workers and less inclined to wade in heavy-handed, but I wouldn't pin any hopes on that. 

[101]

31 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Great way to ensure a return to the belligerent, confrontational picketing we used to see, which no doubt the Police will be expected to step in and resolve. I would hope that Police forces and individual officers would, in 2022, be little bit more sympathetic to workers and less inclined to wade in heavy-handed, but I wouldn't pin any hopes on that. 

I think there is strict limits on the numbers at picket lines for this exact reason. The Met down south with still find a way to go in batons flying.

[Empty It]

50 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Great way to ensure a return to the belligerent, confrontational picketing we used to see, which no doubt the Police will be expected to step in and resolve. I would hope that Police forces and individual officers would, in 2022, be little bit more sympathetic to workers and less inclined to wade in heavy-handed, but I wouldn't pin any hopes on that. 

Next joke, most of these c***s are desperate to start cracking heads for no reason.

[Brother Blades]

13 hours ago, BFTD said:

Eroding employment rights was a major reason for leaving the EU. Anyone who claims otherwise is either at it or thick as mince, considering how well warned we all were.

The troubling thing is that there'll be a number of people in minimum wage, zero hours jobs who'll think, "good, why should anyone else have the rights that I've been denied?"

And of course, no chance of this being rolled back with the current flavour of the opposition , if they ever get into power, which I’m doubtful of. 

[Boo Khaki]

12 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

The only possible reason that could happen would be if the strikers on the picket line tried to physically stop non-striking workers trying to get to work.

That's kinda what I was getting at, only the 'non-strikers' could well be agency staff or the recruits hired to replace the strikers, which they would not have been prior to this disgraceful piece of Tory shithousing.

[101]

9 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

ETA. Meant to add that as far as the change is concerned, we can argue the toss and waste time over hypotheticals such as whether they "always intended to do this" but the fact remains that a couple of unions have behaved so appallingly over the last couple of months (not all of them by any means) that they gave the Tories an open goal and justification for introducing a new law to curb these unions power to disrupt the ordinary public at will. I might be wrong but I suspect a lot of ordinary people will support the Tories for trying to clip the wings of the unions - just like they did with Thatcher in the 80s.

They might do but the Tories and the public more generally condemned P&O's behaviour. Which now seems utterly ridiculous thing to have done considering their actions over the last few months. 

That said the Tories are the party of government they have the power to end strikes but instead to trying to get the economy out a tailspin they have spent the last few weeks and will spend the next few weeks having a popularity contest stuffed full of unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy whilst at the same time saying there is no cash for public service pay rises.

I find it a bit odd that to justify a 5% network rail raise over a number of years you have to cut nearly a third of staff, when a report came out today saying they aren't doing their job properly in Scotland which could have serious safety issues.

[Left Back]

7 minutes ago, 101 said:

They might do but the Tories and the public more generally condemned P&O's behaviour. Which now seems utterly ridiculous thing to have done considering their actions over the last few months. 

That said the Tories are the party of government they have the power to end strikes but instead to trying to get the economy out a tailspin they have spent the last few weeks and will spend the next few weeks having a popularity contest stuffed full of unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy whilst at the same time saying there is no cash for public service pay rises.

I find it a bit odd that to justify a 5% network rail raise over a number of years you have to cut nearly a third of staff, when a report came out today saying they aren't doing their job properly in Scotland which could have serious safety issues.

As I understand it this is slightly different.  P&O fully intended to fire all their current staff and replace them with cheaper overseas staff.  This current move isn't intended to allow companies to fire their existing staff.

[Left Back]

23 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

So there are a few things to note about that.

Firstly, this was warned about during Brexit and people still voted for it.

It was warned again at the last general election and the public still voted Tory.

And finally, the vast majority of all workers in the UK are not in a union according to this document: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1077904/Trade_Union_Membership_UK_1995-2021_statistical_bulletin.pdf so I wouldn't be overly certain that there would be widespread public support for your concerns. There might be. But I wouldn't bet on it.

ETA. Meant to add that as far as the change is concerned, we can argue the toss and waste time over hypotheticals such as whether they "always intended to do this" but the fact remains that a couple of unions have behaved so appallingly over the last couple of months (not all of them by any means) that they gave the Tories an open goal and justification for introducing a new law to curb these unions power to disrupt the ordinary public at will. I might be wrong but I suspect a lot of ordinary people will support the Tories for trying to clip the wings of the unions - just like they did with Thatcher in the 80s.

Was this not attempted during May's time?  Think it was in the manifesto but didn't get passed.

[coprolite]

3 hours ago, 101 said:

Things that dramatically change the country yes. This basically means going on strike is no longer going to be very disruptive seeing as they have to give 2 weeks notice getting agency staff in for a lot of sectors is going to negate striking.

The public should absolutely be consulted on if they think employment rights should be cut even further, I know the Tories have done this trick before of folk voting against their own interests, Brexit being the most notable. But surely you don't have to be very political aware to think this is a bad idea and something you would vote against.

Irrespective of what's in the manifesto, people should know that a vote for those c***s is a step towards re-introducing serfdom. 

[101]

24 minutes ago, Left Back said:

As I understand it this is slightly different.  P&O fully intended to fire all their current staff and replace them with cheaper overseas staff.  This current move isn't intended to allow companies to fire their existing staff.

No it's not but it seems a bizarre position to take the side of supporting workers rights whilst undermining their rights weeks later. 

[coprolite]

9 minutes ago, 101 said:

No it's not but it seems a bizarre position to take the side of supporting workers rights whilst undermining their rights weeks later. 

Dubai Ports aren't in the club

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, 101 said:

No it's not but it seems a bizarre position to take the side of supporting workers rights whilst undermining their rights weeks later. 

A brief bit of publicity that they can point to as supporting workers, but which will change nothing their party set in motion and continues to pursue, is very much worthwhile PR.

[BFTD]

16 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Irrespective of what's in the manifesto, people should know that a vote for those c***s is a step towards re-introducing serfdom. 

I think a surprising number of people are already aware, and consider serfdom an essential part of being British.