Tube Strike

[Marmora Man]

Chippy,

If membership of a Trade Union confers so much why is membership continuing to fall? If the members themselves are voting with their feet - there must be something wrong with the offer. Union members maxed out at 13.2m in 1979 but is today 6.5m and falling.

The following figures are taken from the Labour Market Analysis & Minimum Wage is a multi-disciplinary team of economists, social researchers and statisticians based in the Labour Market Directorate of the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS). They draw their data from the annual Labour Force Survey. The statistics referenced comply with the National Statistics Authority standards.

a. Trade union density for employees in the UK fell to 26.6 per cent in 2010 (0.9% down on 2009). Trade union membership levels for UK employees fell by 2.7 per cent (179,000) in 2010 to 6.5 million. By comparison, total UK employment rose by just under a half per cent in the year to 2010.

b. The hourly earnings of union members, according to the LFS, averaged ?14.00 in 2010, 16.7% more than the earnings of non-members (?12.00 per hour). Over the last ten years to 2010, the average hourly earnings have shown steady growth in both public and private sectors. The trade union wage premium in 2010 was higher in the public sector at 21.1% compared with 6.7% in the private sector. While this tends to support one of your points note the following caveat from the LFS It should be noted, however, that such raw estimates fail to adjust for various differences in characteristics, such as age and education levels, which will partly account for these differences in earnings.

c.Public sector employees accounted for 62.4% of union members. Professional, associated professional and technical occupations account for 45.5% of all union members. Overall, these occupations account for 34.1% of all employees.

e. Only two sectors show union membership at above 50% - Education and Public Administration & Defence (and since the Armed Forces have no union - this must be the MoD civil service)

f. Union membership is higher in companies with more than 50 employees (at 35.3%) and lower in smaller companies (17.1%)

g. Middle income earners (?500 - ?999 per week) are more likely to be union members at 38.5%.

h. High earners (over ?1,000 per week) have a 19.5% union membership while for low earners (less than ?250 a week) union membership is only 14.6%.

i. Union members in the private sector have fallen from 3.4m in '95 to 2.5m in 2010. Union members in the public sector have risen from 3.7m in '95 to 4.1m in 2010.

All of this suggests strongly to me that unions are becoming redundant and that it is only in the public sector where unions remain, relatively, strong. It also suggests that, despite union rhetoric, unions tend to benefit the middle earning technical or professional workers and not the low skilled, low paid.

I agree entirely with Hugenot's point that the benefits you aver are a trades union benefit are actually available to the majority of all employees regardless of union membership. Management, in the generic sense, is far more professional, informed and sensitive these days - the daft caricature of "them" and "us" beloved by the more ignorant and militant of union officials is a thing of the very distant past - except where the union (cf: Bob CRowe & RMT) exacerbate poor relations.

Good managers bring staff and employees with them when introducing change and developments. Both sensible staff and sensible management recognise that effective working together benefits everyone - and a trades union is not a necessary part of this - altho' the more enlightened unions do work well with management.

[Loz]

Chippy Minton Wrote:

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> They are also less likely to leave their jobs

> saving employers up to ?143 million a year

I suspect this is only half the story. It may or may not be true that employees are less likely to leave their jobs, I guess that employers that want to get rid of the dead wood find it a lot harder to do in a unionised environment, meaning a lot of money wasted on poor employees.

[Chippy Minton]

MM - agree with a lot of what you say.

Unions are in decline - globalisation, the decline in UK manufacturing, the transient nature of the workforce and migration etc are all factors that have led to this.

In recent years there have been numerous trade union mergers, in all likelihood not to pool resources and benefit from economies of scale, but in order to survive! Further, if they're to stand any chance of surviving they will not only need to go through more mergers, but they will have to become more commercially aware and will have to work more closely in the international arena in order to address the issues that multi-nationals and globalisation present to order to increase both their relevance and their ability to influence (some have made tentative steps in this direction). They will also need to pay far more attention to the growing sectors of the economy - aspects of the service industry, finance etc.

Having said that, I disagree that "management is more informed and sensitive these days." Tell that to the people that work at Cadbury, Diageo or Lloyds Banking Group for example! In fact, I would argue management is far less "sensitive" these days - gone are the times when people stayed at a company for years and years, if not their whole careers, working their way up whilst retaining a link with the workforce. Instead, today we find, because of multi-nationalism/globalism, management effectively saying to their workforce: "do this, cos if you don't we'll shut down tomorrow and move to Poland/India/China etc." - not what I call sensitive.

I would also disagree that unions are only strong in the public sector. The RMT and their hold of the TOCs is an obvious example of this, and if we believe what other posters have stated on this forum, British Airways would have gone bust recently if Unite hadn't agreed to settle the cabin crew dispute ;-)

BTW, I'd love to know who you think the more "enlightened" unions are?

[Huguenot]

Most of the rest of the progressive socialists are asking for more, not less mobility.

The unions might do themselves a favour if they stop thinking 'jobs for life' is a desirable - I'll be betting that movement between employers is because in a modern information rich era people enjoy change, are fitter more healthy and adventurous, and have greater ambitions and more distant horizons.

Rather than being down to poor management, it's more likely because of better management provides more extensive and transferable skills.

[Huguenot]

I mean, if these unions are providing 'lifelong learning' as you say, surely it's not so that their members can be sat behind the same desk for 50 years?

The unions are complaining about excessive 'management' and 'consultant' ranks - so the only thing they can incentivise members to do with their education is move somewhere else?

[Chippy Minton]

I never said mobility was a bad thing! And spot on, they certainly need to get away from the 'job for life' mentally if they are to modernise and retain their relevance.

However, there are still millions of people in this country that don't enjoy the benefits of the "modern information rich era" in the sense that moving from job to job simply because of ambition or a desire for more distant horizons is ever an option.

[Frankito]

Back to the original thread: tube strike.

Solution: cycle to work, I do and I couldn't give a damn about the rest of it.

[maxxi]

The situation in Southampton makes a six hour stoppage and proposed 24hr strike seem like small beer - and is possibly the start of something that could spread whether one supports the actions or not.

(irrelevant aside)- The colour and design of the pretty 'Unite' flags looked so much like Coca Cola banners that (together with the strikers' hi-vis tops) the whole thing looked like some kind of stadium construction workers' pre-Olympic celebration.

[boosboss]

RMT's Arwyn Thomas has won the Industrial Tribunal case.

[Loz]

I bet we now hear Bob Crow prattling on about the need to listen to the independent tribunal's opinion ...

Oh, well. Nine hours worth of wages saved by LU on Monday then. Pointless.

[Chippy Minton]

It wasn't pointless from the RMT's point of view as they had to strike to in order to keep the mandate valid and therefore to allow the strikes to happen next week.

[maxxi]

Chippy Minton Wrote:

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> It wasn't pointless from the RMT's point of view

> as they had to strike to in order to keep the

> mandate valid and therefore to allow the strikes

> to happen next week.

Exactly - these are measures that all unions are now forced to take to satisfy legal requirements thanks to government's anti-union legislation.

They are only as absurd as the legislation itself... not to take such action would have left RMT open - should they have attempted strike action without a further ballot - to the same kind of injunction BA tried in May last year.

Now the RMT hors d'oeuvres are out of the way we can get on to the public sector entr?es.

[Loz]

Chippy Minton Wrote:

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> It wasn't pointless from the RMT's point of view

> as they had to strike to in order to keep the

> mandate valid and therefore to allow the strikes

> to happen next week.

Is there a minimum? Could they have gone on strike for an hour at 2am in the morning or some such? That would have saved commuters the pain and the drivers some money.

[Chippy Minton]

LU would have deducted a whole shift's pay even if they only went on strike for one hour although the 9pm-3am Sunday night-Monday morning wouldn't have exactly caused alot of pain for commuters.

[ianr]

The strikes are now officially off. http://www.rmt.org.uk/

[Loz]

... and the person in question is now no longer a tube driver. He will "not return to his previous work location, and will be re-employed in a non-operational role, which does not involve customer-facing duties."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13896546