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Trade union leaders are planning coordinated nationwide strikes
I just can't understand why the unions seem dedicated to undermining the economic recovery.
Mark Serwotka told The Times: “We are looking at the spring. The more of us that stand together against the cuts, the more problems we can create. Unless you look like you want a fight, they won’t negotiate. The Government has to see we are serious.”
Union bosses hope to organise mass walkouts at the end of April, on the few working days sandwiched between the Easter weekend of April 22 – 25, the royal wedding on April 29 and the May Day bank holiday on May 2.
What exactly do they hope to achieve apart from making the lives of some people miserable?
In the event of a mass walkout Ed Miliband would be forced to decide whether to support the unions or condemn the action.
The Labour leader was elected with help from unions and the party is reliant on union funding, but in his speech at the Labour Party conference Mr Miliband condemned some strikes as "irresponsible."
Mark Serwotka told The Times: “We are looking at the spring. The more of us that stand together against the cuts, the more problems we can create. Unless you look like you want a fight, they won’t negotiate. The Government has to see we are serious.”
Union bosses hope to organise mass walkouts at the end of April, on the few working days sandwiched between the Easter weekend of April 22 – 25, the royal wedding on April 29 and the May Day bank holiday on May 2.
What exactly do they hope to achieve apart from making the lives of some people miserable?
In the event of a mass walkout Ed Miliband would be forced to decide whether to support the unions or condemn the action.
The Labour leader was elected with help from unions and the party is reliant on union funding, but in his speech at the Labour Party conference Mr Miliband condemned some strikes as "irresponsible."
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I recall literally just before the last GE Gordon Brown had a meeting with several Union leaders. I wonder why?
I hope they do strike because then when the strikers face a backlash from the people they will be worse off and they will have virtually little sympathy from the public and it will be another nail in the coffin of the Unions.
If a union holds a legitimate ballot and their members vote to strike then I don't see an issue unless you believe that nobody should be allowed to ever protest against yet another uncaring government. I will look at the reasons for why they are striking before I decide whether I will support them rather than blindly and ignorantly dismissing the reasons before anything has actually happened.
Hmmm, my local council is going on strike through Unison, they held a ballot for action, only 16% of those entitled to voted in the ballot, and only 9% voted for strike action, that means we will have a 5 day strike with no council services because 9% of council workers actually want it.
The thing with Unions is its only militants who tend to vote, a bit like Student Union reps.
I didn't do that I merely questioned what they hoped to achieve.
And what are their stated objectives?
I fail to see what they could possibly be.
I just saw a union representative person on t.v. who said that they are on the side of the ordinary working person. You could have fooled me.
Some of thse who travel to work are facing huge fare increases and will now have the added misery of disruption by people claiming to be on their side.:rolleyes:
Be interesting to see if this attude to the public will do anything to halt the decades old decline in union membership.
Well they will certainly succeed in their aim of creating problems.:mad:
Just opposition to job losses through council cuts (estimated at 1500)
Not sure how refusing to empty peoples overflowing bins after Xmas/NYE or gritting roads is going to help their cause?
They are probably happy with an extra 5 days off but not interested in the political aims of the strike action.
Only people who will suffer are people who pay their council tax for the council services.
So sorry if the services and livelihoods of millions of people cause a little disruption but tell it to the government who are destroying our public sector. The unions are merely representing their members who care both about the services they provide and of course their own ability to support their families.
Listen to yourselves - staff are unpaid when they strike so they have to be pretty damn interested in the aims of the strike before voting for it.
Employees are council tax payers too - and the recipients of services will suffer even more than a few day's disruption if these cuts are allowed to be implemented.
But the strikes will have no effect locally, the only way they could succeed is to bring the govt down with a national strike 1930s style, and that would be pretty much impossible these days.
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So you don't think it's legitimate for people who provide a service to protest about an attack on that service - I thought public sector workers were all work-shy layabouts with gold plated pensions. Many are absolutely committed to the services they provide and are devestated at the idea of the destruction being wrought by these cuts as well as deeply worried over the impact on communities of wholesale redundancies when there are no private sector jobs available to absorb the displaced workers.
But 91% did not vote for it
And a localised council strike will stop them being implemented how exactly?
The councils do not have the money from central govt, so a council strike is totally pointless
The whole point of a strike is to raise the profile of the dispute and create some leverage for change. I certainly hope it succeeds and I'd support anyone who chose to strike.
Protest and strike action are two different things. I don't believe those involved for example in processing housing benefit claims have any business striking about the level of such benefits.
What planet do you live on? Of course councils have money from central government - and it's being cut by 28% over the next four years - more than half of which is being cut in year one. This is the whole point - central government is massively cutting its grants to local government making it inevitable that they will have to make large numbers of people redundant and cut services with effect from 1 April.
It's not just benefit levels that are being cut though - it's the funding that pays staff to process housing benefit meaning that large numbers of them will be thrown on the dole.
Yes, do you actually read peoples posts or just rant? You have just repeated what I said, councils are having their mony cut centrally - so what effect does striking against a council have exactly who have no control over that?
There will be people in the public sector who will lose their jobs as part of the spending cuts and anyone who thinks that can be avoided is in cloud cuckoo land.
Councils still have a lot of decision making around which cuts are made and people will want to fight their corner for their own particular part of the services. They are taking decisions on terms and conditions locally for example that employees may not support - such as wage reductions over and above the pay freeze.
But the whole point of the protest will be the impact on jobs and services - and whilst local councils themselves cannot change the settlement central government can be influenced politically if there is a strong enough feeling about it nationally. These won't be individual local protests - it will be a protest about the cuts nationally, but focussed on their local impact.
That's not especially difficult to understand.