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Mmmh... a strike... what a shame... when Palmerston was in charge, things like this didn't happen!












:D:D:D;)
 
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Go Beaverbrook Go!

Crush those Unions...get them back down to a useful size.

:thumbsup:

The only useful size for Unions is 0.

They must be defeated, for the sake of British shipbuilding!
 
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El Pip, that's "its domestic agenda", "its Great War" and "its centre".

Smash the Unions. If the miners want to go on strike, great. That's the chance to move the UK from short to long wall working with its attendant savings long term and increased capital usage by mine owners. The reduction of the numbers of mining companies can only be a good thing.

The government ought to have the twin aims of improving the effiiciency of the shipbuilding industry and not allowing the growth of the TGWU into a monster union.

Chamberlain cannot allow his domestic agenda to become a museum policy piece, a footnote against the decline in the competiveness of British industry.

Government needs to find a backbone.
 
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Lovely update Pip. A Beaverbrook sized problem I'm interested to see unfold.

The demarcation issues with the shipyards is very similar to the problems faced by our railways in NSW at the moment. Unfortunately our politician's solution was to try to build a second rail network, to run parallel to the existing network, so they didn't have to take on the Unions over unproductive work practices but just work around them. Such silliness does nothing but give everyone involved a bad name.

Arbitration really is a dying art!

Dury.
 
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Very interesting update.

I have an image of the Unions power being broken forty years early....


later, caff
 
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Very interesting update there. Makes me wonder if the government will eventually cave or if external pressures on the Empire will require extraordinary measures. It never fails to sadden me to be reminded of how far an institution (trade unions) once necessary has fallen.

Vann
 
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This might mark me as a pinko, but on the whole I think Unions can be a good thing if properly handled. :D
 
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DonnieBaseball - Conflict wasn't actually inevitable, there was always the OTL option of the bankruptcy of the industry and the unemployment of 99% of the workforce. However assuming a viable and competitive ship building sector is the desired outcome then the fight had to happen at some point.

The worst point is that even if this all works out all it does is bring ship building up to existing best practice, maybe slightly ahead but nothing special. Still it could be worse, it could be coal. :shudder:

Zhuge Liang - Thanks, just what I was aiming for!

Carlstadt Boy - Your 'limited' knowledge is bang on, indeed you could just shorten it to - "less union power = good for UK"

TheExecuter- I was expecting something like that and you didn't disappoint. :)

Kurt_Steiner - Palmerston would be a mighty figure in any government. I dare say had Britain had Zombie Palmerston as it's leader in the 1930s things would have gone so much better, if nothing else I think having a zombie Victorian politician eating Hitler's brains would have improved the Munich talks no end.

Nathan Madien - Harsh but I confess I regularly find myself agreeing with the sentiment. The shear bloody minded arrogant deathwish of some trade union leaders does make it hard to defend the entire concept, certainly in any post-war setting.

Chief Ragusa - I doubt your enthusiasm for a miners strike will be matched in the country, certainly not until well into the Spring! :D That said the miners time will come, coal mining is too interesting a subject to be ignored.

Stopping the TGWU has it's merits. I must confess it does seem odd that groups of firms working together to dominate a market is an evil that must be stopped, but a workers monopoly is not only acceptable but the stated policy of many political parties around the world.

Duritz - Sounds like NSW needs to break the union monopoly, can't have those evil cartels exploiting the common man for their own selfish benefit. :D

caffran - That or Chamberlain 'doing a Heath' and asking who governs the country and finding out it's not him. One or other anyway.

Vann the Red - It's one of the facts of life, nobody ever works them self out of a job. I can think of dozens of regulators or commissions that have to keep finding problems to justify their existence and I think it's the same with unions.

Hell I know it's that way with the RMT, I know of at least two disputes and strikes that were deliberately created by the RMT to 'prove' how strong they were and justify the cost of the union to the membership. If everything is OK people stop paying their subs and keep the money themselves, so the leadership has to find trouble to keep themselves at the top. Damned if I can see a way to avoid that though.

trekaddict - I've always suspected as much.
ja.gif
( :D )
 
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Don't worry Trek. Pip just thinks it's wrong for unions to threaten to paralyze society and steal the dues from the pockets of their members. These are privileges he feels should be the private monopolies of Big Business and to a lesser extent the Government when acting as a functionary of large corporations. :rofl:

Seriously though, Unions WERE of vital importance in helping enact fairer labor standards and work safety regulations. It's just when the crusaders are succeeded by grifters and opportunists that unions start becoming just another greedy set of hands prying at the public's wallet. (And with the government and big business already ripping everything off....)
 
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Vann the Red - It's one of the facts of life, nobody ever works them self out of a job. I can think of dozens of regulators or commissions that have to keep finding problems to justify their existence and I think it's the same with unions.

Is that how is it in Britain? Overactive regulators? We seem to have the exact opposite here in America.

Bernie Madoff? Don't worry about him. AIG? Don't worry about them. Goldman Sachs? Don't worry about them. The concept of too big to fail? Don't worry about that. Big Oil building bad oil rigs? Don't worry about that. Healthcare companies ripping off consumers? Don't worry. They don't do that.

Oddly enough, these are all things we ended up worrying about.
 
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@ Nathan Madien - Sorry mate but your much vaunted political system is designed to favour inertia and the status quo. For truly great government you'll need a system based on the Westminster model... naturally! :cool:

@ El Pip - No, just negotiate properly and not swagger into the room thumping the table and saying, "My way or the highway!" like the politicians always try. A former Minister used to give exclusive interviews to the media saying how his latest plan would break the Unions in NSW, then walk into the room with the Unions and wonder why they were so hostile. There'd be no change, he'd blame the Unions, the Unions would blame him and the members continued to get screwed as nothing got better... I'm for workers, not bosses (of any persuasion).

@ trekaddict - Don't apologise for being enlightened Comrade! ;)

Dury.
 
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Pinkos in the RAF...

...were rife - particularly post WW2.

Of course, admitting to be a tad 'leftie' in front of the mighty El Pip cannot help the RAF cause; so instead I'll simply say that I am 4-square for Crown, Country, Churchill and Cannons for my Hurricanes! :rofl:

Talking of which... :cool:
 
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KiMaSa - There is very little that should be reserved for government. Even Keynes, who got a bit over excited on the role of government occasionally, thought that government spending should be no more than 25% of it's economy. Should be fun when he bumps into the Labour Party's "The state is best for everything" Clause IV. :D

As for the evil of big business it's amazing how people can see it everywhere, but when questioned never actually produce an example of it. I don't remember big business paralysing the country or stealing my money against my will to spend on things I actively oppose. In contrast Unions and government seem to spend all their time doing one or both of those things. ;)

Nathan Madien - Well the Deep Horizon disaster would not of happened on a North Sea rig that's for damned sure. So I wouldn't say the British system of regulation is that bad, though the rail safety guys are legendarily inept and fairly dangerous so it's not all good.

However the classical example of an over active regulator is the Health and Safety Executive who operate on a "Guilty until grudgingly acquitted" basis and as such have terrified half the country into banning things. The problem is if anything happens it is your duty to prove your innocence, not the HSE's job to prove guilt, and they seem wilfully indifferent to this violation of the principle of law and the chilling effect it has on the country.

Duritz - And no Union would ever try the my way or the highway line... apart from the thousands of time they did and still do. :D

Actually here's a question, how do you lefties manage to sort out the different sorts of workers? Say the metro drivers go on strike, get themselves a big pay rise and so fares go up making everyone who uses the metro poorer. So the drivers win but every other worker loses? Is that a good or a bad thing for the 'workers' and how on earth do you lot tell?

RAFspeak - And that is one of the reasons the RAF has spent most of it's life fighting to exist and not be 'merged' out of existence; The other more sensible armed services just don't trust it. :D
 
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Seriously though, Unions WERE of vital importance in helping enact fairer labor standards and work safety regulations. It's just when the crusaders are succeeded by grifters and opportunists that unions start becoming just another greedy set of hands prying at the public's wallet. (And with the government and big business already ripping everything off....)

This.
 
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KiMaSa - There is very little that should be reserved for government. Even Keynes, who got a bit over excited on the role of government occasionally, thought that government spending should be no more than 25% of it's economy. Should be fun when he bumps into the Labour Party's "The state is best for everything" Clause IV. :D

As for the evil of big business it's amazing how people can see it everywhere, but when questioned never actually produce an example of it. I don't remember big business paralysing the country or stealing my money against my will to spend on things I actively oppose. In contrast Unions and government seem to spend all their time doing one or both of those things. ;)

Nathan Madien - Well the Deep Horizon disaster would not of happened on a North Sea rig that's for damned sure. So I wouldn't say the British system of regulation is that bad, though the rail safety guys are legendarily inept and fairly dangerous so it's not all good.

However the classical example of an over active regulator is the Health and Safety Executive who operate on a "Guilty until grudgingly acquitted" basis and as such have terrified half the country into banning things. The problem is if anything happens it is your duty to prove your innocence, not the HSE's job to prove guilt, and they seem willfully indifferent to this violation of the principle of law and the chilling effect it has on the country.

Duritz - And no Union would ever try the my way or the highway line... apart from the thousands of time they did and still do. :D

Actually here's a question, how do you lefties manage to sort out the different sorts of workers? Say the metro drivers go on strike, get themselves a big pay rise and so fares go up making everyone who uses the metro poorer. So the drivers win but every other worker loses? Is that a good or a bad thing for the 'workers' and how on earth do you lot tell?

RAFspeak - And that is one of the reasons the RAF has spent most of it's life fighting to exist and not be 'merged' out of existence; The other more sensible armed services just don't trust it. :D

A well considered and respectable view... My counter view is the following:

I judge whether it helps or hinders more honest hard working people in putting food on the table, a roof over their heads and a chance to get medicine so illness doesn't simply mean indebtedness and death and in giving HARD WORKING children a CHANCE to try to scramble a rung higher up than their parents..

As for big business stealing... Gee.. You can't really steal what no one can pry out of your bottomless pockets to begin with... Except of course when it comes to workers' 401K plan money. The guys who invested the retirement funds of people who loyally worked for thirty years investing that money in junk securities or other shenanigans. Those guys live in a world where they get offered bonuses if they promise not to screw up any WORSE in the succeeding fiscal year than in the current one. In the producing end of the company that's not grounds for a bonus, its grounds for a pink slip.

Frankly Unions do not solve everything... hardly anymore do they solve anything.. But collective bargaining DID improve the lives of millions who worked themselves to death for bare subsistence wages at best, often paid in company store coupons rather than actual money. And it DID fight for work place safety. The Triangle Fire ring any bells? Big business has its own interests at heart just as much as politicians or union bosses and don't try and tell me that big business won't skimp on costs even beyond prudence if they think they can get away with it. Good thing today we HAVE the Food safety act... Have fire safety codes and building construction regulations. Big Business did not gift these things to the public.

While true that politicians are obsessed with reelection and bureaucracies are self perpetuating, the lesson is not that government is bad. (No I still do not trust GM or Ford or Exxon to benevolently monitor themselves.) And half the problem with current politics is that ONLY big business or big unions can afford to buy their own politicians anymore.

No the lesson is that the crusaders who actually look after any public interest come from the politicos who are still hungry, not those that have already been gorging themselves. There are exceptions but by and large it is so.

I'm no communist but I'm no fan of syndocracy either... No I don't trust either left or right. Just that the TOTAL elimination or humbling of any of the three groups. (Business, Government, and Collective Bargaining) is bad for the total society and that to allow ANY of them to grow too powerful is also detrimental.

The trick is in keeping the dogs hungry while they press the public interest. Identify the ones which have become the kept and fed house pets and replace them with dogs that are still lean.
 
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And as ever, a fairly harmless (though very informative, as ever) update sparks major debate. But the sheer scope of this AAR is always impressive.
 
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And as ever, a fairly harmless (though very informative, as ever) update sparks major debate. But the sheer scope of this AAR is always impressive.

No debate. I fully understand Pip's Point of View. In some ways I sympathize it even if I do not fully agree.:cool:
 
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...The trick is in keeping the dogs hungry while they press the public interest. Identify the ones which have become the kept and fed house pets and replace them with dogs that are still lean.

Well said, KiMaSa. I found myself agreeing with a couple of your points.
 
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Good update Pippy!

I think that while currently a mixed blessing at best, the Rosyth affair does contain the potential for a better ship-building industry in Britain on the other side.
The miners jumping in too is a little worrying, however.

I agree with some of KiMaSa's points - Unions were necessary, to stand up for their members, and run appropriately they form one leg of a tripod with business and government; each needs to keep the other in check somewhat, in order to retain the stability of the system.
 
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Duritz - And no Union would ever try the my way or the highway line... apart from the thousands of time they did and still do. :D

Of course they do but I was talking about a specific example, and as a reasonable sort of chap I was pointing out who was being most unreasonable in this instance. I work for a Union, no one has to tell me how unreasonable our bosses can be at times... does someone have to tell you how unreasonable company bosses are at times?

Actually here's a question, how do you lefties manage to sort out the different sorts of workers? Say the metro drivers go on strike, get themselves a big pay rise and so fares go up making everyone who uses the metro poorer. So the drivers win but every other worker loses? Is that a good or a bad thing for the 'workers' and how on earth do you lot tell?

You just have to make a judgement call based on the circumstances of the situation, to do otherwise would be unjust!

KiMaSa is right in that there's no 'good side' and 'bad side' in all this, I was dead serious in the hope that redundant industrial conditions are ended on the waterfront. Otherwise it just gives us hard working Unionists a bad name! ;)

Speaking of which... time to tell us how this one develops!

Dury.
 
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