Potential mass strike action in the UK

[iNow]

33 minutes ago, studiot said:

Ahem  ?

Looks your browser hadn’t refreshed prior to posting this. Saw it myself and corrected via edit 

[studiot]

17 minutes ago, iNow said:

Looks your browser hadn’t refreshed prior to posting this. Saw it myself and corrected via edit 

All good then.

[John Cuthber]

5 hours ago, mistermack said:

If you want to ignore the normal, worldwide, thousands of years old normal state of affairs, where the buyer can choose what he spends his money on, and whether he wants to pay the asking price, if you want to ignore all that, then you can make a very contrived case for saying that the employer has more power. 

OK, as you say the buyer has more power. The seller has less power.

And, in the employment market- where Unions get involved- and thus the only market which is relevant to the thread- the seller is the employee.
I sell my time + skills to an employer.

But they set the price. If they don't like the price I charge, they won't buy.

So, as I said,  the situation is one of unequal power.

The employer is "in charge" in every sense.

And sometimes, the only way to stop them abusing that power is concerted action like a strike..

 

[John Cuthber]

20 hours ago, iNow said:

Is it possible Mistermack realizes his position that “there isn’t an inequality of power in the employee/employer relationship” or that the employer doesn’t benefit from that asymmetry is nonsensical?

Maybe...

21 hours ago, studiot said:

I wonder why politicians don't like that idea ?

+1

🤣

Good question.
Most people are probably thinking in terms of politician's competence. I gather a recent poll showed that more people in the UK believe that the earth is flat than believe that Truss will be a good PM.

But the real problem that employers- including politicians- have with competence based pay is that it takes control of the playbill out of their hands.
If there's  a clear set of goals to meet, people will meet them.
To take a stupid example, if one of the competencies you get paid for is knowing how to format a business letter with the address and date etc in the right places and yours sincerely or yours faithfully at the bottom as appropriate then after a very short while, everyone makes sure they know how to do it- even if they have to make themselves an "aide memoire" of some sort.

So, after a short while, all the letters sent out are in the right format and this should make the employer happy.

And, of course, the same goes for all the other "tests".

It's important to distinguish between "competency" and "performance".
There is a difference between

"I know how to send a reply letter and I know the target is to do so within 3 days of receipt"

which is competence

and

"I send out replies within 3 days"

which is performance.

I'm responsible for the first; it's my job to learn.
But I may not be responsible for the second.
If the guy who should buy stamps fails, then my performance suffer, through no fault of mine.

(please don't waste time saying it should be my job to buy stamps; these are "mickey mouse" examples.)

That's why the Unions like competence based pay. It puts the responsibility for what I get paid into my hands- not my boss' or colleagues'.
And, of course, it's why bad mangers hate competence based pay.
After a short while, everyone is doing a great job.

And they expect to get paid full rates for doing it.
So the managers can no longer exploit them.



 

[studiot]

Like all employment practices, performance related pay can be well implemented and beneficial to both sides.
Or it can be abused by one side or the other (or both).

[dimreepr]

23 minutes ago, studiot said:

Like all employment practices, performance related pay can be well implemented and beneficial to both sides.
Or it can be abused by one side or the other (or both).

Indeed, panic buying:

Mocks us all...

 

[mistermack]

There is already performance related pay. If you can perform as a brain surgeon, you get paid better than those who perform as bin men.

It's called a jobs market. If a bin man can perform as a surgeon, he's wasting his time as a bin man and would be better off changing his job. And if a surgeon can only perform as a bin man, it's better for all if he leaves. 

[iNow]

21 hours ago, iNow said:

We’re talking about employees vs their employers. Do you still in this context think the employer has LESS power than their employees?

If so, why?

Since this keeps getting ignored…

[John Cuthber]

27 minutes ago, mistermack said:

There is already performance related pay. If you can perform as a brain surgeon, you get paid better than those who perform as bin men.

It's called a jobs market. If a bin man can perform as a surgeon, he's wasting his time as a bin man and would be better off changing his job. And if a surgeon can only perform as a bin man, it's better for all if he leaves. 

I didn't see the post that said "Tell us you don't know what performance related pay means" without saying "I don't know what performance related pay means".


Not understanding the difference between different jobs and different levels of performance within a job is fairly dumb.

But your chosen comparison is even dumber.
It's hypothetically possible to have a really great brain surgeon who is a wheelchair user and would struggle as a binman.
 

[studiot]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, panic buying:

Mocks us all...

Must be some expression they use in Glos.

No wonder I didn't understand.

And can we borrow a few cricketers please ?

Edited September 5, 2022 by studiot

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 9/4/2022 at 9:35 AM, John Cuthber said:

Does it mean the one who sets my pay rise or the one who tells me what work to do.
In the case of most public sector employees, those are not the same.
I'm sorry if that's too complicated for you.

It isn't.

You are a government employee.

[MigL]

JC ( MacSwell, not John Cuthber ) seems to have the Canadian perspective on this.
In Canada, government workers have great job security; they simply cannot be fired, no matter their competence, or performance.

The employer/employee power  dynamic is different at differing times and for different jobs; sometimes it favors one, sometimes the other.
Recall that one of the major reasons for the begnning of the end of serfdom in Europe was the death, by the Black Plague, of 1/3 to 1/2 of the workforce, putting the remaining in a more favorable position to demand more for their work.

[CharonY]

9 minutes ago, MigL said:

JC ( MacSwell, not John Cuthber ) seems to have the Canadian perspective on this.
In Canada, government workers have great job security; they simply cannot be fired, no matter their competence, or performance.

The employer/employee power  dynamic is different at differing times and for different jobs; sometimes it favors one, sometimes the other.
Recall that one of the major reasons for the begnning of the end of serfdom in Europe was the death, by the Black Plague, of 1/3 to 1/2 of the workforce, putting the remaining in a more favorable position to demand more for their work.

I think the laws are fairly strong in Canada (at least superficial they look somewhat similar to Germany, though Germany is probably a bit stronger in job security for certain parts of the public sector). That being said, I think that misconduct and incompetence are actually one of the few reasons that are grounds for dismissal. Performance might be a bit iffy, depending on how they are measured. 

Regarding serfdom, I may be misremembering but IIRC serfdom was on the decline well before the plague throughout Western Europe. Mostly in England, the drop in number of servile peasants does fit the timing of the black death better. Interestingly, a book (written by Mark Bailey)  has specifically studied the decline of serfdom in medieval England actually called out the overemphasis of the Black Death. Conversely, in Eastern Europe serfdom increased after the the Black Death and in other parts. So it is potentially one of those things where one event had likely an impact on the other, but the precise relationship is likely somewhat more complicated than assumed, once one starts looking into it in detail.

 

[John Cuthber]

12 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

It isn't.

You are a government employee.

Glad you are making progress.
Do you now understand that the union doesn't negotiate with the government?

 

(The government refuses to negotiate because they have a mandate from a minority of the voters.)

10 hours ago, MigL said:

In Canada, government workers have great job security; they simply cannot be fired, no matter their competence, or performance.

Lucky them. (I doubt it's true,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-fired-misconduct-incompetence-1.4746602
but that's another matter).

Meanwhile, here with the topic in the UK.

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2022/05/13/slashing-91000-civil-service-jobs-perfectly-reasonable-says-rees-mogg/

His "justification" is that "With the pandemic now behind us..."
He's lying; it's not behind us, it is killing about 100 people a day.
For comparison, only about half that many get killed in road accidents and nobody is saying that "road accidents are behind us".
 

[TheVat]

I found this rant by Jonathan Pie.  Gave a disturbing take on the backdrop behind all the mess over there.  (Disclaimer:  Not a Brit, not in any way conversant with the myriad of issues attending the labour situation over there, just concerned about what neoliberal conservatives are wreaking around the globe.)

 

 

[MigL]

A rant, with few solutions offered, but kind of funny ( if you don't live there ), and probably spot on.

So why are these people not getting voted out of office ?

 

edit : This Jonathan Pie guy is hilarious.
Just watched his 'tribute' to Boris Johnson

 

Again, why are thesepeople getting elected ?
( at least the Americans had the common sense to get rid of D Trump, although he doesn't seem to get the hint )

Edited September 7, 2022 by MigL

[swansont]

On 9/6/2022 at 6:00 AM, John Cuthber said:

Meanwhile, here with the topic in the UK.

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2022/05/13/slashing-91000-civil-service-jobs-perfectly-reasonable-says-rees-mogg/

His "justification" is that "With the pandemic now behind us..."
He's lying; it's not behind us, it is killing about 100 people a day.
For comparison, only about half that many get killed in road accidents and nobody is saying that "road accidents are behind us".
 

!

Moderator Note

Followup on this tangent has been moved

https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/127776-covid-behind-us-split-from-potential-mass-strike-action-in-the-uk/#comment-1216640

 

 

[Endy0816]

12 hours ago, MigL said:

A rant, with few solutions offered, but kind of funny ( if you don't live there ), and probably spot on.

So why are these people not getting voted out of office ?

 

edit : This Jonathan Pie guy is hilarious.
Just watched his 'tribute' to Boris Johnson

 

Again, why are thesepeople getting elected ?
( at least the Americans had the common sense to get rid of D Trump, although he doesn't seem to get the hint )

 

They can't.

Their next scheduled general election isn't until 2025.

 

The ruling party(Tories) have been using the media to great effect for awhile though. Largely demonizing opponents and blaming others for the effects of their own extreme laissez-faire economic and social policies.

 

[MigL]

We also have a first-past-the-post Parliamentary system, here in Canada, where about 35 % of the votes will give you a majority government.

However, when a government falls in most other such places, an election is called.
I don't see why a person, elected only by her party members, gets to govern over a country for 3 years; doesn't seem like democracy, does it ?

[iNow]

59 minutes ago, MigL said:

mbers, gets to govern over a country for 3 years; doesn't seem like democracy, does it ?

Depends on the type. Democracy is a bit of a Rorschach test, and what it means varies tremendously from one person to the other. This is the battle taking place in countries all across the world right now. Gonna open a new thread instead of derailing this one. 

Done: https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/127785-what-doesshould-“democracy”-mean/

 

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

However, when a government falls in most other such places, an election is called.
I don't see why a person, elected only by her party members, gets to govern over a country for 3 years; doesn't seem like democracy, does it ?

The government didn't fall in this case. The PM resigned, and the party has the right to choose a new leader. The government only falls when it can't govern, that didn't happen here. 

In other countries, governments are falling all the time, and elections are constantly being held. That's a case of too much democracy, every system is a compromise. 

In this country, you only vote for your MP, not a government, or PM, although you're free to take that into account. Your MP then does the rest, on your behalf. It works ok, of sorts. It's a fairly stable system.