I see that the postal workers are to strike again – indeed, as I write, the latest round of walk-outs has already started:
Royal Mail workers have started the first of two 48-hour walkouts in a protest over pay and fears of job cuts.
After last-minute talks between Royal Mail managers and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) failed to reach a deal, the strike started at noon.
For fuck’s sake! There was a time when labour unions had no option but to hold their employer to ransom. Those were the days when workers were blatantly exploited by their employer and striking – or playing the only card they held; withholding their labour – was an effective way of negotiating change and improving their working conditions. That time has long passed.
I recall being involved in the signaller strike of 1994. After several months of walk-outs and blatant politicisation by the media, we settled for pretty much what was on the table before we started. There are no winners with strikes. The strikers lose money they can ill afford and the employer loses revenue and credibility with its customers. This is custom it may never regain, thereby weakening its position in the market and its ability to retain jobs. So, by striking, the postal workers are threatening their own jobs. Well, that’s a winning formula if ever I saw one.
The postal workers are in a weaker position than we were in 1994. We, at least, were semi-skilled and replacing us meant a drawn out training process, and we were working in a monopoly so we had some clout. Even with those weapons to hand, we still gained fuck all. The Post Office is facing serious competition, it is not a monopoly any longer. What is happening here is that to “preserve jobs” the CWU is gambling with those jobs. That this is fucking irresponsible doesn’t take much figuring out. Postal workers do not have the luxury of being semi-skilled. They are easily replaced – as is the service itself. The CWU seems intent upon encouraging its members to commit mass suicide with their jobs. Stupidity doesn’t even start to describe it.
“Despite five weeks of negotiations, Royal Mail have failed to take on board the union’s message that, in order for the business to succeed, Royal Mail need to invest in their workforce,” he added.
Er, no, they don’t. The Royal Mail needs to streamline its operation to remain viable in a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive market. Sorry, but the reality here is that these jobs are vulnerable due to an old state monopoly having to cope with the new kids on the block who appear to be more dynamic, more flexible and provide a better service to their customers – why else are those customers deserting the Royal Mail? They may not like it, but that’s reality. Going on strike will simply exacerbate the problem. Staging a strike that will cost the employer millions of pounds in lost revenue is going to hasten that possible 40,000 job loss the union is complaining about. Short sighted, stupid, suicidal and irresponsible.
Tell that to Bob Crow and the London Tube “workers”. Where there is a monopoly which is not threatened, the unions have it all their own way particularly when management has fewer cojones than the harem guards at the Topkapi. For a job anyone with an IQ over 50 could learn in a short afternoon, tube drivers get around £40,000 pa for, effectively, a 10 month year. Nice.
The tube workers are in a similar position of strength to that of the signallers in 1994. The difference would be, it seems, the employer’s lack of willingness to call their bluff… We were all threatened with the sack at one point. However, that would have meant managing without fully trained people operating the signalling system for anything up to a year.
LR
I was living in the US when Reagan faced down the air traffic controllers strike. All the commentators predicted disaster. What happened? There was minimal disruption for a few weeks, a few military ATCs were drafted in for a bit and new ATCs were trained, Armageddon failed to arrive. I’m also old enough to remember when Nasser fired all the foreign pilots working in the Suez Canal. Disaster? Not a bit of it. Their replacements mastered the job in days and got on with it (at a far lower price to the Egyptian economy): there were no accidents or slow-ups due to the sackings.
Moral of the story? No-one is indispensable: trained artisans of all classes big up their worth and their indispensability. It’s mostly crap. I have endless further degrees/qualifications in finance and, frankly, like most skills it all boils down to applied common sense.
I recall those incidents, too. It’s a gamble, of course. During the ’94 strike, Railtrack put managers into signalboxes and ran a reduced service. They got by, but there were a number of… um… undisclosed incidents along the way, as you would expect with people whose competence has lapsed or never been present in the first place.
The risk they took paid off. The consequences of catastrophic failure, though, would have made Paddington and Hatfield a walk in the park. Of course, what no one will tell you (and certainly most signallers will play it down) is interlocking 😉
That said, to get a raw recruit up to consistent competence will take anything from a few weeks for a small box to around a year for a large power box.
sack the lot of them as far as I am concerned, they knew what the pay was before taking their jobs, and lets face it they push paper through holes in doors. Let the Polish in, they will work harder and appreciate the jobs more, this postal service sucks, and so do the unions, after all if the unions were so effective there would be no need for a strike rite?
lets hope we soon have another post service soon, personally I think they r a load of self rightous birks and their action is doin nothing to gain public support, we’d all like more money rite?
LR
Agreed – it’s always a risk and, as you write, for consistent competence there’s no real substitute for training and experience (and, I would add, common sense). But it’s a short-term risk. Once the strikers and the public become aware that the world can and will go on (if only for a short time) without the much-vaunted skills of the strikers, a strike in a public service fails in its primary purpose of blackmailing the public. Coming to 1994, although I’m sure there were a number of “incidents”, the drivers must have been aware that not all the signalling staff were necessarily up to it and adjusted their driving behaviour accordingly. The risks of a major catastrophe would have been lessened because of that.
Indeed, one or two expressed concern about the lack of competence to me and understandably so.
Since then – and indeed since Regan’s time – things have changed somewhat. Any management group thinking about facing down strikers will have to consider two powerful issues; the regulatory framework under which the business operates and public outrage risk.
In 1994, they simply issued certificates of competence that, frankly, were not worth the paper they were written on and took the risk that they could wing it. These days, an HMRI inspector would be asking for portfolios of evidence of continuous competent performance. Unless the line managers operate the equipment on a regular basis, they couldn’t do this and would be breaching the safety critical work regulations and their safety case. It is entirely possible that an inspector would issue a prohibition notice.
Public outrage risk is a significant factor. On the one hand, it is likely to be weighted against the strikers in most cases, however, the management group could not rely on that remaining so. In the wake of Hatfield, the Daily Mirror stoked this one for all it was worth. If things had gone badly wrong in 1994 – and this would only have happened in the event of a failure of the signalling equipment – then the media would have behaved much as the Mirror did a couple of years later. The management group’s position would become untenable and their heads would be rolling in pretty short order.
I suspect, therefore, that these two factors weigh heavily in LUL’s thinking when faced by brother Crow and his heavies.
Since LUL is, in the end, run by Livingstone it is never going stand up to Crow (despite the odd crocodile tear – a Livingstone speciality – shed on behalf of the travelling public). Your point that things have changed since 1994 is a good one but, whatever their inclination, management will never stand up to an entrenched public service union without government support, tacit or otherwise. Eddie Shah was the exception that proved that rule. Although his company was private he insisted – and succeeded through the courts – in continuing to get the Royal Mail to deliver his customers’ films against the protests of both the postal union and Shirley Williams. Murdoch would not have squashed (or even attempted to squash) the print unions unless he had had not only the right legislation but a nod and a wink (and a bit more) from the then government: Roy Thomson learned that lesson the hard way.
Indeed, hence my point about the regulatory framework. The Post Office could legally sack all of its striking workforce as they are in breach of their employment contract. Recruiting and training new workers would be a short term inconvenience to them, but would send a clear message to the unions and, importantly, their customers that the customers’ needs come first. Safety critical workers are a different proposition because the legislation works against the employer – so, yes, it would take significant government support to the point of relaxing the legislation. I don’t see that one happening any time soon.
Umbongo – on a point of Historical accuracy I think you’re confusing Eddie Shah with the Grunwick Dispute – he wasn’t involved in that as far as I know – I think George Ward is the name you’re looking for.