Oh, not those flying pickets. These flying pickets.
Labour would abolish Thatcher-era laws preventing workers in the UK from taking industrial action in solidarity with their counterparts in other countries, the shadow chancellor has announced.
At an event in Airdrie, John McDonnell pledged that a Labour government would restore trade union rights by repealing legislation that undermines the ability of workers to take “collective action and acts of solidarity”.
Welcome to the worst of the nineteen seventies, folks. When your business could be brought to a stand over a dispute that is nothing to do with you – all because “solidarity”.
And you thought Wolfie Smith was a comedy character. Look upon John McDonnell and weep, for there is the face of evil. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the stand against Pinochet, this will be abused. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when”.
In his speech McDonnell went on to commit Labour to enhancing democracy at work…
The workplace is not a democracy. If you want to buy shares in the business, you get to vote at shareholder meetings, otherwise you don’t. Business cannot be run efficiently as a democracy (Meriden Triumph, anyone?) – what you end up with is pointless arguments and nothing getting resolved – and having attended union meetings, I’d rather poke my eyes out sooner than ever attend another – and if you have built up a business, putting your every waking moment, your capital and your effort into building it up, then no, you do not hand over control to some quasi democracy run by people who have not taken the same risks should the whole thing fail. If you have built the business up, then you get to say how it is run – unless you make it public in which case, you have to answer to your shareholders.
The idea that “the workers” own the company is absurd. “The workers” are employees. They sell their time, labour and expertise in exchange for a salary. That’s it. This does not – and nor should it – give them any rights over the ownership of the concern.
“A Labour government will transform the world of work, providing security, decent pay and equal rights for people from day one, including sick pay, holiday pay and protection against unfair dismissal.”
Allow me to translate – a Labour government will wreck the economy just as every Labour government has done before it. A Labour government will leave us with unimaginable debt, high unemployment, runaway inflation and, likely as not, a recession all the while making promises funded by the magic money tree and blackmailing industry with bully boy union thugs. Sick pay, holiday pay and protection against unfair dismissal already exist in law. That these things have to be earned pro-rata is perfectly reasonable.
In the 1970s it was a tough decision for a company, especially in manufacturing, to move its operation abroad even if hobbled by incessant and unpredictable stoppages. In 2018 it’s a whole lot easier.
Full Brexit and restoration of a better degree of sovereignty would make this easier, if but only if that sort of Labour party with him and those like him were in for a one term government
They of course the kind of cretinous ideas that only someone who has ploughed his entire adult life into politics without stopping even briefly to hold down a real job would come up with… not that McDonnell would care. After all, he knows f*ck all about finance or economics too and the ignorant Corbyn still promoted him to shadow Chancellor…
McDonnell and co see all business as multi-national, fat-cat conglomerates who keep their boot on the neck of the ‘working man’ and steal the fruits of his labours. Of course the vast majority of business in the UK is SME, who will be crippled by this sort of legislation. The stereotype ‘big business’ (which provides many well paid jobs with good benefits and protections) will just piss off elsewhere if Labour get in.
Only an ignorant imbecile would think that restoring the unions to their former economy wrecking status is a good idea. I am hopeful that our electorate are not quite that stupid.
The Flying Pickets did an interesting cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
Socialism = fail = rinse and repeat = fail = rinse and repeat…. da capo al fine.
Socialists insist that just because Socialism failed last time, doesn’t mean this time it will not work because last time wasn’t ‘real’ Socialism and now they are in charge it will be ‘real’ and a sure-fire success.
For any not around in the 1970s here’s a flavour: mortgage rate 16%, inflation 20%+, wage inflation 14%, tax rates 35% to 83% with 15% supertax for the very rich, strikes almost daily.
Here we go again…I actually enjoy pointing out that the 70s were a divided decade. Divided by Labour being in power half the time and the Tories the other half, but everything wrong was down to Labour…the three day week was under Heath just in case your mental gymnastics don’t actually give you any facts to deal with.
Having said that the 70s were better in terms of equality than now. The average boss earning was nowhere near what it is now in relation to staff wages and you could buy a house and run it on one income. Try that now on an average wage. All this inequality is a result of Thatcher and her corporate loving, Union bashing policies. Where are all the Libertarian attitudes that I keep hearing about? Libertarians should be the first to argue that the people should have the right to not go to work if they want and to stand in solidarity when they want and where they want. So at least this allows me to discern the Libertarians from the right wingers.
You should be applying for a CAP subsidy for that strawman there. Well done. And, no, I’m not going to refute what I haven’t said or a position that I never took.
People have the right not to go to work if they don’t want to. Being in the recruitment business, believe me, it happens all the time. They can stand in solidarity with whoever they want. On their own dime. As an employer and a libertarian, that also means that I should have the right not to employ them if they are in breach of contract.
Your comments are a long list of moronic utterances.
Yup. This. Mischaracterising the liberal/libertarian philosophy is so common now, that when presented with such strawman arguments, I simply point out that its a strawman and move on.
Yeah I noticed you like to use the right-wing version of the “you’re a racist” shutdown. It is the right-wing equivalent of I have no argument left…As for the comment by Moaner above…what is it with you guys that you can’t have someone disagree with you without you getting all shirty with insults. Seems to be becoming a habit hereabouts. Stll it’s nice to see that you agree with me on the right to strike and to strike wherever they want to and that also means at the entrance to your business.
No one has insulted you. We have attacked your arguments. Please notice the distinction.
Your suggestion that I have said otherwise was another strawman. People should have the absolute right to strike, just as the employer should have the right to terminate an employment contract should that happen. Indeed, when unions were first formed, strike action was an essential tool to level the balance of power. Margaret Thatcher found herself having to adjust that balance and rightly so. It was clear from my comments what I was opposing here – and that is the right of a union to indulge in strike action against an employer over something that is nothing to do with that employer. Such behaviour is rightly illegal and needs to remain so.
Mischaracterising lol, is that the new term for you moving the goalposts. whenever someone points out that Libertarians should support the right of people to go on strike whenever they want for whatever they want wherever they want they suddenly shift and reveal themselves to be not very libertarian at all except when it suits them.
If you actually understood libertarian philosophy you wouldn’t even question the matter. That you mischaracterised the philosophy is an observation – an accurate one.
However, because you appear to be struggling: The libertarian position here is based upon the non aggression principle. Striking because you want to, harm’s the employer’s business and is a violation of the non aggression principle. Therefore the employer is within his rights to terminate the strikers’ employment contract as they have breached its terms.
There is a word for striking whenever you want for whatever reason you want and that word is bullying.
Heath picked up where Wilson left off. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that?
Just as Cameron picked up where Blair left off: plus ça change…
Cameron aping Blair was when the Tories stopped being Tories and became Labour Lite.
…and all Labour governments picked up where the tories left off. remember that the tories were there first a long time before the Labour party was even a pipe dream so by your going backwards to blame previous governments then inevitably the tories are to blame for everything…
Well, if you are going to indulge in stupid retuctio absurdums, you had better involve the Whigs.
“a Labour government will wreck the economy just as every Labour government has done before it. ”
Don’t let the facts get in the way of your hatred of the Labour party…
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/
Sigh… I have stated here (repeatedly) that this Conservative government has borrowed more than the previous Labour one. Clearly you weren’t paying attention. Do try to keep up. And can you actually present an argument that doesn’t include an absurd logical fallacy? This one’s a tu quoque, for example.
That Labour governments leave the economy in tatters is a matter of historical record – unlike Major’s outgoing government, for example, that gifted Tony Blair an economy that was in good order. And what did he do with it? What every Labour government does. Trashed it.
Oh please. So I suppose the banking crash of 2007/8 didn’t happen then? And it didn’t start in the USA then? Or travel the world? Can you actually present an argument without revising history to do so?
Ah yes, more whataboutery. Where, precisely, did I say that the Labour party caused the recession in 2008? Take your time…
Had Gordon Brown actually done what he was supposed to have done – saved in the good times – there would have been reserves to spend in the bad times. The twat is supposed to be a Keynesian after all, yet only understood the spending bit. You do understand what Keynes said, don’t you? But then, Mr “no more boom and bust” thought he knew better. That crash was inevitable. A competent government would have prepared for it.
The only person doing any revisionism here is you – along with your non sequiturs, whataboutery and attempts to sidestep the point (not to mention yet another epic strawman). Nothing you have said here refutes my statement – Labour always trash the economy – and the reason you can’t is because the statement is factually true. It’s what they do – tax and spend until they run out of other people’s money. They are fiscally incompetent. Every time your argument is exposed for the nonsense it is, you wheel out another logical fallacy – although that rampant bollocks about revisionism is a delightful example of projection. You don’t actually have an argument.
I’m not sidestepping anything and it seems you can’t have a discussion without calling out everything you disagree with as some logical fallacy or other. It almost seems that it is the right wing shut down version of calling someone a racist or other “ist” Don’t agree with someone just shout “whataboutery” or something. If you have evidence that Labour trashed the economy then put it up or show yourself up as telling porkies. And preferably not a link to some daily mail article or other such nonsense. Every Labour government has managed to leave the country in less debt than its tory equivalent and the most recent figures bear that out. The debt since 2010 has rocketed so where is this Labour has trashed the economy evidence going to come from? The fact is that the tories have been in office about half again as long as Labour yet Labour get the blame for everything wrong. If the tories are so great then why isn’t the country an outstanding utopia seeing as they have had the most time to turn it into one? Your hatred of anything remotely left wing has blinded you to the actual facts of the matter.
Okay, we have been here before. If you don’t like me referring to your logical fallacies, then stop using them. Your use of logical fallacy is an observable fact you are engaging in logical fallacy – it’s not some absurd right wing conspiracy to shut you down. Your arguments are riddled with them. Your failure to grasp this is not my problem and I am not obliged to indulge you in them. Your favourite seems to be the strawman argument. Likewise your mischarecterisation of the liberal/libertarian position. Pointing this out is not an insult, it is an observation. Nor is it shutting down debate – I haven’t stopped you responding, have I?
However, I will not argue a position I have not taken, nor defend what I have not said because you are too lazy to construct an argument based upon what I have said.
Likewise pointing out that Labour governments have always overspent, have always trashed the economy and the last one failed dismally to prepare for the recession because they arrogantly assumed that they had cured boom and bust, is an observation. That worked well, didn’t it? The usual result is that the incoming Conservative government has to pick up the pieces as Margaret Thatcher did.
The Spectator does a dissection of Blair’s legacy – along with some nice little graphs. To summarise, though, as I have already pointed out here – they failed to run a surplus in the good years, meaning that when the recession hit, they couldn’t manage it. No one else was to blame for that.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2013/04/tony-blair-cant-escape-blame-for-the-debt/
For crying out loud! How many times do I have to say to you that I have complained about this repeatedly here – including this very discussion. If I appear impatient with you, it is precisely because I find myself having to repeat time and again what I have already said because you have failed to take notice.
And another strawman argument. I haven’t said this. And if you took the time to analyse what I have said, you would realise that I haven’t said this. What I said was specific to trashing the economy – and I have explained this point in detail, but you have chosen instead to ignore it and indulge in more strawman arguments.
And at the risk of straying into tu quoque – or even poisoning the well – for someone to complain about quoting the Mail, to then quote Richard Murphy is pretty laughable. The man is so deranged, that no one takes him seriously – not even Corbyn and McDonnell. Seriously.
This is another strawman. Please point out precisely where I have said this. Again, take your time…
Bollocks. If you took the time to fully understand my position, you will realise that it’s not just the left that I despise.
This is all to do with “Palestine”. All of it. No surprise from Labour.