Bob Crow

mr_goo

johnfinch wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

4. After Churchill, Thatcher is the best leader the UK has had in the last century.
5. Thatcher took on the unions that were dragging the UK down in to the proverbial.
6. There is no doubt that Thatcher changed many peoples lives during her term. Some for the best (Right to Buy). Some for the worst (Closure of pits and the decimation of mining communities)
7. In closing the pits, she should have put in place a plan to transform the mining communities and not cut them adrift.

4. How do you decide that? They all had different challenges. 1940s and 50s they had to rebuild a country following a war. 50s and 60s they were dealing with the loss of the Empire. 70s it was the oil crisis.
5. Industrial relations needed to be reformed, but not in the way that happened in Britain. Unions are far more powerful in other northern European countries than the UK, and their economies are doing better than ours.
6. Right to buy is probably the most damaging policy of Thatcher's era. The lack of social housing is a MASSIVE problem in the UK now and the fact that councils can't offer cheap housing means that landlords can charge exorbitant rents for some of the worst accommodation in Europe.
7. Probably right, but the question is how do you replace a place of work that might have supported an entire community? As you can probably guess I'm not a fan of the woman, but I don't know what could have been done and whether such schemes have been implemented successfully in other parts of the world. If you know of any good examples, please suggest them, I'd be interested to read about how communities can survive such massive losses.

In reverse order.
Re #7. I have absolutely no idea. But to have at least tried to do something would have been better than doing nothing, which is what they did.
Re#6. May have been damaging to the social housing stock, but only apparent now. It gave many working class families an asset that they would not otherwise have been able to afford. The housing problem experienced at the moment is one as you have rightly pointed out, being exploited by landlords. The UK need to look at the continental systems of property rental. Where they are affordable and long term, often staying in concurrent generations of families.
Re#5. Do the unions hold to ransom the other Northern European countries like the our unions used to? I am in favour of them, as pointed out by what Bob Crow did for his members. I would quite like to earn £50k pa driving a train.
Re#4. Churchill was and always will remain the UKs greatest PM. The only shortcoming that he (and FDR) had was that they never pushed back on Uncle Joe thus releasing Eastern Europe from the communist grip.

mr_goo

nathancom wrote:

Is it mark twain?

Nope. Though same trade.

Stevo_666

nathancom wrote:

Well you can't say he didn't bring people together, we have a full on Tory circlejerk here.

So anyone going on holiday is now a traitor to the left-wing cause? Try harder.

Nope, you still don't get it.

He was pretty divisive really, as his members had a very uneven spread of salaries - some on £50k+ a year, others on very little. Hardly a great job by comrade Bob - anyone would think he was a Tory with that sort of discrepancy in pay within his own union

finchy

Mr Goo wrote:

johnfinch wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

4. After Churchill, Thatcher is the best leader the UK has had in the last century.
5. Thatcher took on the unions that were dragging the UK down in to the proverbial.
6. There is no doubt that Thatcher changed many peoples lives during her term. Some for the best (Right to Buy). Some for the worst (Closure of pits and the decimation of mining communities)
7. In closing the pits, she should have put in place a plan to transform the mining communities and not cut them adrift.

4. How do you decide that? They all had different challenges. 1940s and 50s they had to rebuild a country following a war. 50s and 60s they were dealing with the loss of the Empire. 70s it was the oil crisis.
5. Industrial relations needed to be reformed, but not in the way that happened in Britain. Unions are far more powerful in other northern European countries than the UK, and their economies are doing better than ours.
6. Right to buy is probably the most damaging policy of Thatcher's era. The lack of social housing is a MASSIVE problem in the UK now and the fact that councils can't offer cheap housing means that landlords can charge exorbitant rents for some of the worst accommodation in Europe.
7. Probably right, but the question is how do you replace a place of work that might have supported an entire community? As you can probably guess I'm not a fan of the woman, but I don't know what could have been done and whether such schemes have been implemented successfully in other parts of the world. If you know of any good examples, please suggest them, I'd be interested to read about how communities can survive such massive losses.

In reverse order.
Re #7. I have absolutely no idea. But to have at least tried to do something would have been better than doing nothing, which is what they did.
Re#6. May have been damaging to the social housing stock, but only apparent now. It gave many working class families an asset that they would not otherwise have been able to afford. The housing problem experienced at the moment is one as you have rightly pointed out, being exploited by landlords. The UK need to look at the continental systems of property rental. Where they are affordable and long term, often staying in concurrent generations of families.
Re#5. Do the unions hold to ransom the other Northern European countries like the our unions used to? I am in favour of them, as pointed out by what Bob Crow did for his members. I would quite like to earn £50k pa driving a train.
Re#4. Churchill was and always will remain the UKs greatest PM. The only shortcoming that he (and FDR) had was that they never pushed back on Uncle Joe thus releasing Eastern Europe from the communist grip.

5. Look at the German model for example - workers' reps sit on the boards of companies.
4. They couldn't have done that. Britain was broke. The Red Army was massive and battle hardened. The public would never have stood for it.

florerider

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

nathancom

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

arran77

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

Four threads if you include the efforts over in communting

Stevo_666

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

florerider

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

Overmanning does put people out of work since it ties up too much money employing people in non economically active positions preventing it from being spent elsewhere to expand the economy and employment.

nathancom

florerider wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

Overmanning does put people out of work since it ties up too much money employing people in non economically active positions preventing it from being spent elsewhere to expand the economy and employment.

Because UK companies have such a great record at investing for the future instead of farming off the profits to feather the nests of directors...once again denying labour as a way of increasing profit for the rich and as a lever of social control.

markos1963

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

A driver and a guard on a train overmanning? Wait till your on a driver only train late at night and it all kicks off between a load of scally's and see what sort of 'overmanning' you want then!

florerider

I was brought up in a Midlands manufacturing town, no one stopped buying the TVs, cars, white goods etc made there, they just bought cheaper imports. Consumers, not the rich, decide who gets the jobs. There was no great plan for social control, it was just shopping and consumer choice.

Stevo_666

markos1963 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

A driver and a guard on a train overmanning? Wait till your on a driver only train late at night and it all kicks off between a load of scally's and see what sort of 'overmanning' you want then!

Yeah right since when does a rail employee wade in and save you . Anyone with a phone can raise the alert as well as they can.

Ever been on the Docklands Light Railway?

Stevo_666

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

Overmanning does put people out of work since it ties up too much money employing people in non economically active positions preventing it from being spent elsewhere to expand the economy and employment.

Because UK companies have such a great record at investing for the future instead of farming off the profits to feather the nests of directors...once again denying labour as a way of increasing profit for the rich and as a lever of social control.

You seem to be incapable of graping the idea of a job market and that people are paid what companies are prepared to pay, not what some lefty moral guardian decides they deserve.

It's up to the shareholders (i.e. the owners of the company) to decide what the directors are paid in the end. If they don't like they can change it. If the directors are the owners as well, of course thay can pay themselves what the company can afford after all expenses have been paid (like the wage bill).

markos1963

Stevo 666 wrote:

markos1963 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

A driver and a guard on a train overmanning? Wait till your on a driver only train late at night and it all kicks off between a load of scally's and see what sort of 'overmanning' you want then!

Yeah right since when does a rail employee wade in and save you . Anyone with a phone can raise the alert as well as they can.

Ever been on the Docklands Light Railway?

How about the other night when a piece of scum got on my train and smashed a window and then worked his way around the train trying to get money off passengers. I didn't see many going for their phones but me and the guard had the police there within 10 minutes and him in handcuffs a few seconds later. How about a passenger suffering a heart attack saved by station staff who used a defib' to get his heart going until paramedics arrived?
But hey I'll take your point, let's go down the Docklands route and go driverless across the board. That way we won't have any manning problems and you can be smug in the knowledge that all those tax paying employees are sat on the dole having a good scrounge because that's will always be better won't it?

Oh and FYI train staff cost represent one of the lowest costs to the railway, your fares mainly go on train leasing(mostly owned by the Banks), payment for the franchise, payment to Network Rail to run on the tracks, payments to NR for late running/cancellations and of course profits to the shareholders.

nathancom

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

Overmanning does put people out of work since it ties up too much money employing people in non economically active positions preventing it from being spent elsewhere to expand the economy and employment.

Because UK companies have such a great record at investing for the future instead of farming off the profits to feather the nests of directors...once again denying labour as a way of increasing profit for the rich and as a lever of social control.

You seem to be incapable of graping the idea of a job market and that people are paid what companies are prepared to pay, not what some lefty moral guardian decides they deserve.

It's up to the shareholders (i.e. the owners of the company) to decide what the directors are paid in the end. If they don't like they can change it. If the directors are the owners as well, of course thay can pay themselves what the company can afford after all expenses have been paid (like the wage bill).

OK so renumeration committees are filled with independent and impartial individuals now? How do you explain the ratio of CEO to average wage increasing from 6:1 to 31:1 from 1960s to 2010s with the majority of the inflation occurring in the last decade. It is called rigging the system in your favour but you just don't get it. I guess you well claim it is due to a free job market that values these roles at that rate. That is a load of rubbish. Those in positions of power within companies have exploited that power to feather their nests, extracting wealth that could have been reinvested to encourage economic growth. Then they have the gall to complain about higher rate tax . But eh everything is rosy as it is according to you.

Actually apologies there is a group of people who you blame, ordinary working people who just want a job to freed their families. They keep going around overmanning jobs.

mamba80

Stevo - you views represent everything that has gone wrong in the uk since the war, decline of manufacturing, personal greed gone haywire and massive rises in unemployment, whilst the top 1% just keep getting richer.
Low investment in R&D and and the reoccurrence of the private land lord and the huge cost that has for the rest of us.
when whole communities lose an industry the ensuing crime, loss of taxes and other social costs out weigh the so called saving by putting these people on the dole.
Companies, if they could, would pay their workers pence an hour, they would bring back the work house, disband the NHS and bring in an 80hr working week, Directors of the 21st C are no different from mill owners of the 19th C.
and they d do this whilst awarding themselves even more money.

Bob Crow knew this, which way he fought so hard for his members.

florerider

Funny about the increased number of higher rate tax payers then isn't it, and that it has happened at a time public sector pay was frozen.

nathancom

florerider wrote:

Funny about the increased number of higher rate tax payers then isn't it, and that it has happened at a time public sector pay was frozen.

Hilarious, yes! Because we have all been in it together

Low wage workers have effectively had their wages slashed by around 15% when there is clearly sufficient wealth to drive more people into the highest tax band.

Still none of this is surprising, using recessions as an excuse for cutting wages and downsizing has been on the first page of plutocrats' playbook for a quite some time.

And then you are complaining because train drivers get paid a living wage. And to scotch the numbers being thrown about:
"Trainee drivers start with a salary of £24,024 rising to £39,372 after the training period, while experienced drivers earn £50,451"
These are not unreasonable amounts considering the shift patterns, the responsibility and career progression. They would be significantly lower without the work of Bob Crow.

ballysmate

I suspect people have differing ideas of reasonable amounts.

finchy

mamba80 wrote:

Companies, if they could, would disband the NHS and bring in an 80hr working week

I'm not too sure about these 2. In the USA, health spending is far higher than in the UK and employers often have to shoulder the cost. What we're more likely to see is the ultimate Torygasm - taxpayer-funded public services contracted out to all their wealthy mates. Also, it's not very profitable to have one exhausted person doing work that two fresh people could do.

ballysmate

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 87740.html
George Bain has intimated that the minimum wage has not been the success people hoped. One consequence is the
at the minimum wage is seen as the acceptable benchmark of what wages should be set at, rather than being the absolute minimum.
Could the minimum wage be responsible for surpressing wages?

verylonglegs

The minimum wage will always fail to raise the living standards of low earners imo until the housing situation is changed. As everyone has the same increase then the cost of renting/buying will just go up and absorb any extra earnings such is the lack of supply in relation to demand.

mamba80

in the industry I am in, IT/Telecoms, the company directors don't give a shitte about how tired the call out engineers are, just so long as they can be seen not to be guilty when a driver goes into a barrier, so the onus gets put on the employee but he in turn has no power to say "No"
If there are more higher rate tax payers, that is because the allowances have been lowered significantly over the last few years.
Even though Osborne knows a far higher min wage would reduce working benefits and increase tax take, he hasn't done it, because the CBI don't want it, which is the point I made earlier, they really don't care about anyone apart from themselves.
The min wage should rise every year, rising the bench mark, significantly.

Stevo_666

markos1963 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

markos1963 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Two threads on Bob Crow

Seems pretty typical of the sort of overmanning he espoused.

"Overmanning" makes it sound like people are just a resource to move about, put in and out of work, as you see fit.

Nope, overmanning is what it says - too many people to do the work available.

A driver and a guard on a train overmanning? Wait till your on a driver only train late at night and it all kicks off between a load of scally's and see what sort of 'overmanning' you want then!

Yeah right since when does a rail employee wade in and save you . Anyone with a phone can raise the alert as well as they can.

Ever been on the Docklands Light Railway?

How about the other night when a piece of scum got on my train and smashed a window and then worked his way around the train trying to get money off passengers. I didn't see many going for their phones but me and the guard had the police there within 10 minutes and him in handcuffs a few seconds later. How about a passenger suffering a heart attack saved by station staff who used a defib' to get his heart going until paramedics arrived?
But hey I'll take your point, let's go down the Docklands route and go driverless across the board. That way we won't have any manning problems and you can be smug in the knowledge that all those tax paying employees are sat on the dole having a good scrounge because that's will always be better won't it?

Oh and FYI train staff cost represent one of the lowest costs to the railway, your fares mainly go on train leasing(mostly owned by the Banks), payment for the franchise, payment to Network Rail to run on the tracks, payments to NR for late running/cancellations and of course profits to the shareholders.

I've never seen that oddly enough. Like I said everyone has a mobile these days.

Its about way more than just train drivers even though you really don't need a bloke to press a stop and start button on a tube which is they do for 50k a year. Its about deploying staff to where people can be more useful and let people buy tickets from machines etc. Trouble is with the lefties is they don't get that things change and jobs have to change. These people are better off deployed elsewhere, otherwise why bother going to all the trouble.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo - you views represent everything that has gone wrong in the uk since the war, decline of manufacturing, personal greed gone haywire and massive rises in unemployment, whilst the top 1% just keep getting richer.
Low investment in R&D and and the reoccurrence of the private land lord and the huge cost that has for the rest of us.
when whole communities lose an industry the ensuing crime, loss of taxes and other social costs out weigh the so called saving by putting these people on the dole.
Companies, if they could, would pay their workers pence an hour, they would bring back the work house, disband the NHS and bring in an 80hr working week, Directors of the 21st C are no different from mill owners of the 19th C.
and they d do this whilst awarding themselves even more money.

Bob Crow knew this, which way he fought so hard for his members.

Don't let the facts get in the way of god old leftie rant.

It's your sort of Luddite leftie attitude that causes the problems. Look at the last time a vaguely socialist got was in power in the late 70 s and the last decade - practically bankrupted the country.

Massive rises in unemployment compared to when? R& D low compares to what? Loss of tax compared to what? Facts please.....

There's a market for jobs - supply and demand. And there's a minimum wage as a safety net in case you hadn't noticed.

If people like you had such good ideas about how to run things people would have voted for it by now, wouldn't they?

florerider

nathancom wrote:

florerider wrote:

Funny about the increased number of higher rate tax payers then isn't it, and that it has happened at a time public sector pay was frozen.

Hilarious, yes! Because we have all been in it together

Low wage workers have effectively had their wages slashed by around 15% when there is clearly sufficient wealth to drive more people into the highest tax band.

Still none of this is surprising, using recessions as an excuse for cutting wages and downsizing has been on the first page of plutocrats' playbook for a quite some time.

And then you are complaining because train drivers get paid a living wage. And to scotch the numbers being thrown about:
"Trainee drivers start with a salary of £24,024 rising to £39,372 after the training period, while experienced drivers earn £50,451"
These are not unreasonable amounts considering the shift patterns, the responsibility and career progression. They would be significantly lower without the work of Bob Crow.

So you are not even prepared to accept the fact that the private sector is paying people more money and not taking the recession as an opportunity to slash wages and benefits as you accuse them of.

Low paid workers have not had their pay slashed, that is the result of inflation, something that is driven by low interest rates intended to help the low paid, and something that hurts anyone with savings or using savings as income in retirement. Put simply, those with money are being penalised to help those without.

finchy

Stevo 666 wrote:

It's your sort of Luddite leftie attitude that causes the problems. Look at the last time a vaguely socialist got was in power in the late 70 s and the last decade - practically bankrupted the country.

The 1970s saw the oil crisis. The last decade saw Labour continuing the neo-liberal system that the Tories supported. Please, can any Tory supporter on here show me where the Conservatives proposed measures to prevent the debt crisis in this country spiralling out of control? Actually, to save you the effort, don't even bother. They said that Labour hadn't gone far enough. Our current chancellor wanted us to copy the Irish - the only EU country with higher total (private and public) debt than us.

Stevo 666 wrote:

Massive rises in unemployment compared to when? R& D low compares to what? Loss of tax compared to what? Facts please.....

R&D low compared to other major developed economies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... t_spending

I imagine loss of taxes refers to people being out of work, thus not paying taxes.

Stevo 666 wrote:

If people like you had such good ideas about how to run things people would have voted for it by now, wouldn't they?

I don't know what mamba80's views are, but there are plenty of countries with different economic models to ours. Some of them are, arguably, far more successful than we are.

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo - you views represent everything that has gone wrong in the uk since the war, decline of manufacturing, personal greed gone haywire and massive rises in unemployment, whilst the top 1% just keep getting richer.
Low investment in R&D and and the reoccurrence of the private land lord and the huge cost that has for the rest of us.
when whole communities lose an industry the ensuing crime, loss of taxes and other social costs out weigh the so called saving by putting these people on the dole.
Companies, if they could, would pay their workers pence an hour, they would bring back the work house, disband the NHS and bring in an 80hr working week, Directors of the 21st C are no different from mill owners of the 19th C.
and they d do this whilst awarding themselves even more money.

Bob Crow knew this, which way he fought so hard for his members.

Don't let the facts get in the way of god old leftie rant.

It's your sort of Luddite leftie attitude that causes the problems. Look at the last time a vaguely socialist got was in power in the late 70 s and the last decade - practically bankrupted the country.

Massive rises in unemployment compared to when? R& D low compares to what? Loss of tax compared to what? Facts please.....

There's a market for jobs - supply and demand. And there's a minimum wage as a safety net in case you hadn't noticed.

If people like you had such good ideas about how to run things people would have voted for it by now, wouldn't they?

lack of R&d? collapse in apprentices, collapse of industries once world leaders, thatchers reliance on the financial services sector...huge success there! we have systematically failed to support industry, so where is our once proud bike industry? even Raleigh is an American company, where are our Mavics or Colnagos, GIANT, Specialized bike manufactures? or component suppliers? we had soooo many, the management of these companies screwed up and sold out.
minimum wage...that's a joke...multi billion profit companies paying sectors of their workforce MW, those same workers then claim tax credits so they can eat and housing benefit so they have somewhere to live....all paid for by I/c tax net payers, their rents going into the pockets of private investors.
I think you ll find the world collapse in banking you refer too was caused by the very right wing free market you want, Tony blair was more right wing then any previous tory government.
The right have answers and that is let the market decide but the market is v. short sighted and only ever looks at the balance sheet, interestingly with the recent floods, everyone looked to the state to help them, as would the most ardent free marketeer involved in a car crash, he would want an excellent emergency & AE before being txfered to his private clinic.

florerider

so had the right recognised the risk to banks from all and sundry taking on loans they could not afford and then defaulting on them (which was the root cause of the crash) and put a stop to it, that would have been alright? Or would it have been the right and the wealthy preventing the poor having their share of prosperity again?