Laura Kuenssberg Translator @BBCLauraKT BREAKING: There is a 99.9% chance that when Boris Johnson attended the Lebedev party "with girls" that he was compromised and Russia has the video footage. This theory would explain sooo much lol x
Although Corbyn hanging out with a lot of demented anti-semites hasn't damaged him (at least, not in your eyes) so why should Johnson be compromised by photographs of him with girls?
Its a parody account and its called satire.
Before today you would have been happy to call Laura Murray a demented anti semite presumably.
I believe Seamus Milne has a case against the Mail coming up soon too if you want to chance your arm
I have no doubt - and I do mean no doubt - that if Adolf hitler had successfully sued someone for libelling him as an anti semite in 1936, you would have been marching along behind him shouting In your face! You want some, 4 x 2 lover?
Obviously there is no parallel at all, what with Jezza's obvious and undisputed non anti semitism, but I thought I'd say that anyway.
A minor point but were there any laws against being an antisemite anywhere before WWII? Afaics it was absolutely rife, to the point of it being more likely that a punter might think they were being libelled if accused of being excessively fond of Jews.
An accusation doesn't have to be of a crime, to be libellous. The test is, is it the sort of thing to result in hatred, ridicule or contempt? But your broader point is right, that an accusation of anti semitism in the 30s might not pass that test.
Corbyn is plainly not antisemitic, but that isn't the point. His dealings with the antisemitism in his party put it beyond doubt that he is as thick as concentrated pigshit and as morally vacuous as interstellar space.
Isn’t Moran the dingbat who rants about COVID vaccine fascism? Presumably he thinks someone wearing a mask looking at him a bit funny is Orwellian.
No idea. Never encountered him before. A good cartoon
Orwell would indeed have been surprised to find history outpacing his speculative fiction
I was covering a lesson on Dystopian Fiction recently... The first UK series of Big Brother was in 2000. Over 20 years ago.
Blooming hell, I'm getting old.
First series was a genuine experiment. The contestants had no idea. Everything else was filled with idiots aiming for celebrity without talent, the modern dream. See poor old Jade Goody.
"#UPDATE An ambassador tells AFP that Moscow canceled the vote on its "humanitarian" resolution after it failed to secure co-sponsorship of the draft text from China and India" China domestic news has also shifted to very neutral reporting on the war.
Pretty safe to say that the political front has not gone well for Russia. This must be the biggest self-inflicted blow by a major nation for quite a while. Gone from middle income BRIC to international pariah that only Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria will support in just a month.
Isn’t Moran the dingbat who rants about COVID vaccine fascism? Presumably he thinks someone wearing a mask looking at him a bit funny is Orwellian.
No idea. Never encountered him before. A good cartoon
Orwell would indeed have been surprised to find history outpacing his speculative fiction
I was covering a lesson on Dystopian Fiction recently... The first UK series of Big Brother was in 2000. Over 20 years ago.
Blooming hell, I'm getting old.
First series was a genuine experiment. The contestants had no idea. Everything else was filled with idiots aiming for celebrity without talent, the modern dream. See poor old Jade Goody.
The first series did proper bits on the psychological states of the housemates, who were all normal and dull people cooped up in a house. It was, genuinely, quite interesting.
The second one they were still mostly normal, but the producers just made sure they were permanently pissed for our entertainment.
From the BBC, this story is oddly framed. The city is under occupation, but shouldn't the BBC still call him the mayor, not the ex-mayor? The former mayor of Melitopol - now under Russian control - has been speaking out about his alleged kidnapping and detention by Russian forces.
Ivan Federov led the south-eastern city until it fell to invading Russian forces early on and he was kidnapped six days ago.
He was freed on Wednesday after Ukraine said it had agreed to exchange nine captured Russian soldiers to get him back.
Speaking to the BBC's Audrey Brown, Federov said Russian troops took him from his office without a word and he had no connection with the outside world while in their custody.
He said he was kept in a small room with armed soldiers but was never physically harmed.
Occupying forces in Melitopol have replaced Federov with their own mayor.
But the ex-mayor insists his successor is not the rightful head of the local government, as he was voted in by more than 60% of people.
Yes they should. I have emailed them (haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk) to make that point.
It’s one thing Bono writing that shit, it’s another one Pelosi reading it.
She should have stuck with Yeats, as @Cyclefree could have told her.
Fucking morons the lot of them.
Happy St Patrick’s Day, all.
I think some allowance has to be made for very old people thinking Bono is quite the young hipster, helping them to connect with de yoot. Next up, Mick and the boys (the ones left alive) introduce Biden’s state of the union address.
No. No allowance
You would not grant Trump any latitude
This woman probably should not be in charge of a shopping cart, she is orders of magnitude incapable of running a superpower. It is embarrassing and scary that America is reduced to this, just as we tiptoe towards World War 3
Isn't it good news she isn't, then?
She's two heartbeats away from running the USA, and she has significant power in the Capitol
It's ridiculous. She's my sad demented aunty Lois on the sauce.
America, get a grip
By January it will probably be GOP leader Kevin Mccarthy after the midterms who replaces Pelosi as Speaker and 3rd in line anyway.
Mccarthy is 57
A rare silver lining of a bunch of nutty fascists winning the election would be the average age in the US government going down slightly.
Well...it's a faint silver lining.
Doesn't that just mean that we have to put up with them for longer?
Bollocks. Silver lining disappears.
As The Master (no, not that one) put it;
It's no good whining About a silver lining For we know from experience that they won't roll by
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
As a Marxist warrior representative of the Workers why are you more concerned by the reputations of Corbyn's Politburo rather than 800 workers being screwed by the owners of capital?
Striking that the apology uses the expression “vile anti-Semitism of Corbyn’s Labour” but contains NO APOLOGY TO CORBYN OR TO LABOUR; it just says Laura Murray wasn't part of it.
You and I know that Corbyn hasn't an anti semitic bone in his body (nor a brain cell of any kind in his head). But it makes you wonder dunnit?
I have little to no knowledge of the law, but can it be legal for non police to handcuff someone? Surely a crime has been committed if that’s what happened?
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Woah!!!! Honestly in the past I’ve been accused of being to the right of Ghengis Khan but there are times this website makes me look like a Marxist. Being in a union is something we all should do. And this story shows why.
It’s not 1975, and union powers are limited, but pay is best negotiated on mass for most people, and it’s always good to have someone to source legal advice from and represent you. Not least for managers!
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Any union that didn't annoy a company's management wouldn't be doing their job properly.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Downside is that I expect the Unions are about to come back into some form of vague control. After all it's the only way people are going to get the 7-10% pay rises that are going to be essential over the next 2-3 years as inflation kicks in.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
What a load of bollocks.
"Militant"
"Menace"
The only militant menace is the disgraceful management running this outfit. They are the ones who should be cuffed and marched out the door.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Woah!!!! Honestly in the past I’ve been accused of being to the right of Ghengis Khan but there are times this website makes me look like a Marxist. Being in a union is something we all should do. And this story shows why.
Does it? If the company didn't have to go 10 rounds with the RMT for pay settlements and simple working practice changes do you think this would have happened? The company are scummers, just for the way they handled it, yet the RMT and other unions are the root cause of companies just figuring out it isn't worth the hassle.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I’m not in any union. Currently the universities are in dispute with the unions over the uni pension scheme, so I have a dog in the fight. I don’t agree with disrupting student education but this is a fight that needs to be fought. The employers should not have an untrammelled right to change the pension scheme to suit themselves.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
It must be lovely being an international financier grinding the workers faces into the dust.
"#UPDATE An ambassador tells AFP that Moscow canceled the vote on its "humanitarian" resolution after it failed to secure co-sponsorship of the draft text from China and India" China domestic news has also shifted to very neutral reporting on the war.
Pretty safe to say that the political front has not gone well for Russia. This must be the biggest self-inflicted blow by a major nation for quite a while. Gone from middle income BRIC to international pariah that only Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria will support in just a month.
Nice gesture from Italy. Promising to rebuild that gracious Italianate theatre in Mariupol
"Italy is ready to rebuild the Theatre of #Mariupol. The cabinet of Ministers has approved my proposal to offer #Ukraine the resources and means to rebuild it as soon as possible. Theaters of all countries belong to the whole humanity #worldheritage"
It's interesting that at roughly the same time the limit for contactless payments rose to £100, a new £25 limit on internet payments unless you get confirmation via a message is brought in. Odd how those two things have moved in opposite directions so to speak.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Any union that didn't annoy a company's management wouldn't be doing their job properly.
Until this point and now their members are out of work entirely. I guess they won the moral victory though. 🤷♂️
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
The problem with relying on good employment law is that it's very easy for a government to make it less good. I'm not sure I'd want my workplace interests solely dependent on the current government.
I see the workers are finding out what global buccaneering Britain is all about, and why they need a decent union.
Does anyone know the details of Labour’s anti-fire-rehire bill? Would it have prevented this particular action?
There is something odd about this. I have not been following it closely. But.
For redundancy a company with (I think) more than 90 employees has to go through a consultation period. So you are put "at risk" of redundancy first and then it becomes effective after the prescribed period and assuming you cannot find alternative employment within the company. I am no expert, mind, in this area. And different rules apply if it is a liquidation or administration. Also it depends on whether English law applies.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Most deciles. Max is doing alright though so we don't need 'em.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I’m not in any union. Currently the universities are in dispute with the unions over the uni pension scheme, so I have a dog in the fight. I don’t agree with disrupting student education but this is a fight that needs to be fought. The employers should not have an untrammelled right to change the pension scheme to suit themselves.
We have employment and contract law and employees can withdraw their labour by quitting if they don't think the situation is to their advantage and make money elsewhere. You know the normal market mechanism for pay and benefits. A shortage of lecturers would not be to the advantage of the universities and suddenly pay and conditions would improve to get people back.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Woah!!!! Honestly in the past I’ve been accused of being to the right of Ghengis Khan but there are times this website makes me look like a Marxist. Being in a union is something we all should do. And this story shows why.
Does it? If the company didn't have to go 10 rounds with the RMT for pay settlements and simple working practice changes do you think this would have happened? The company are scummers, just for the way they handled it, yet the RMT and other unions are the root cause of companies just figuring out it isn't worth the hassle.
Not up on employment law are you…? In the end, unions can’t stop pay settlements or changes to terms and conditions any more. In extremis they can go on strike and then they risk eventually losing their jobs. All unions do is allow the staff to speak to with one voice. That’s it.
This approach is basically saying “we don’t even want to talk to our staff”. I would resign before I went along with doing that to my staff.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Any union that didn't annoy a company's management wouldn't be doing their job properly.
Why oh why won’t them unions take industrial action that causes absolutely no inconvenience to anyone? That’s the way to get management on their side.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Not good enough. You stated in your earlier post that you look forward to TFL staff being shafted to put one over on the RMT. Bloody unions, eh?
Your suggestion that these redundant ferry operatives can find better jobs in a heartbeat is a fantasy. These people will have mortgages, auto lease loans and bills to pay. As someone who spent a couple of decades in fear of losing my means to an income because I had a mortgage to pay and children to raise, I couldn't have afforded to lose a month, or two, or three earnings, I would have been f*****! I was not in a unionised industry so I just had to put up with the threats, the bullying and the profane abuse.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Woah!!!! Honestly in the past I’ve been accused of being to the right of Ghengis Khan but there are times this website makes me look like a Marxist. Being in a union is something we all should do. And this story shows why.
It’s not 1975, and union powers are limited, but pay is best negotiated on mass for most people, and it’s always good to have someone to source legal advice from and represent you. Not least for managers!
Well, yes, but... the downside of collective bargaining is that management can also treat staff collectively. This incident is a result of collective bargaining.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
I just cannot express how empowered I would feel as a Jew arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, to find this man, Jeremy Corbyn and @bigjohnowls on the selection committee.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I’m not in any union. Currently the universities are in dispute with the unions over the uni pension scheme, so I have a dog in the fight. I don’t agree with disrupting student education but this is a fight that needs to be fought. The employers should not have an untrammelled right to change the pension scheme to suit themselves.
We have employment and contract law and employees can withdraw their labour by quitting if they don't think the situation is to their advantage and make money elsewhere. You know the normal market mechanism for pay and benefits. A shortage of lecturers would not be to the advantage of the universities and suddenly pay and conditions would improve to get people back.
You might want to talk to your academic contacts about that. There are not that many academic jobs out there, and in the U.K. there is very little chemical industry jobs. For sure there are other jobs, but I’ve spent 30 years building my skills to do the job I do; finding an equivalent elsewhere would not be easy.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
TV producer who stood with 'no war' sign on live TV in RU tells BBC news that her eldest son says she has ruined the whole family's lives. She hopes he will understand when he is older.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
Took a massive pair of bolt cutters to remove him.
He then flopped to the floor and needed like six stewards/rozzers to carry him off.
Also, another Evertonian tried to get to him to give him a bollocking.
Lol
What a bellend. Hope he doesn’t ‘fall down the stairs’
I’m just totally enlightened - I don’t know why we didn’t listen to him and his fellow travellers earlier. It’s so simple, no war, no environmental damage, nothing. We just need to “stop oil”.
I imagine the back of his t-shirt explains fully what we replace it with?
Love?
I wonder how he got to the ground?
Hitched a ride. Ass, grass or cash.
Why not just leave him there? Finish the game, everyone leaves, turn out the lights etc. He could stay there all night.....
He attached himself to the Everton goal. Otherwise. Solid plan.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
I butt in to your outrage simply to say when company acts like P&O it is ultimately a menace to society and you are living ina far distant past (where thoughts like yours righly belong). You want to sack your staff? Then stand in front of them and say that. You want to bring in cheaper staff then say so. Don't pretend it is the fault of unionised staff. It is the fault of useless management not where their their staff place their trust.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
It is different though, in the context of a corporate culture that tends towards oligopolistic, and runaway compensation growth for the top 0.5%
Left wing twitter is saying only Brit P&O employees sacked, EU staff retained. Is that correct? And the company’s struggled on the Channel routes cos Brexit? Obvs covid won’t have helped like, but has the long term viability of the cross-channel ferries been wrecked by trucks going straight to Ireland from the continent?
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
He was such a nasty piece of work he couldn't even make it under Corbyn (I think he resigned from a junior position).
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
Unions presumably have two main goals - to stop workers being exploited and mistreated, and to get as favourable terms as they possibly can for their members. The latter is not unreasonable for people to seek, but can mean they act like dicks to get it and it may not be fair on others, but while you don't want them too powerful we do probably need them for the first role. In an ideal world maybe not, but this is not an ideal world.
As a Marxist warrior representative of the Workers why are you more concerned by the reputations of Corbyn's Politburo rather than 800 workers being screwed by the owners of capital?
Asking for a friend.
A Corbynite once told me that people with jobs were the new upper class - as the machines took over they were simply the lackeys of the capitalist class and equally guilty. Only the unemployed were truly... the people, I suppose.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
He was such a nasty piece of work he couldn't even make it under Corbyn (I think he resigned from a junior position).
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
Took a massive pair of bolt cutters to remove him.
He then flopped to the floor and needed like six stewards/rozzers to carry him off.
Also, another Evertonian tried to get to him to give him a bollocking.
Lol
What a bellend. Hope he doesn’t ‘fall down the stairs’
I’m just totally enlightened - I don’t know why we didn’t listen to him and his fellow travellers earlier. It’s so simple, no war, no environmental damage, nothing. We just need to “stop oil”.
I imagine the back of his t-shirt explains fully what we replace it with?
Love?
I wonder how he got to the ground?
Hitched a ride. Ass, grass or cash.
Why not just leave him there? Finish the game, everyone leaves, turn out the lights etc. He could stay there all night.....
He attached himself to the Everton goal. Otherwise. Solid plan.
Mad Max deal: set fire to the goalposts and leave him with a hacksaw. He doesn't have time to saw through the goalost or the tie, but sawing his own head off is an option
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I’m not in any union. Currently the universities are in dispute with the unions over the uni pension scheme, so I have a dog in the fight. I don’t agree with disrupting student education but this is a fight that needs to be fought. The employers should not have an untrammelled right to change the pension scheme to suit themselves.
We have employment and contract law and employees can withdraw their labour by quitting if they don't think the situation is to their advantage and make money elsewhere. You know the normal market mechanism for pay and benefits. A shortage of lecturers would not be to the advantage of the universities and suddenly pay and conditions would improve to get people back.
You might want to talk to your academic contacts about that. There are not that many academic jobs out there, and in the U.K. there is very little chemical industry jobs. For sure there are other jobs, but I’ve spent 30 years building my skills to do the job I do; finding an equivalent elsewhere would not be easy.
I’m surprised, I actually thought UK had a large chemicals industry.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Woah!!!! Honestly in the past I’ve been accused of being to the right of Ghengis Khan but there are times this website makes me look like a Marxist. Being in a union is something we all should do. And this story shows why.
It’s not 1975, and union powers are limited, but pay is best negotiated on mass for most people, and it’s always good to have someone to source legal advice from and represent you. Not least for managers!
Well, yes, but... the downside of collective bargaining is that management can also treat staff collectively. This incident is a result of collective bargaining.
As many have said, I’d be surprised if this action was lawful without a weird web of contracts, but the end you are right, if any employer wants to it can always sack all of its staff (albeit with a lot more process and some hefty payouts if you immediately put someone else into the same job without good cause for having sacked someone).
I don’t think, in the end, legislation should stop that, if staff have been properly paid off. But I don’t think acting like that should be able to happen without having one’s card marked.
TV producer who stood with 'no war' sign on live TV in RU tells BBC news that her eldest son says she has ruined the whole family's lives. She hopes he will understand when he is older.
Talk about bravery.
How many of us would do this?
I don't think I would, rather I'd meekly keep my head down.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
You are trolling.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
It is different though, in the context of a corporate culture that tends towards oligopolistic, and runaway compensation growth for the top 0.5%
Not really. It's a monopoly position, they're exploiting it just as any other monopoly does. If the RMT were split into seven unions each unable to merge and competing objectives and only 1/7th of the staff able to strike at any one time do you think it would get the same outcomes?
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Most deciles. Max is doing alright though so we don't need 'em.
I was trying to remember, @MaxPB is an investment banker right?
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I’m not in any union. Currently the universities are in dispute with the unions over the uni pension scheme, so I have a dog in the fight. I don’t agree with disrupting student education but this is a fight that needs to be fought. The employers should not have an untrammelled right to change the pension scheme to suit themselves.
We have employment and contract law and employees can withdraw their labour by quitting if they don't think the situation is to their advantage and make money elsewhere. You know the normal market mechanism for pay and benefits. A shortage of lecturers would not be to the advantage of the universities and suddenly pay and conditions would improve to get people back.
You might want to talk to your academic contacts about that. There are not that many academic jobs out there, and in the U.K. there is very little chemical industry jobs. For sure there are other jobs, but I’ve spent 30 years building my skills to do the job I do; finding an equivalent elsewhere would not be easy.
I’m surprised, I actually thought UK had a large chemicals industry.
Not research based it doesn’t. Sadly its why I generally don’t advise kids to study chemistry, unless they really really want to. Far better money in engineering, for instance, and graduates usually stay in engineering. Chemistry graduates are as likely to go into the city as end up working in a chemistry lab.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
I do think that unions focus far too much energy in industries where they're already strong and staff are generally well treated anyway. It's delivery drivers and call centre workers who really need unions at the moment not TFL drivers. Having said that the awful conditions Amazon workers have to endure is a warning about what relying on employment law and the good grace of a company gets you.
Left wing twitter is saying only Brit P&O employees sacked, EU staff retained. Is that correct? And the company’s struggled on the Channel routes cos Brexit? Obvs covid won’t have helped like, but has the long term viability of the cross-channel ferries been wrecked by trucks going straight to Ireland from the continent?
I believe the French employees are protected by French employment law, not EU law.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I’m not in any union. Currently the universities are in dispute with the unions over the uni pension scheme, so I have a dog in the fight. I don’t agree with disrupting student education but this is a fight that needs to be fought. The employers should not have an untrammelled right to change the pension scheme to suit themselves.
We have employment and contract law and employees can withdraw their labour by quitting if they don't think the situation is to their advantage and make money elsewhere. You know the normal market mechanism for pay and benefits. A shortage of lecturers would not be to the advantage of the universities and suddenly pay and conditions would improve to get people back.
You might want to talk to your academic contacts about that. There are not that many academic jobs out there, and in the U.K. there is very little chemical industry jobs. For sure there are other jobs, but I’ve spent 30 years building my skills to do the job I do; finding an equivalent elsewhere would not be easy.
I’m surprised, I actually thought UK had a large chemicals industry.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
You are trolling.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
Exactly. Try comparing TfL services with the fucked up disaster that is privatised public transport services in most of the country.
Took a massive pair of bolt cutters to remove him.
He then flopped to the floor and needed like six stewards/rozzers to carry him off.
Also, another Evertonian tried to get to him to give him a bollocking.
Lol
What a bellend. Hope he doesn’t ‘fall down the stairs’
I’m just totally enlightened - I don’t know why we didn’t listen to him and his fellow travellers earlier. It’s so simple, no war, no environmental damage, nothing. We just need to “stop oil”.
I imagine the back of his t-shirt explains fully what we replace it with?
Love?
I wonder how he got to the ground?
Hitched a ride. Ass, grass or cash.
Why not just leave him there? Finish the game, everyone leaves, turn out the lights etc. He could stay there all night.....
He attached himself to the Everton goal. Otherwise. Solid plan.
What's the problem - so he is attached to the goal? Play round him.
if Richmond Golf Club could play through the Blitz, then some millionaire professional football players can play round one idiot.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
It is different though, in the context of a corporate culture that tends towards oligopolistic, and runaway compensation growth for the top 0.5%
Not really. It's a monopoly position, they're exploiting it just as any other monopoly does. If the RMT were split into seven unions each unable to merge and competing objectives and only 1/7th of the staff able to strike at any one time do you think it would get the same outcomes?
Left wing twitter is saying only Brit P&O employees sacked, EU staff retained. Is that correct? And the company’s struggled on the Channel routes cos Brexit? Obvs covid won’t have helped like, but has the long term viability of the cross-channel ferries been wrecked by trucks going straight to Ireland from the continent?
I believe the French employees are protected by French employment law, not EU law.
Seems the most likely explanation. Again, this is not new. It’s easier to sack UK workers. Anyone who has ever worked across Europe knows this.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
You are trolling.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
It has been and it should mean mass redundancies among drivers to reduce off peak services and even some peak services to better match the new daily usage of ~65% on weekdays and ~85% on weekends. Yet the mayor is doing the opposite and has given in on the pre-COVID pay settlement for fear of strikes.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Any union that didn't annoy a company's management wouldn't be doing their job properly.
The problem is that it tends to be the customers - who are innocent in whatever the dispute happened to be and can't do a single thing to solve it - that suffer.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
There is no closed shop. If most drivers join the RMT then that’s simply because the RMT is good at its job. I think train drivers have far too generous conditions objectively, but that’s the market. Unless you want wage controls….? Or it just those who aren’t masters of the universe that should have no right to negotiate pay?
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
It is different though, in the context of a corporate culture that tends towards oligopolistic, and runaway compensation growth for the top 0.5%
Oligopolistic. Great word, not easy to say fast though.
TV producer who stood with 'no war' sign on live TV in RU tells BBC news that her eldest son says she has ruined the whole family's lives. She hopes he will understand when he is older.
Talk about bravery.
How many of us would do this?
I don't think I would, rather I'd meekly keep my head down.
I'd like to think I would find hitherto untapped reserves of bravery in a crisis, as many indeed do, but I doubt it. I'm naturally subservient too.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
He was such a nasty piece of work he couldn't even make it under Corbyn (I think he resigned from a junior position).
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
NPXMP supported him as I recall.
He was Derby city council leader for years. My vague memory is that he was a bit of a Blairite at the time.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't P+O a monopolistic supplier of some ferry routes owned by an undemocratic, Autocratic government? Strange hill for lovers of the "free market" to fight on. But Unions.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
You are trolling.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
It has been and it should mean mass redundancies among drivers to reduce off peak services and even some peak services to better match the new daily usage of ~65% on weekdays and ~85% on weekends. Yet the mayor is doing the opposite and has given in on the pre-COVID pay settlement for fear of strikes.
Even on those usage numbers I would argue the tube needs a full service, and I’d argue that those numbers won’t remain at that level anyway.
You sound like those Treasury bods you like to complain about who believe the answer is to slide the shit out of anything that supports economic growth in the UK.
Left wing twitter is saying only Brit P&O employees sacked, EU staff retained. Is that correct? And the company’s struggled on the Channel routes cos Brexit? Obvs covid won’t have helped like, but has the long term viability of the cross-channel ferries been wrecked by trucks going straight to Ireland from the continent?
I believe the French employees are protected by French employment law, not EU law.
Individual EU countries can make make their own laws on these matters?
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
There is no closed shop. If most drivers join the RMT then that’s simply because the RMT is good at its job. I think train drivers have far too generous conditions objectively, but that’s the market. Unless you want wage controls….? Or it just those who aren’t masters of the universe that should have no right to negotiate pay?
Imagine a world with poorer investment bankers vs one with poorer train drivers and ferry sailors. Which one is the better place. Its not a tough call...
What a dickbag. Buying into Russian talking points hook, line and sinker (or pretending to, which makes no difference).
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday blamed NATO for the war in Ukraine and said he would resist calls to condemn Russia, in comments that cast doubt over whether he would be accepted by Ukraine or the West as a mediator.
"The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region," Ramaphosa said in response to questions in parliament.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
He was such a nasty piece of work he couldn't even make it under Corbyn (I think he resigned from a junior position).
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
NPXMP supported him as I recall.
NPXMP has suggested in the last couple of days that Ukraine is favoured by the West purely because it has a superior media operation to Russia, and in the last couple of months that everybody is bored of Taiwan "crying wolf" about China. And he has insisted for years what a decent chap Corbyn is. He is an enormously urbane and intelligent poster, but he is also the one and only person here who is here with an agenda - whether dictated by a foreign power, and if so Russia or China, I'm not sure. But he is.
I see the workers are finding out what global buccaneering Britain is all about, and why they need a decent union.
Does anyone know the details of Labour’s anti-fire-rehire bill? Would it have prevented this particular action?
There is something odd about this. I have not been following it closely. But.
For redundancy a company with (I think) more than 90 employees has to go through a consultation period. So you are put "at risk" of redundancy first and then it becomes effective after the prescribed period and assuming you cannot find alternative employment within the company. I am no expert, mind, in this area. And different rules apply if it is a liquidation or administration. Also it depends on whether English law applies.
The other issue is this: a company that wants to change the te
I see the workers are finding out what global buccaneering Britain is all about, and why they need a decent union.
Would being in the EU have made any difference though? Happy to be shown I’m wrong about that.
I took Foxy to mean trade union…
Correct.
Well yebbut "global buccaneering Britain" is an implied ref to EU membership, no?
No, it is the style of Brexit. There are others, that actually do protect the workers and farmers rather than shaft them for a quick buck.
Would being in the EU have made a difference?
I believe there would have been a compulsory consultation period. More important though is a government that believes protection of workers is not just red tape.
I think there still is, hence the ‘offer’ is 13 weeks pay in lieu of this. I hate what they are doing, but I don’t see evidence that the ability to do it is linked to Brexit. Happy to be shown I’m wrong, genuinely.
I don't think it's Brexit. It's capitalism working as designed - the employers are optimising by finding non-union staff from poorer countries willing to work for less.
As soon as globalisation took hold, I predicted that this sort of thing would become routine, though as MaxPB says it's more usually by a business reopening somewhere poorer (cf. the manufacturing industry and China). In a very crude way, it redistributes money from poorer people in rich countries to (a) employers and (b) poorer people in poorer countries.
My view, of course, is that the process needs to be balanced by intervenionist governments, who tax the employers on local turnover (none of this "Haha, we're based in the Virgin Islands" stuff), require lengthy notice, subsidise retraining, and support low-paid workers and the unemployed. Globalisation shouldn't be stopped, but it should be constrained by minimum conditions, with tax havens subject to sanctions. The process shouldn't be stopped, but it should be made slow and expensive, so that people affected can be helped, with obstacles imposed on companies that try to circumvent the rules.
Will the Conservatives do more than say "Tsk!" and move on? Of course not. They see the system working as they expect, and are just a bit embarrassed that it's so obvious in this case.
The conservative mp who chairs the transport select committee seemed pretty hacked off and in full agreement the labour mp who was featured before him. It sounds pretty shocking at the moment, so hopefully a lot can be done.
The only shocking aspect I can see is that the workers seem not to have gone through any form of consultation, and the manner of communication was crass.
Otherwise, it’s pretty standard stuff, isn’t it?
Yes, they've been made an offer of termination too, I think it's 13 weeks of regular pay. Which actually seems quite generous on the face of it. The communication has been substandard, but the pay off is probably why there's no consultation, it's not redundancy.
Not that generous, if it includes payment for any contractual notice period. Plus there would be outstanding holiday pay. And any statutory redundancy pay. If it includes all those it is not generous at all, especially for people who may have worked for the company for years.
What about other benefits?
No - this is a deeply shitty way to treat staff. As well as customers.
What a dickbag. Buying into Russian talking points hook, line and sinker (or pretending to, which makes no difference).
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday blamed NATO for the war in Ukraine and said he would resist calls to condemn Russia, in comments that cast doubt over whether he would be accepted by Ukraine or the West as a mediator.
"The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region," Ramaphosa said in response to questions in parliament.
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
He was such a nasty piece of work he couldn't even make it under Corbyn (I think he resigned from a junior position).
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
NPXMP supported him as I recall.
NPXMP has suggested in the last couple of days that Ukraine is favoured by the West purely because it has a superior media operation to Russia, and in the last couple of months that everybody is bored of Taiwan "crying wolf" about China. And he has insisted for years what a decent chap Corbyn is. He is an enormously urbane and intelligent poster, but he is also the one and only person here who is here with an agenda - whether dictated by a foreign power, and if so Russia or China, I'm not sure. But he is.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
You are trolling.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
It has been and it should mean mass redundancies among drivers to reduce off peak services and even some peak services to better match the new daily usage of ~65% on weekdays and ~85% on weekends. Yet the mayor is doing the opposite and has given in on the pre-COVID pay settlement for fear of strikes.
Even on those usage numbers I would argue the tube needs a full service, and I’d argue that those numbers won’t remain at that level anyway.
You sound like those Treasury bods you like to complain about who believe the answer is to slide the shit out of anything that supports economic growth in the UK.
I mean, if his view turns out to be widespread and we needed to protect the public from it, then I might have to turn in my “right wing bastard” membership card (hard brexiteer who was a fan of quite a lot of the coalition’s union reforms) and support sectoral pay bargaining at government level to get around the employers.
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't P+O a monopolistic supplier of some ferry routes owned by an undemocratic, Autocratic government? Strange hill for lovers of the "free market" to fight on. But Unions.
You are wrong. What makes you think anybody "owns" a ferry route?
Chris 'Derby' Williamson retweets this nonsense tonight:
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
He was such a nasty piece of work he couldn't even make it under Corbyn (I think he resigned from a junior position).
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
NPXMP supported him as I recall.
NPXMP has suggested in the last couple of days that Ukraine is favoured by the West purely because it has a superior media operation to Russia, and in the last couple of months that everybody is bored of Taiwan "crying wolf" about China. And he has insisted for years what a decent chap Corbyn is. He is an enormously urbane and intelligent poster, but he is also the one and only person here who is here with an agenda - whether dictated by a foreign power, and if so Russia or China, I'm not sure. But he is.
I see the workers are finding out what global buccaneering Britain is all about, and why they need a decent union.
Does anyone know the details of Labour’s anti-fire-rehire bill? Would it have prevented this particular action?
There is something odd about this. I have not been following it closely. But.
For redundancy a company with (I think) more than 90 employees has to go through a consultation period. So you are put "at risk" of redundancy first and then it becomes effective after the prescribed period and assuming you cannot find alternative employment within the company. I am no expert, mind, in this area. And different rules apply if it is a liquidation or administration. Also it depends on whether English law applies.
The other issue is this: a company that wants to change the te
I see the workers are finding out what global buccaneering Britain is all about, and why they need a decent union.
Would being in the EU have made any difference though? Happy to be shown I’m wrong about that.
I took Foxy to mean trade union…
Correct.
Well yebbut "global buccaneering Britain" is an implied ref to EU membership, no?
No, it is the style of Brexit. There are others, that actually do protect the workers and farmers rather than shaft them for a quick buck.
Would being in the EU have made a difference?
I believe there would have been a compulsory consultation period. More important though is a government that believes protection of workers is not just red tape.
I think there still is, hence the ‘offer’ is 13 weeks pay in lieu of this. I hate what they are doing, but I don’t see evidence that the ability to do it is linked to Brexit. Happy to be shown I’m wrong, genuinely.
I don't think it's Brexit. It's capitalism working as designed - the employers are optimising by finding non-union staff from poorer countries willing to work for less.
As soon as globalisation took hold, I predicted that this sort of thing would become routine, though as MaxPB says it's more usually by a business reopening somewhere poorer (cf. the manufacturing industry and China). In a very crude way, it redistributes money from poorer people in rich countries to (a) employers and (b) poorer people in poorer countries.
My view, of course, is that the process needs to be balanced by intervenionist governments, who tax the employers on local turnover (none of this "Haha, we're based in the Virgin Islands" stuff), require lengthy notice, subsidise retraining, and support low-paid workers and the unemployed. Globalisation shouldn't be stopped, but it should be constrained by minimum conditions, with tax havens subject to sanctions. The process shouldn't be stopped, but it should be made slow and expensive, so that people affected can be helped, with obstacles imposed on companies that try to circumvent the rules.
Will the Conservatives do more than say "Tsk!" and move on? Of course not. They see the system working as they expect, and are just a bit embarrassed that it's so obvious in this case.
The conservative mp who chairs the transport select committee seemed pretty hacked off and in full agreement the labour mp who was featured before him. It sounds pretty shocking at the moment, so hopefully a lot can be done.
The only shocking aspect I can see is that the workers seem not to have gone through any form of consultation, and the manner of communication was crass.
Otherwise, it’s pretty standard stuff, isn’t it?
Yes, they've been made an offer of termination too, I think it's 13 weeks of regular pay. Which actually seems quite generous on the face of it. The communication has been substandard, but the pay off is probably why there's no consultation, it's not redundancy.
Not that generous, if it includes payment for any contractual notice period. Plus there would be outstanding holiday pay. And any statutory redundancy pay. If it includes all those it is not generous at all, especially for people who may have worked for the company for years.
What about other benefits?
No - this is a deeply shitty way to treat staff. As well as customers.
I believe there is also 2.5 weeks for every year worked. I don’t think it’s a terrible package, but clearly it’s been handled appallingly, and most of the workers would prefer their jobs, thanks very much.
Remember the leaked 'FSB' letters on the generally credible (when it comes to FSB sources) Gulagu.net? Looking back, a lot of predictions were vaguely correct, but somewhat predictable (main Russian demands in negotiations and the pivot to accusing Ukraine of having biological weapons were both pre-empted), the translator of them has just tweeted:
"BREAKING: Putin is about to start conducting domestic terror attacks (false flag) against civilians inside Russia and will blame it on Ukraine. In order to unite the Russian population against Ukraine/West. SOURCE: #WindofChange" https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1504547425683337216
I don't believe that these letters have nearly the audience to change any Russian plans, nor am I entirely sure of their authenticity, so this is potentially the litmus test for whether they're reliable. Certainly Russia does need something to convince the people of a shift to a war economy.
So having done a bit more reading the P&O ferries move feels like Ronald Reagan sacking the unionised air traffic controllers, just handled very poorly.
One day I do wonder whether a future London Mayor will take on the RMT and bankrupt TfL as a way to restructure all contracts and actually make the network sustainable.
Shame on you Max.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
I didn't say they handled it well - "handled very poorly" - but sometimes companies get fed up of going 10 rounds with the militant unions and just go for non union staff. It sucks for the actual people who have been sacked here and hopefully they are able to land on their feet and get better jobs, yet I can't blame any company for ridding itself of unionised staff. They're a menace.
Woah!!!! Honestly in the past I’ve been accused of being to the right of Ghengis Khan but there are times this website makes me look like a Marxist. Being in a union is something we all should do. And this story shows why.
Does it? If the company didn't have to go 10 rounds with the RMT for pay settlements and simple working practice changes do you think this would have happened? The company are scummers, just for the way they handled it, yet the RMT and other unions are the root cause of companies just figuring out it isn't worth the hassle.
My ex-girlfriend's dad worked in the printing industry. Loathed the unions, who had put him on the dole at least twice by making life so uncomfortable for the company owners that they decided it just wasn't worth the hassle and closed the company down.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
“Monopoly on labour”? It isn’t 1975.
In certain industries, and they do. TfL is fucked and Londoners with it because the RMT has monopoly supply on drivers. If they go on strike London grinds to a halt. I'd live with a few months of bad service to smash them to bits but unfortunately there's a lot of Londoners who would really struggle without the tube so the mayor won't do it.
You are trolling.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
It has been and it should mean mass redundancies among drivers to reduce off peak services and even some peak services to better match the new daily usage of ~65% on weekdays and ~85% on weekends. Yet the mayor is doing the opposite and has given in on the pre-COVID pay settlement for fear of strikes.
Even on those usage numbers I would argue the tube needs a full service, and I’d argue that those numbers won’t remain at that level anyway.
You sound like those Treasury bods you like to complain about who believe the answer is to slide the shit out of anything that supports economic growth in the UK.
I mean, if his view turns out to be widespread and we needed to protect the public from it, then I might have to turn in my “right wing bastard” membership card (hard brexiteer who was a fan of quite a lot of the coalition’s union reforms) and support sectoral pay bargaining at government level to get around the employers.
Mrs Thatcher should have gone much further and completely smashed the unions in the UK. Good employment law is enough, unions are an anachronism, I'd love to see TfL smash the RMT as well even if it meant month of strikes and spotty service or just sacking the lot of them and rehiring non-unionised staff.
I don’t know about the RMT particularly, but it’s hard not to admire a union that secures such attractive conditions for its workers.
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
Having a monopoly on labour supply to certain industries is hardly worthy of admiration. We don't admire the train franchises that charge zillions for season tickets because they have an effective monopoly on the route. This is no different.
It is different though, in the context of a corporate culture that tends towards oligopolistic, and runaway compensation growth for the top 0.5%
Not really. It's a monopoly position, they're exploiting it just as any other monopoly does. If the RMT were split into seven unions each unable to merge and competing objectives and only 1/7th of the staff able to strike at any one time do you think it would get the same outcomes?
Left wing twitter is saying only Brit P&O employees sacked, EU staff retained. Is that correct? And the company’s struggled on the Channel routes cos Brexit? Obvs covid won’t have helped like, but has the long term viability of the cross-channel ferries been wrecked by trucks going straight to Ireland from the continent?
I believe the French employees are protected by French employment law, not EU law.
Seems the most likely explanation. Again, this is not new. It’s easier to sack UK workers. Anyone who has ever worked across Europe knows this.
It’s also easier to hire them.
In France it is much harder to fire workers. To make up for this, there are much larger capital allowances for machinery - so productivity is relatively high.
However, companies move work out of France when they can. In a large part, the Yellow Jacket protests are about this.
You may of noticed that the war in Ukraine is disrupting parts and materials for a number of industries. Those factories were created, as part of the push too move industry to cheaper and cheaper places - Eastern Europe in general has been "mined out" of cheap labour, to a great extent (though movement there is still happening).
Simply moving industry to the super cheap locations (undeveloped bits of Africa, say) doesn't actually get the big savings - you need a society with a semblance of modernity, rule of law and infrastructure to achieve productivity.
Comments
Corbyn is plainly not antisemitic, but that isn't the point. His dealings with the antisemitism in his party put it beyond doubt that he is as thick as concentrated pigshit and as morally vacuous as interstellar space.
"#UPDATE An ambassador tells AFP that Moscow canceled the vote on its "humanitarian" resolution after it failed to secure co-sponsorship of the draft text from China and India"
China domestic news has also shifted to very neutral reporting on the war.
Pretty safe to say that the political front has not gone well for Russia. This must be the biggest self-inflicted blow by a major nation for quite a while. Gone from middle income BRIC to international pariah that only Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria will support in just a month.
The second one they were still mostly normal, but the producers just made sure they were permanently pissed for our entertainment.
Third one on it just got ever more silly, really.
These weren't militant Red Robbo sabateurs they were P and O 30 year loyal staffers sacked on a Teams call, handcuffed by private security guards and frog marched off the vessels, to be replaced by cheap imported Labour. Wasn't Brexit all about "British jobs for British people"?
Oh and DP World owns Freeports and hence the Johnson Government. Labour and the LDs may be s*** but your lot are owned by f****** mafia hoods. Yesterday it was Russians today it is the Saudis.
https://twitter.com/smartysue/status/1504579833476653056/photo/1
Asking for a friend.
You and I know that Corbyn hasn't an anti semitic bone in his body (nor a brain cell of any kind in his head). But it makes you wonder dunnit?
It’s not 1975, and union powers are limited, but pay is best negotiated on mass for most people, and it’s always good to have someone to source legal advice from and represent you. Not least for managers!
"Militant"
"Menace"
The only militant menace is the disgraceful management running this outfit. They are the ones who should be cuffed and marched out the door.
Good night.
https://twitter.com/dariofrance/status/1504499779136544775?s=20&t=8IBOKiA7MvwuP3sN30iKyg
"Italy is ready to rebuild the Theatre of #Mariupol. The cabinet of Ministers has approved my proposal to offer #Ukraine the resources and means to rebuild it as soon as possible. Theaters of all countries belong to the whole humanity #worldheritage"
Evil shall not triumph!
Given that wage growth for most deciles has been pretty shit over the past decade or even decades, they must be doing something right.
For redundancy a company with (I think) more than 90 employees has to go through a consultation period. So you are put "at risk" of redundancy first and then it becomes effective after the prescribed period and assuming you cannot find alternative employment within the company. I am no expert, mind, in this area. And different rules apply if it is a liquidation or administration. Also it depends on whether English law applies.
"Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act."
Long article on why Russia was right to invade ukr.
If I recall this man was in the shadow cabinet under Corbyn and would have been housing minister or some such.
https://twitter.com/afshinrattansi/status/1504492032638787588
Amendments to Russia humanitarian motion to UN. Hilarious, and I think a genuine Canada govt account. But I am drunk so who knows?
This approach is basically saying “we don’t even want to talk to our staff”. I would resign before I went along with doing that to my staff.
He is a true, true shit.
I am not sure if he belongs in prison or a mental asylum.
I’m a bit old school, I don’t think it seemly when official government organs “troll” or “shit post”.
Your suggestion that these redundant ferry operatives can find better jobs in a heartbeat is a fantasy. These people will have mortgages, auto lease loans and bills to pay. As someone who spent a couple of decades in fear of losing my means to an income because I had a mortgage to pay and children to raise, I couldn't have afforded to lose a month, or two, or three earnings, I would have been f*****! I was not in a unionised industry so I just had to put up with the threats, the bullying and the profane abuse.
I just cannot express how empowered I would feel as a Jew arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, to find this man, Jeremy Corbyn and @bigjohnowls on the selection committee.
Talk about bravery.
How many of us would do this?
Otherwise. Solid plan.
I recall someone saying he was fairly normal in the past, but when he lost his seat in 2015 and regained it in 2017 he seemed to just lose it completely.
It's a bit of a squeeze to get in, mind.
He was especially out there, but.....
Looking massively prescient frankly.
I don’t think, in the end, legislation should stop that, if staff have been properly paid off. But I don’t think acting like that should be able to happen without having one’s card marked.
TfL has been fucked by Covid, not militant unions.
Obviously the occasional strikes are annoying but it’s hardly a first order problem.
if Richmond Golf Club could play through the Blitz, then some millionaire professional football players can play round one idiot.
Again, this is not new. It’s easier to sack UK workers. Anyone who has ever worked across Europe knows this.
It’s also easier to hire them.
See: RMT/ASLEF - TFL.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
https://www.spectator.co.uk
Strange hill for lovers of the "free market" to fight on.
But Unions.
You sound like those Treasury bods you like to complain about who believe the answer is to slide the shit out of anything that supports economic growth in the UK.
Jesus H. Christ, I can hardly believe it!
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday blamed NATO for the war in Ukraine and said he would resist calls to condemn Russia, in comments that cast doubt over whether he would be accepted by Ukraine or the West as a mediator.
"The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region," Ramaphosa said in response to questions in parliament.
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/safricas-ramaphosa-blames-nato-russias-war-ukraine-2022-03-17/
What about other benefits?
No - this is a deeply shitty way to treat staff. As well as customers.
Even Iran and China don’t believe this shit.
"BREAKING: Putin is about to start conducting domestic terror attacks (false flag) against civilians inside Russia and will blame it on Ukraine. In order to unite the Russian population against Ukraine/West. SOURCE: #WindofChange"
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1504547425683337216
I don't believe that these letters have nearly the audience to change any Russian plans, nor am I entirely sure of their authenticity, so this is potentially the litmus test for whether they're reliable. Certainly Russia does need something to convince the people of a shift to a war economy.
Also Russia about to cross the 1500 mark in terms of confirmed by photograhic evidence of vehicles/aircraft lost: https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1504589769040449550, and the people running it has a big backlog.
However, companies move work out of France when they can. In a large part, the Yellow Jacket protests are about this.
You may of noticed that the war in Ukraine is disrupting parts and materials for a number of industries. Those factories were created, as part of the push too move industry to cheaper and cheaper places - Eastern Europe in general has been "mined out" of cheap labour, to a great extent (though movement there is still happening).
Simply moving industry to the super cheap locations (undeveloped bits of Africa, say) doesn't actually get the big savings - you need a society with a semblance of modernity, rule of law and infrastructure to achieve productivity.