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Common sense
Why are we being held to ransom?
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Eugene Gold Tuesday 17 August 2010 |
So, it is all over for a while and we may now look forward to enjoying the August Bank Holiday without the threat of Unite’s industrial action against BAA.
Despite this bonus for us hard-pressed travellers, I will say it again – I think there is something very wrong with a system that allows the self-interest of a small group of people to damage the interests of the majority.
I appreciate that industrial relations are complex and that, despite anything that I might think, there is no one-size fits-all solution. But, let me explore my theory.
These people who operate the scanners and do the associated body searches, are employees. They do not have any innate skills. They have simply received the training provided as part of their job. They probably had other jobs before they became security officers and, if they do not like the work, they can find other employment.
What I find fundamentally wrong, is that having trained them, we put them in a position of power and trust which they can mis-use.
The human aspects, lost holidays etc., of the threatened is well understood but there are also wider issues that bring long-term financial damage to the airline and transport industry. These have to be recovered, which means higher prices for all of us.
Do I have a solution? Well, yes. Key workers should simply not be allowed to take strike action.
Before you scream at me, just think this though. If we mandate that a big operation like an airport needs certain key staff, then we must have control of those staff. Putting control in the hands of a trade union is crazy. This is nothing to do with the dignity of labour or the rights of the workers – this is common sense.
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Kevin Mash, Leeds 19 August 2010, 09:30AM | |
I have to agree that certain key workers should not be able to hold the rest of us to ransom. My Dad was a staunch trade unionists all his life but even he begun to see that the unions had gained too much power and that they were no longer representing the ordinary working man. | |
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Petra Wicks 20 August 2010, 04:35PM | |
I agree that something has to be done but i just do not know where one would draw the line between essential services and the rights of the worker to obtain a fair wage. | |
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Of course we are being held to ransom. The union leaders are dinosaurs and only have the real support of a small bunch of extremists. But, that is all they need to bring a country to its knees. This is like terrorism, a small number of people able to punch well above their weight because they do not care about the damage that they do. | |
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Chris Tonbeni 28 August 2010, 06:22PM | |
When you sign on for a job like this you should have to agree not to strike and the government should make sure that the wages are fair like a multiple of the national wage. | |
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David King, London 4 September 2010, 10:26AM | |
With the continuing recession, more and more workers will listen to union leaders that promise more pay today and do not say less jobs tomorrow. If we want to avoid more strikes then we do have to have no-strike rules that protect the public. | |
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Kat Dawson 18 September 2010, 08:03AM | |
I despair for our future and particularly for the elderly. How can we allow key services to be put at risk like this. People take jobs in the public sector and owe a duty to society. Society has to ensure that they have reasonable pay and conditions and probably a decent level of job security. The deal has to be continuity of services. | |
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