Stockholm Syndrome… just why are private sector workplaces so difficult to organise in? July 19, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, The Left.trackback
Anyone who has worked in the private sector will know the difficulties facing those who seek to organise unions there. This isn’t an absolute. There are areas, sometimes surprising ones, where unions are if not exactly welcome at the very least a facet of working life. But one doesn’t have to go far to find companies where the very idea is anathema.
And while that’s understandable in the sense that one rarely expects employers to approach the topic with a cheery whistle on their lips and a spring in their step it is less so when one considers the aversion amongst workers to such matters.
When I was co-organising in the early to mid 2000s a union in a group of companies what was remarkable was the inertia and on occasion hostility to the very concept of unions.
But I can’t help but feel that this is like a very specific form of Stockholm Syndrome, a sort of belief on the part of many workers, particularly those who we could lightly term ‘middle class’ – though by no means restricted to them, that by going along with their employers in all matters somehow redundancy or whatever will be averted. That this is classic ‘magical thinking’, in the psychological sense, almost never occurs to them.
But it really is fascinating how much trust they place in those whose interests are often diametrically opposed to theirs.
And in fairness it’s also very understandable. Companies are, for the most part, run along the lines of the most rigid command and control economy. You can see that perfectly exposed in the appetite so prominent now amongst certain commentators for the public sector to be able to ‘hire and fire’. That the reality of private sector workplaces is that the latter is significantly more difficult than the former doesn’t in any way modify the nature of the relationships at work.
I could even go so far as to propose that workplaces tend in many instances to be amazingly bullying. Actually that’s no great stretch – now is it? And all of this is remarkably unreflected upon which, as I’ve noted previously, is strange if one considers the centrality to work to our lives.
Granted with a certain loosening of the society and a greater awareness of a degree of personal rights that’s not quite as naked as it was in many workplaces – but note too the utter aversion that the political and economic right have to the Equality Agency et al… But it exists nonetheless.
A friend of mine in recent years was very dismissive of unions. They’d never join one… and from their perspective they were right. They worked in admin/company secretarial on a contract basis, often working or not when they chose. They’d never have to join a union because their relationships with employers were such that their age, skills and experience were readily transferable and reasonably well paid… And indeed so they were until the recession hit and suddenly, and I take zero pleasure in relating this, they was out of work not for a week or two but for months on end.
Proximity to employers was hugely deceptive for them and their self-perception of their position in the pecking order, and once recession came and shook that particular tree so that relationship changed radically.
But for those in more mundane this is probably less of a surprise even if their activism is limited. Another friend of mine joined, after long persuasion, a union because their workplace was particularly appalling and the prospect of redundancy loomed. When he contacted the union on a fairly minor matter he was met with snarky jibes by the person he was talking to ‘typical, blow-ins who only join when thing go sour’.
Yes, well. I wouldn’t sneer at anyone who joined a union in those circumstances. The current period should be a revelation to many workers as to the realities of their employment situation and how fragile that can be and how easily they can be manipulated. And the point is that for a worker who joins a union and sees the direct benefit of same in a redundancy situation the chances are very high that first they’ll have a more positive view of unions and that they’ll be willing to retain their membership even if their activity level is low. Sure, that then means that many workers will regard them as a form of insurance, but I don’t see that as a problem in itself given the negative perceptions and even hostility on the part of so many workers towards them.
As for my friend, almost inevitably he was made redundant. But what was striking was that he was waiting on the union to ensure that his rights were upheld in the redundancy process – and it was already clear that the company was trying to pull a fast one on various issues – so in other words he now regarded the union as a voice which would speak on his behalf.
We all know how unions dropped the ball when it came to extending and expanding throughout the private sector during the boom years. That was a strategic error of significant proportions and during a time when they had a real opportunity.
Unfortunately, given the impacts of unemployment on workers, this period is also one of real opportunity when unions should be making every effort to demonstrate their utility for workers. That these aren’t great political steps is in a sense irrelevant. While well aware of the power of labour, one also has to be cogniscent of how the factors raised above, in terms of the working environment predicate against that power being utilised politically, except in extremis. And to be honest I’m dubious given the perceptions also referenced above that in extremis we’d necessarily see any great shift to more left wing approaches on the part of workers. So that means that we must depend on education, education, education and the demonstrative effect of unions. Small steps first, big steps later.
Many employees in these firms are led to believe that unions are a relic of a bygone era and that even a sniff of union involvement in their workplace will destroy their prospects for continued employment. But while I agree with you that there is a powerful degree of identification with the world view of the employer, but I also think there are many people who are quite conscious of the fact that if they did try to set up a union, they’d be immediately placed under rigorous surveillance and ‘managed out’ in all sorts of subtle and unsubtle ways. For all the emphasis on teamwork, jobs in many of these firms are rigorously individualized, so that any sort of shortcoming or failure is not a collective failure but a personal one, your chances of promotion or continued tenure depend on making other people look bad. An ability to manipulate people and project enthusiasm for corporate objectives are highly prized. and behind the superficial friendliness there is something altogether more red in tooth and claw. In this sort of environment the whole area of collective organisation is shrouded in an aura of deep suspicion, to the extent that you would be afraid to advocate it in case the person who was smiling and nodding along might end up tipping off the boss. People just do not go there.
+1
A good friend of mine was made redundant during some selective down-sizing about 8 years ago. He went through a hard time because of it, questioning his self worth, insomnia, tears, sleeping pills. Of course his pain wasn’t personal, it was just business, the payroll needed reducing, his name was selected to go on that list, that’s how it goes, right? Despite that personal experience, he’s now an anti-union Sindo-reading FG-voting apologist for the worldview that less than a decade had him asking his GP to medicate his depression. Turkeys voting for christmas, it does happen. Stockholm syndrome indeed. Anyway we don’t discuss politics anymore…
I think there’s a very large occurrence of “fuck ‘em” attitudes among people who’ve had a hard time of it personally. Never mind how rational it is (or isn’t).
In France, a very low proportion of the workforce is actually unionised. Yet France has a highly militant labour movement that does seem able (at least when viewed from this end of the telescope) to stand up for people’s rights in the workplace and elsewhere.
Maybe something like that might be a more feasible model for the union movement in the 26 counties.
Hi Dr X,
Have worked in France there is a distinct difference between union participation here and there.What struck me were the far lower numbers of people unionised BUT active,going to meetings,going on demos,quite impressive.I reckon that these active members far outweigh many of the paper members of unions here.There was no partnership deals or mentality and people were more than willing to fight and be seen to fight and I think this ties in with not accepting the employers’ worldview.Despite lower membership rates many non union members join in demos and give their support.The CGT in a big supermarket chain Carrefour organised a rolling strike a few months back and also called on customers to boycott the shop. A factory was due to shut about 2 years ago the workers took it over union and non union members and threatened to blow it up with gas cylinders if they didn’t get proper redundancy payments.They got their money and were getting 40 to 45 percent support in various opinion polls
Very interesting point and one that bears out my own experience of turning up at meetings or even pickets with next to no one at them.
Absolutely agree, and hope I conveyed at least some of the fear factor above that kicks in, but in a way I’m more interested in this piece in those who think they will never need a union until the day they realise they do .
During the boom there was another dimension that frustrated efforts to organise. Many people in the private sector didn’t feel the need to be members of unions when in many cases all they had to do to get a raise was to wave a notice letter in front of the boss. Knowing full well that for many small businesses HR is outsourced and most recruitment companies were demaning upwards of 20% of starting salary to recruit new staff members. Therefore, an employee on 35K demanding a 3K rise would cost the boss nearly 7K to replace. Economic logic dictated then that the cheapest option was to pay the 3K rise. The boom granted huge but transitory power to many workers; power that vastly exceeded the ‘partnership’ straitjacket. The hangover from that era, as LATC provides a good example of, will take a long time to lift.
My efforts to get a union going in my private sector employment then were completely undermined by the practice outlined above as many, reasonably enough, couldn’t see why we might need a union when we could play the boss like that and that also meant not being labelled a ‘trouble-maker’. Pay rises could be gouged without having to pay dues, attend meetings, engage with issues, or without the rise of, god forbid, having to engage in collective action.
One of the psychological benefits of holding left wing beliefs is that you’re more or less immune to the Stockholm Syndrome with employers. Holding the belief that your employer is fundamentally an exploiter, regardless of how nice a person he/she is, protects you from being taken in by the ‘teamwork’ ethic and allows one to contextualise one’s working life. I suppose it’s a logical conundrum, but I think the diffusion of broad left perspectives in wider society would aid the growth of unions and the growth of unions should provide institutional support for a broad left here.
Unioning the private sector must be the priority for the unions over the coming years.
“A friend of mine in recent years was very dismissive of unions. They’d never join one… and from their perspective they were right. They worked in admin/company secretarial on a contract basis, often working or not when they chose. They’d never have to join a union because their relationships with employers were such that their age, skills and experience were readily transferable and reasonably well paid… And indeed so they were until the recession hit and suddenly, and I take zero pleasure in relating this, they was out of work not for a week or two but for months on end.
Proximity to employers was hugely deceptive for them and their self-perception of their position in the pecking order, and once recession came and shook that particular tree so that relationship changed radically. ”
And membership of a union would have ensured that they weren’t laid off? I’m not so sure this exemplar suggests anything much in relationship to union membership, or if your friend was wrong or right in their belief.
I’m not a union member. I’m supportive of anyone else who chooses to join, but my personal experience rather than any ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ puts me off joining. Perhaps the smugness in ascribing such a syndrome to the majority of workers isn’t the best route to advocacy?
I saw first hand how issues of demarcation effectively destroyed the jobs of workers in the publishing/repro industry – a complete unwillingness on the part of union reps to acknowledge that their particular member’s skills had been consigned to the tip of outmoded technology, and they needed to be flexible in the application of their skills to be relevent. The reality of technological change was obvious to all the players, but the union frustrated all attempts to respond to the changed reality. Sheer self-preservation and not any empathy for nice exploiters dictated that this wasn’t the cleverest approach to align with.
In academia, the union (I’m most familiar with) similarly continues to defend the indefensible in specific instances – academics who apply minimal effort to their job, who abuse the existing securities offered by union membership to take the piss and coast through life. Of course the union is doing what it’s supposed to – but it’s corrosive and ultimately self-defeating. If Marx (Groucho, that is) said he’d never join a club that would have him as a member, there’s a degree of resistance to subscribing to a movement that engages in such wrong-footed activities.
“And membership of a union would have ensured that they weren’t laid off?”
Firstly, in my experience, it would at least result in a situation where there was some negotiation around the perceived need for redundancies at all, rather than it being a unilateral whim on the behalf of the employer.
Secondly, in the event that redundancies were pushed through, that the criteria for deciding who goes and who stays would be more transparent if not actually subject to bi-lateral agreement.
“I saw first hand how issues of demarcation effectively destroyed the jobs of workers in the publishing/repro industry – a complete unwillingness on the part of union reps to acknowledge that their particular member’s skills had been consigned to the tip of outmoded technology, and they needed to be flexible in the application of their skills to be relevent. The reality of technological change was obvious to all the players, but the union frustrated all attempts to respond to the changed reality. Sheer self-preservation and not any empathy for nice exploiters dictated that this wasn’t the cleverest approach to align with.”
Sure, it was very shortsighted of the print unions to fight against the profit motivated drive to get rid of the craft their members had built up over their working lives and replace with the glories of flexibility and deskilling – and the dole until retirement for many of them.
Let’s not indulge in technological determinism – Wapping and its many copycats were not inevitable outcomes of the march of history.
I’m not talking about print unions, nor am I talking about de-skilling – I’m talking about the transfer of skills to new technology – which whether you like it or not – does indeed march on and, yes, we generally need to continually re-skill to remain relevent.
Remain relevant to what, exactly? You appear to be using the magic of technology’s march to elide the historical use of technological innovation – in the print industry as in other sectors – to bolster profits at the expense of wages. Much as we like to pretend that continual retraining enables us to stay ahead in the flexible economy, the reality of industrial change in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s was that workers who had built their skills up over careers sometimes spanning decades were shunted aside by production processes utilising smaller workforces that required fewer skills and were easily relocated. To pretend that workers and their unions should simply have rolled over and accepted the ensuing concentration of wealth is either to be dishonest or to display the symptoms of what WBS aptly described as Stockholm syndrome.
Relevent to your craft. No magic required.
I’m sure that the motor car impacted pretty badly on the traditional blacksmith trade, but that’s no argument for keeping horses on the roads when there’s a better option available.
The problem with reaching for vague historical analogies is that it very handily lets you jump over the the messy historical realities of class conflict and exploitation and leave us with a telos of technology that lets employers off the hook and hangs workers for Luddites if they don’t shuffle along. When you get down to the nitty gritty, though, the example of the horse and the automobile doesn’t support your stance. Cartwrights and blacksmiths adapted their skills quite readily to the early years of automobile making because the chassis and suspension of cars were organic developments of horse drawn vehicles. It was the mass production techniques pioneered by Henry Ford that pushed the blacksmith out the car building industry. Not the angel of history marching on apace, but the quest for profit and competitive advantage by a titan of capitalism.
You can scrabble all you like to deny the march of technological development, and the need to adjust skillsets to suit – but you won’t convince. I’m guessing you’ve adapted to the old internet just fine, and incorporated your skills into a new work scenario that takes account of it? I’m also guessing that you don’t believe we should have stuck with cottage coach-building and engineering as the basis for mass transportation?
Case in point; some publishing houses had unionised typesetters, typesetters who had/have a core skillset that doesn’t really change with the specific technology that skill is applied through. Required skill, outmoded technology, refusal by union to engage with new technology = effective isolation of typesetters and, sadly, their general redundancy in an industry that had enough problems already.
Do you really believe the history of industrial change inevitably played out the way it did? You keep rehearsing this mantra of technological innovation as if it wasn’t pursued by somebody for some purpose or that it didn’t produce winners and losers. Does your understanding of history have room for the contested political and economic strategies that drove technological change in the last several centuries or do you think it was all predestined?
Does your ideology really convince you that coachbuilt cars, limited to the wealthy few, as they were, would have been a better model for social progress than mass production. Would you have drawn the line at threshers or tractors? You’re the one who mentioned Luddites, but now I’m beginning to wonder if you were actually serious?
Alistair, you’re quite good at building strawmen but lousy when it comes to crafting an intelligent argument. There’s probably little chance of hearing a coherent explanation of your views on how technological progress comes about (other than from the fairies).
Well alastair you clearly haven’t bothered to read the piece with any degree of care if you ascribe smugness on my part about the ‘majority’ of workers. I used the term ‘many’ not ‘most’. And in the comments above I pointed explicitly to it being a cohort.
As for the rest the two examples you point to are radically different sorts of workplaces to the generalised private sector I’m talking about because in one you have the legacy of guilds and later unions and in the other you’re talking about public sector. I can’t see how most workers in the private sectors direct experience could be shaped by those.
I think that it may not be Stockholm Syndrome so much as the reality that many people will defend the possibility of getting rich instead of the reality of being poor. I see this time and time again. It’s not that everyone loves their boss (far from it), but that someday they would like to become a boss in some guise or form so they would rather suffer an actual attack on their rights now than undercut their future hypothetical position. It boggles my mind to see it firsthand and to write it down here makes it seem downright stupid, but there you go.
Cheers for implying I’m a sloppy reader – but ‘many’ or ‘most’ – it’s the motivation/explanation you’re flagging as the centre of your post. And it certainly comes across as a smug one – even if it’s only ascribed to ‘many’. Do you honestly believe that the message that ‘many’ of you are suffering from ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ because you don’t support union membership is a winning formula for union advocacy? Honestly?
And the union mechanisms operate pretty much the same regardless of which sector you choose to focus on – so I wouldn’t expect that publishing and academia (not entirely public sector – as we both know) are wild deviations from the norm. Smacks of ‘never mind that – look over there!’
No implication of sloppiness, it is sloppy.
As regards printing and academia being representative of union representation, well I’ve worked in the last fifteen years across retail, manufacturing, sales etc and also in conjunction with academia and printing etc. I’ve been a union member in both academia and the other areas, bar printing which I never worked in, and I can easily see the differences.
But in all this subtrolling stuff about ‘smugness’ you miss the central points which are twofold, firstly a cohort of workers do elide their own interests with that of their bosses to their own detriment and won’t join unions, hardly uncontroversial and well worth exploring, secondly I have no problem with workers upholding their rights through the insurance model of unions at times of redundancy when as I know from direct and others experience companies often shave corners, because in doing so they see the utility of unions. As regards a post in this blog discussing an issue like this in a discursive way being ‘smug’ or that if anyone went on from here to approach this problem in a ‘smug’ way, not really sure why anyone would think we were so stupid. But given that this is a problem I’ve faced directly in unionising people as have others it’s a very real issue that those if us who actually want to make progress on this issue have to address.
Nah – the real sloppyness is in proposing a smug theory that ‘many’ can’t establish for themselves what’s in their own best interest – and you’ve determined the cause as a serious case of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. No doubt, if you just dismiss instances of counter-productive union representation, it has a certain appeal (and yes – even a sloppy reader like myself noted your acknowledgment of shortfalls from the union side at the tail-end of the syndrome diagnosis) – but the reality is that most people make up their minds based on weighing up pros and cons – and the failings of the union representation proposition are likely to account for rather more than any seductive drive towards exploitation.
I’d have thought it should also be uncontroversial that suggest that often the interests of the employer and employee are indeed shared – and there’s no ‘syndrome’ applicable in recognising that.
Also – ‘subtrolling’? Your proposition doesn’t convince, and reeks of smugness – should I just pretend otherwise?
“often the interests of the employer and employee are indeed shared – and there’s no ‘syndrome’ applicable in recognising that.”
Alistair, you are aware that many people who read CLR, let alone those who write here, have a Marxist worldview, yes? Just checking…
I wasn’t aware that Marx proposed that there could never be unanimity between employers and workers interests. It really is a black and white world, eh?
Black and white, yes, much of the time. They buy our labour, we sell it, it’s all about negotiating the best deal on either side. There’s no common cause, no synergistic co-existence, no mutually beneficial win-win.
So just to clarify on your understanding of labour theory of value – because there’s an inherent assumption of exploitation in the employer/worker structure, there’s no possibility of any mutually-beneficial or shared positive dynamics in that relationship under any circumstance? Okaay.
I wasn’t aware that Marx proposed that there could never be unanimity between employers’ and workers’ interests.
Just so we know, where do you think he said there was, or could be?
I’d also ask – do you have any actual interest in your particular career/skillset? – because generally there’s common cause between yourself and your employer in advancing those skills beyond their commercial worth. Unless you think that as soon as someone becomes an employer they lose all interest in their chosen field and instead dedicate themsleves to a purely profit-driven worldview.
“Unless you think that as soon as someone becomes an employer they lose all interest in their chosen field and instead dedicate themsleves to a purely profit-driven worldview.”
In my experience, that sums it up perfectly.
Not much I can say to that – best of luck with that worldview.
Do you feel able to answer my question?
You’re asking me to prove a negative?
Marx’s perspective on labour theory of value forms the core of the marxist perspective of employer/worker dynamics – and there’s sod all in that to suggest the impossibility of shared interests within that dynamic. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous.
Maybe you’d do the obvious and point out where Marx specified that no such shared interests were possible – much easier than doing the opposite.
You’re asking me to prove a negative?
No, I’m asking you to provide evidence that you weren’t just talking through your hat.
Not talking through my hat – the suggestion that Marxist theory can’t allow for the possibility of mutually-benefitial employer/worker arrangements, even within the context of an essentially explotative relationship is the obvious hat/talking.
“I wasn’t aware that Marx proposed that there could never be unanimity between employers and workers interests. It really is a black and white world, eh?”
Actually, that is precisely what he said. It does not actually matter if an employer is nasty or nice, the theory states that the roles of employee/employer will necessarily come into conflict because of the way the market operates.
He even went as far as to say that exploitation happens ‘behind the backs’ of the parties, so an employee could thoroughly believe that their interests and their employer’s interests could be aligned even though they are being ‘exploited’ throughout the entire process.
I shan’t go on any further for fear of getting into whether Marx & Engels meant ‘exploit’ to be a pejorative.
*sighs* The first paragraph should have been in quotes. Excuse me.[It is now. -- Tomboktu]
I’m not arguing that Marxist labour theory of value doesn’t proscribe the worker/employer relationship as being an exploitative one. I’m arguing that within that (exploitative) relationship there’s ample opportunity for mutually benefitial arrangements/dynamics.
Analogy time – We’re all on the Titanic, bound for inevitable doom. In the meantime we can agree that lifeboats are a commonly mutual mechanism to apply to this doomed vessel, regardless of our standing in the hierarchy of passengers. The odd fire extinguisher about the place might be an uncontentious area of interest too – and lots more besides. Big picture – not so great – within that – lots of room for agreement.
I would say that it does not. An employee might take the view that they have gotten a good deal, much like when someone buys one of those products they advertise on TV3 at night, but in reality they have not.
I will agree that, in Marxist theory, people can believe their interests are aligned, but this is false consciousness or what-have-you and does not reflect the truth of the situation.
I don’t think the Titanic analogy works. I do not see how it relates to an employment contract.
Titanic analogy should be sound – the issue isn’t contracts (any worker/employer relationship is exploitative in Marxist terms – regardless of the nature of the contract), but a broad exploitative/flawed context allowing for the possibillity of mutually positive scenarios within that broader context.
Substitute flawed vessel for flawed power distribution in work relationship, and substitute everything within the day-to-day operation of that flawed vessel, for the scope of possibilities for unanimity at a macro level for the course of the voyage.
What have we learned today? That unless you have something to tell us you haven’t organised unions across the raft of areas I have including retail, industrial, sales etc or clearly had any active union involvement in other areas including academia. Nor self evidently have you any direct experience of the private sector workers that I refer to, people who I met and some of whom I and my colleagues were able ultimately to get to unionise to their benefit, in fact to judge from what you tell us your own career hasn’t touched on these areas at all and those you have cited aren’t applicable to broader employment conditions but despite all that I’m the one who is being smug here? A pity that you’ve reverted to your usual name calling type on the first occasion you comment here since your banning.
Finally for all the hand waving about unions a d employee and employers having interests in common etc, the proposition that they don’t was and for even now in mainstream social democracy an uncontentious proposition, and even in liberal democracies and mixed e onomies labour law is implemented however spottily in some instances in the overwhelming number of cases on behalf of workers. These things are obvious clues about the reality of such relationships in practice.
Adorno says somewhere that one of the characteristic vanities of academics is the belief that their profession is so much more savage and back-biting than any other – actually, they’re no better or worse than anyone else, it’s just most of them have no yardstick for comparison. Like WbS, most of my working life has been outside academia (and un-unionised), and I can safely say that laziness an timeserving have been endemic in every work place I’ve ever been in, and possibly more so in the supposedly performance driven private sector. Unions have nothing much to with it.
“What have we learned today? That unless you have something to tell us you haven’t organised unions across the raft of areas I have including retail, industrial, sales etc or clearly had any active union involvement in other areas including academia. Nor self evidently have you any direct experience of the private sector workers that I refer to, people who I met and some of whom I and my colleagues were able ultimately to get to unionise to their benefit, in fact to judge from what you tell us your own career hasn’t touched on these areas at all and those you have cited aren’t applicable to broader employment conditions but despite all that I’m the one who is being smug here? A pity that you’ve reverted to your usual name calling type on the first occasion you comment here since your banning.”
Well bully for you. I’m not clear how pointing out your flawed premis reeks of smugness is name calling, but I guess it avoids engaging with my central points – as does the rest of your response here – which brings us to this nonsense:
“Finally for all the hand waving about unions a d employee and employers having interests in common etc, the proposition that they don’t was and for even now in mainstream social democracy an uncontentious proposition, and even in liberal democracies and mixed e onomies labour law is implemented however spottily in some instances in the overwhelming number of cases on behalf of workers. These things are obvious clues about the reality of such relationships in practice.”
Once again – the hand-waving evasion seems to be coming from your direction – where does any of this undermine the patently obvious reality that there’s both potential and effective mutual interests in the employer/worker relationship – and where does Marx (or any Social Democratic theorist – if that’s your preference) deny that this is the case.
*sigh* *shrug*
Seems anything that avoids engagement with the substance of my point is oke-doke. But as you say – ‘sigh’.
…and where does Marx (or any Social Democratic theorist – if that’s your preference) deny that this is the case.[sic]
This is getting a bit repetitious. I pointed out above that Marx denied there could ever be a harmony of interests between workers and capitalists. If anything, it is a part of his philosophy/system that people still talk about today.
Titanic analogy should be sound – the issue isn’t contracts (any worker/employer relationship is exploitative in Marxist terms – regardless of the nature of the contract), but a broad exploitative/flawed context allowing for the possibillity of mutually positive scenarios within that broader context.
The Titanic analogy does not work. It would only work as an analogy for Marx’s thinking if you were to add that any workers who used a lifeboat had to agree to be the slave of a first-class ticket holder for the rest of their life. That bears a closer analogy to what Marx was thinking. Someone might, at that point in time, think slavery was preferable to death, but it is not much a choice in the long run. And it cannot be said that their interests are ‘aligned’ in that scenario.
I’m still waiting for this quote from Marx that supports this rather strange interpretation of what’s normally considered a pretty straightforward interpretation of the labour theory of value.
Maybe because you’re entirely wrong in ascribing this (patently silly) notion of 100% conflict, 24/7. Is it something like an article of faith with you?
You want a quote?
I think it would only be fair if you also produced some quotes to support your view of what Marx meant by exploitation. At present, I think you are mistaken.
That being said, I’ll make a start:
The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates.
This approach would seem to preclude the notion of the ‘Worker and the Capitalist get can along for a while, but then they hit a bump in the road and things go awry’. IN fact, the more productive the worker is, the poorer he becomes. Surely, an employer/capitalist wants a worker to be as productive as possible for the wages they pay them? How then can their interests be aligned?
Again, you are asking me to dig out the various volumes of Capital and a good chunk of the Grundrisse. I don’t have all of those to hand, to be honest.
I would also note how quickly you resorted to sarcastic comments and moving the goalposts – this isn’t fair play on your part, alistair, and I have not been abusive or confrontational. Dial it down a bit, please.
“IN fact, the more productive the worker is, the poorer he becomes.”
The cold hard proof of this can be found anywhere wage growth versus productivity are measured but lets turn to the bastion of free market capitalism, the United States, to see if workers and employers interests are complimentary or antagonistic.
In the period 1979 to 2004 the productivity of American workers increased by 40%. In that same period the real wages of over 100 million American workers were less than they were in 1979.
http://www.kyklosproductions.com/articles/wages.html
So where did the money from this extra productivity go? Was it used to pay for higher wages for the workers who’d produced this extra wealth? Of course not, where do you think this is, Cuba?
As the article above points out: “Put in real money terms, the median pay for an American CEO was $2,436,000 in 1989 and $10,775,000 by 2000.”
Thoughts alaistar?
>>>In academia, the union (I’m most familiar with) similarly continues to defend the indefensible in specific instances – academics who apply minimal effort to their job, who abuse the existing securities offered by union membership to take the piss and coast through life. <<<
I've heard stories about this from the old days . . . but I've never seen it myself in all *my* years working in academia.
In fact, you're more likely to see various kinds of stress related conditions rather than comfortable cruising.
That doesn’t undermine the reality of *my* experience – and I’m not talking about the old days – I’m talking about 2011.
It undermines your insinuation that the trade union movement (not really prevalent in Irish academia – only DIT has a Siptu branch, if memory serves) is dedicated to the fiendish erosion of standards by bearded Lucky Jims and History Men.
Heh. Does that straw man thing ever work out for you? It seems kind of childish from this end.
The majority of staff in my particular academic institute are card carrying union members btw- dunno how that plays into your notion of ‘prevalence’, but it strikes me as a fairly healthy union presence.
Just out of curiosity, what are these existing securities that union membership offers that enable union members to take the piss and coast through life that non-union members who wish to do the same lack?
In the specific cases I’m talking about – it’s down to a blanket unwillingness to apply flexibility in custom and practise – where the status quo is patently failing students – and the union supporting this inflexibility. The distinction between exploitative contracts and neccesary flexibility and evolution in work practise doesn’t really seem to count in the union’s representation in these cases – and undermine the premis of the union that little bit more.
The responsibility lies primarily with the specific members, and not the union of course, but it still makes the union look like part of the problem, rather than a solution.
Ah, so what you mean is that is the conditions of the employment contract that is what you perceive to be the problem, and not union membership per se. Easier to blame the union rather than actually say what it is you think the problem is though, huh?
The problem isn’t the contract – it’s the definition of where custom and practise become sacrosanct. Teaching is an ever-shifting discipline, and inflexibility that obstructs that to the degree that the educative process is undermined is not the sort of thing that a union should be drawing a line in the sand for.
The problem in these cases isn’t the contract, nor union membership (don’t know how much clearer I could have been on that – huh?), but the abuse of the security that collective representation offers.
I began my contribution by citing your exact words Alastair, which were that people abuse the existing securities offered by union membershop to take the piss and coast through life. Now you are saying that it isn’t actually union membership, but collective representation. That’s clearly not the same thing, so you could certainly have been a lot clearer.
On top of which, there is no evidence offered by you that people outside the union are unable to do the things you are complaining about.
If you meant collective bargaining the first time, you should have said so. That’s a different thing to opportunities afforded specific individuals by union membership.
Or to put that another way, you went off half-cocked, said something silly, and are now trying to backtrack and hoping the rest of us won’t notice.
UCC has a Siptu branch, though academics would be a minority within it.
SAorry for any lack of clarity – they’re one and the same though – the power exercised by the unions – collective representation – being abused by the unwarranted defence of those unprepared to change for the common good, through their union membership. The membership means little without the power behind it.
Do non-unionised slackers take the piss too? Sure, but in a context where they operate in a heavily unionised field, they get to coast off the union’s defence of custom and practise to a degree as well. And my point was the misuse (and compliance from) the union in compounding the negative associations to union membership. It’s no surprise that bad shit goes on elsewhere too.
I’m entirely secure in my position on this btw. But don’t let me stop your fantasy.
You might well be secure in your position as it’s been ennunciated now. But that wasn’t the position as outlined in the original statement I questioned. There’s been a hell of a lot of explaining/elaboration/gilding the lily since then. To the extent that the two statements bear little relation to one another.
They’re unchanged and clear enough to me – if you like I can once again re-iterate my initial point:
In academia, the union (I’m most familiar with) similarly continues to defend the indefensible in specific instances – academics who apply minimal effort to their job, who abuse the existing securities offered by union membership to take the piss and coast through life.
And is the gigantic industrial power of the academic unions sufficient to prevent action being taken to end these abuses?
Yes it is. So far in any case.
But then you’ve gone on to say that union membership does not provide some exclusive access to taking the piss and coast through life. Nor, apparently, is it the contract. It is in fact, the availability of collective bargaining and the presence of the union itself. Hardly the same thing as individuals using some special status conferred by union membership, as you initially suggested.
Yes it is. So far in any case.
I think this is evidently nonsense, unless you can show me either that the membership of a union have been prepared to walk out in defence of colleagues who are manifestly skiving at their expense, or that academic managements somehow lack disciplinary powers.
“. . .the power exercised by the unions – collective representation – being abused by the unwarranted defence of those unprepared to change for the common good, . . .”
Unlike the employers who always accommodate change for the common good?
Your appeal to some idealised world where workers’ interests are aligned with those of employers is fatuous. The employee is subordinate to the employer.
You’re trying to put a positive spin on a common perception held by anti-union people: unless workers can be disciplined they will revert to their naturally lazy and contentious state. Collective bargaining is the means through which they can achieve their natural state.
This isn’t a difficult concept.
Waste of space staff member who coasts through life is asked to change some aspect of how they work. Resorts to appealing to work and practise change through the mechanism of their union. Union stand over their member, despite the lack of any practical or moral case in their position. Tarnishes the record of the union and undermines the quality of education offered to students.
What mechanisms does said slacker fall back on? Their union membership, and the power of collective representation that it offers. Who’s responsible in this scenario? Why, the waste of space slacker – who initiated this farce. Who’s culpable in enabling this farce? Why the union, who don’t seem to exercise best judgement in who should, or shouldn’t, warrant their defence.
“that academic managements somehow lack disciplinary powers”
That’s been my experience.
So you’re seriously going to tell us that the university has no disciplinary process?
They all have cut and dried processes, but that doesn’t mean that they have the power to apply them. I’d hazard that most academic institutes are carrying dead wood – and that’s not on the back of effective institutional disciplinary powers, rigorously applied.
It’s also a reality that the coasters are carried by their colleagues – even if they disapprove – I’ve done it myself. You just work around them and do your best.
They all have cut and dried processes, but that doesn’t mean that they have the power to apply them.
Having cut and dried processes is having the power to apply them.
Do you mean “will”?
What is of course true is that there’s too much slacking and cheating in university departments. Union power is nothing to do with it. The fact is that the management are part of the same structure and will almost always be either engaging in the same kind of abuses themselves, or tolerating them on the part of their cronies.
And that’s why they don’t want to act – because they don’t want to open the box. Nothing to do with union power, which is not in fact at quite the same level as, say, the UK car industry circa 1969.
Alistair,out of curiosity did you refuse any increases the unions in academia got through benchmarking out of a principled stand against the power of unions or did you just pocket the money.If you did pocket the money do you think you would have won such pay rises on your own?If the question doesn’t apply to you,would you if it happened.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that I have any problem with the power of unions. Every point I’ve made is about ill-considered representation of the indefensible, and the damage that sort of activity does to the credibility of the union. Bottom line is the union’s job is to protect their members, but there’s rather more wriggle-room for making a judgement about whether supporting piss-taking is the best route for A. that member, and B. the rest of their membership.
Benchmarking and the union’s roles in that really don’t enter into the point I was making. I haven’t offered to hand back any percentage of any payment for work I’ve recieved from any source over the years, as I’m sure you haven’t either.
It might of course be that lazy bastards in management cite the unions as their excuse for not dealing with things they don’t want to. Such was certainly my experience when working in a very lackadaisical (to put it kindly) and very lightly-unionised library at a major university in the last decade.
If you’re looking to unionise a new workplace, there are two obstacles you might encounter:
1. Union reps that come to organise are going to be unfamiliar with your workplace, the backgrounds of the workers and their goals.
2. Union reps will be familiar with your workplace, but will not be experienced.
As for the negative impact of unions, well, the example that jumps to mind would be teaching unions. In the history of the state, few teachers have ever been fired because of incompetence, yet we know that each and every poster here had at least one utterly incompetent teacher. This is, in part due, to the power that teacher unions have and their opposition to moves to make schools and teachers more transparent.
You could argue that the various unions might have been right to oppose certain measures that they thought flawed, but the fact that there seems to be NO link between performance and the benefits teachers receive is something that they are somewhat responsible for.
Well, it’s also something that reality is responsible for, since establishing such a link in any accurate manner is actually a really hard thing to do. This is the case regardless of the undoubted incompetence of some teachers.
Tread carefully there Niall. Measuring teacher performance is a minefield, it’s like trying to measure life itself. Don’t go there. I say that as someone who has had good and bad teachers myself in my day, as the husband of a teacher, and as the parent of school-age kids. I would sooner “measure the performance” of any other job than I would attempt to do so for teachers. A minefield I tell you.
Tend to agree with LATC here.Quinn and his friends in Intel can tinker with the education system as much as they like..somebody else will come back in 5 years time to tinker with it again.
A really world class system would “produce” students who love to learn and learn so well that when they need to discover something new will pick it up easily enough.I don’t think our education system does this or any other one.Two main factors; compulsion and class
I don’t doubt that it is difficult to rate teacher performance, but it is relatively easy to note teacher incompetence.
I’ll use an anecdotal example. On the off chance that the teacher could be identified I’m going to change the details a little.
I had a terrible English teacher. She taught both Higher and Ordinary level English from 4th to 6th year. In spite of the fact that the school I attended had average achievement rates at Junior Certificate level English, only two students in my entire year took English at higher level for their leaving certificate.
In that case, you have a sample who are progressing at average levels at intake, but whose performance descreases relative to the national average when exposed to that teacher. This decrease is not evidenced across other subjects where the students continue to progress at an average rate. Furthermore, the same decrease for the same subject can be tracked year on year.
In a similar boat to LATC, in that I’m the husband of a teacher and parent of school going children. Of course I went to school myself too!
There is no real way of accurately measuring a teachers performance.
Exam results – Maybe, but in certain schools how many pupils would have had grinds. Also some of the pupils may have had in house help via special learning supports or the like.
Even within a school there would be different skillsets needed for teaching a lower stream class than a higher stream class.
Retention is in my own view is as important as exam results.
Am going to stop now because I’ve to nip off early to watch a match
Surely it’s far more important to develop measures (not exam results) that help ensure children’s individual educational needs are being met rather than focusing on identifying performance criteria for teachers.
The two are linked in our education system. If the measures you wish to carry out are to be performed by a bad teacher, they won’t work. The first thing you do when you note that a child is struggling is check if the child is receiving the measures they are supposed to be receiving in the first place, before deciding they need additional supports.
If you find that many children in a single class underperform on a subject relative to their other subjects, and you find that other classes that had the same teacher also underperfomed on that subject relative to their performance on other subjects, and you find that this performance level is well below the national average, it is time to take a look at the teacher.
Check to see if the same poor results were evidenced within and between subjects when other teachers taught the subjects and n the case of secondary schools, check to see if in the case of subjects like English, Irish and Maths, students are coming into the school performing at a below average level.
The fact is that there are teachers out there who you can prove with pie-charts are not teaching effectively and they are left to continue. The first thing that should happen when you can see this is that teacher should be given extra training etc. to see if you can improve their performance, but ultimately, we need a system that let’s us let go of teachers who even after re-training, can’t do the job. The teacher unions are so concerned with protecting teachers’ jobs that they aren’t seen to care about the fact that kids are suffering.
If you find that many children in a single class underperform on a subject relative to their other subjects, and you find that other classes that had the same teacher also underperfomed on that subject relative to their performance on other subjects, and you find that this performance level is well below the national average, it is time to take a look at the teacher.
It might well be, but two things:
a. You may very well find that there are very few cases quite as cut-and-dried as that which you’re presenting here ;
b. You might want to be careful about linking exam performance with teacher performance (although I appreciate you’ve talked about comparisons). High achievers can be the easiest to teach: you may often want your best teachers teaching the kids whose results are hardest to move.
Ejh, with, say, 5-10 year’s data available, it would be pretty easy to highlight struggling teachers, though the ease with which you could do it would depend on school setup.
And the method I’m talking about wouldn’t highlight good teachers, it would only highlight potentially bad/struggling teachers, and not all of them at that. It would probably tell you who some of the better teachers are, but again, not all of them. I wouldn’t suggest using the results to decide where you assign a teacher, I’d suggest using the results as the basis of providing the teacher with the training or resouces needed to get the children up a level that is comparable with the child’s own performance on other similar subjects.
Exam results aren’t the only thing that matter, but they’re easily measurable and can’t be dismissed. We should use exam data as the basis for performing more sensitive forms of analysis. When we look at the exam data and find deviations from the norm (both within schools and between them), we need to investigate why that is. At the moment, all we do is shrug and hope that an individual patches up the holes in a flawed system.
@ Niall above
“Exam results aren’t the only thing that matter, but they’re easily measurable and can’t be dismissed”
First off, you’re heading dangerously towards advocating league tables of exam results there. Such tables are of course measurable but they only measure the outputs, with no reference to the very different inputs available to different schools.
Second, I’m afraid exam results very much CAN be dismissed, at least when it comes to the Junior and Leaving Certs – and from what I’m told, third-level too. That’s because the marks awarded have only passing aquaintance with the accuracy with which the student answers the question, what’s far more paramount is the adherence to some sacrosanct “normal curve” that says you always have to have X% of As, Y% of Bs and so on.
My partner is currently correcting Honours LC papers in a European language. So far, she’s had a week and a half of her supervisor complaining she has “too many Ds” while someone else has “too many As”. As a result, they’re now onto their third marking scheme – for the same paper – to ensure that they end up with the right spread of grades.
And given that, with increased immigration in recent years, there’s now more native speakers of that language living here and doing the LC, they’re odds-on to get As in their native language, thus taking up a greater % of the total number of As that can be allocated. Meaning some bright Irish kid gets bumped down to a B. This ISN’t about pointing a racist finger, it’s about advocating that if a kid deserves an A, they should get the A, regardless of whether it mucks up some bureaucrat’s “normal curve.”
DrNightdub, I think that league tables are extremely blunt and releasing them to the public can, in some situations, do more harm than good, as they drive those who want high points out of schools that don’t already have large numbers of high leaving cert point scorers. However, that data should be used by the DES to identify schools that are in need of some sort of intervention, be it the allocation of more resources or teacher training/re-training after a review. It’s not going to identify all of the situations where there is a need, but until somebody develops a more sensitive measure, it beats doing nothing.
“That’s because the marks awarded have only passing aquaintance with the accuracy with which the student answers the question, what’s far more paramount is the adherence to some sacrosanct “normal curve” that says you always have to have X% of As, Y% of Bs and so on.”
This is true. It’s one of the reasons that those attending grind schools return to their hometowns to take their leaving certificate exams. However it doesn’t mean that you can’t use the results to detect underperforming classes or teachers. The kind of analysis I’m talking about would involve repeated measures across years. While marking along the normal curve could have an effect, it would be more likely to see underperforming teachers and classes escape notice than to see typically performing teachers brought under review. If a class has its results sent to a marker for review, and the standard of answer for the class is lower than the national average, but the marker has to mark along the normal curve, then results will actually be higher than they would have been if marked objectively.
The DES can easily identify schools where classes score lower in French relative to the national average, and they can also see if students in that school are scoring significantly less in French relative to Irish and German in that particular school. They can even break it down to the level of the individual student. If they find that the students score less in French than in Irish and German, and that the national averages for French, Irish and German are similar and they can see if this is repeated over multiple years, then they can examine the possibility than a teacher is underperforming. Of course, when they contact the principal, they could discover that the school has had an influx from the local Gaeltacht/Munich and this explains the higher marks in Irish and German, but its a way to start to identify underperforming teachers that doesn’t depend on principals or colleagues dobbing them in.
You’re right that the exam results only measure outputs, but when you start to see outputs that deviate from the norm, it’s time to start looking at the inputs to see if there’s anything than can be done to benefit the students.
it would be pretty easy to highlight struggling teachers
I wouldn’t say that with any confidence, to be honest. You’re much more likely to find a very few stark examples and then, a lot of more mixed results from which it’ll much harder to draw conclusions.
Exam results aren’t the only thing that matter, but they’re easily measurable
It depends what you’re actually trying to measure.
I should say I’m not trying to knock you down here. there’s always and everywhere a problem with bad teachers and something needs to be done about it. But it really isn’t clear what, and it seems to me that the process would hold the obvious danger of making teachers sufficently pissed off as to drive better ones, rather than worse ones, out of the profession.
I guess what the system I’m advocating seeks to identify would be underperforming teachers. I wouldn’t advocate its use in terms of payment of increments or bonuses, because it wouldn’t be sensitive enough to identify all of those who hard going above and beyond, in the same way that it wouldn’t identify all of those who are underperforming.
I don’t think the system would impact on most teachers so they wouldn’t be driven away from the profession. The only time a teacher would find their work under review would be if over a period of 5 years, the results of their students were consistently lower in their class relative to their results in other similar subjects within the school and the results for their classes as a whole in the subject were consistently below the national average. That could only ever affect a small minority. For everybody else, there would be no impact.
The level of non-unionisation in the private sector is indeed huge. But I don’t think that the trade unions are free of blame. How many of the general unions actively and constantly seek to organise and represent the unorganised. Do not underestimate the inertia, smugness and disinterest of the trade union bureaucracy. They backed off a confrontation with Ryanair. They gave up on the Irish Ferries workers – after the usual ‘great public demo’. Networking with Fianna Fail governments and engaging in unremitting struggle in quangoland was more important!
I was an active trade unionist for nearly all my working life. I served on my union’s executive. The co-option and ‘corruption’ of trade union leaders was very obvious since the 1990′s.
Niall’s point about incompetent teachers deserves to be treated with respect. But I would point out that it has not been the teacher unions that put obstacles in the way of dealing with this problem. I know all about this as my son a few short years ago had a most incompetent teacher of Irish – and he was fluent in the language! The problem was the Principal of the school who would not address the issue, never mind bringing it to the Board of Management or calling in inspectors. Other teachers knew that there was a big problem. The Year head even tried to have the teacher removed from exam classes but was not listened to.
Re: the teaching discussion – one of the single most eye-opening conversations I ever had involved me, innocently happy with daughter’s schooling in Dublin (she was 15 at the time), a friend who was a teacher in a previously failing London comprehensive, and an English guy who had recently moved from London to rural Ireland, with his two kids. In a hotel in Bournemouth. Don’t ask…
Anyway, he was pissed off at the big classes and the lack of support his kids were getting in a big school in a small town in the SE, compared to what he had been used to – particularly with regard to the accountability of teachers, special needs etc. My friend asked me about teacher assessment, exam methods etc. in Ireland, and was shocked at how little measurement went on, both of kids and of schools – her argument was that bad teachers gravitate to ‘bad’ (as in in poor area) schools, making them worse, and this is precisely where there needs to be the most stringent and continuous assessment, and, yes, targets and performance related pay and so on: because the kids who are failed by bad schools are the one who can least afford to fail. This was in 2004, and she thought NuLabour had done a good job with failing schools, and she thought the Irish relatively laissez-faire system sounded exactly like a system that would produce the greatest inequality of outcomes.
I keep coming back to that conversation, because my default position is all ‘exams are nothing to do with education, kids don’t learn anything etc’ and teachers should be free to teach and we should strive for something wonderful and noble and inspiring – well yes, we should, but realistically, abolishing even this terribly imperfect way of measuring results will make bad teachers in bad schools even lazier, and with no ‘objective’ badge of achievement, more ‘subjective’ – and class determined – indices of suitability for further education and employment will become completely decisive.
I can’t remember who it was who said that its a common fallacy of revolutionaries to imagine that, after the revolution, you can have a state without bureaucracy – well maybe there’s a similar illusion in imagining that you can have a better education just by a collective change of heart by everyone – you can’t – you need criteria, you need assessment: most of all you need a state system committed to absolute equality of educational opportunity.
I would turn the question around and ask why is organizing in the public sector so very, very easy?
The luxury of indulging in industrial action free of any consequences is of course an attraction. Its a lot easier to push your colleagues into a go-slow if ye all know its not going to put your employer out of business.
The fact that its essentially a performance-optional environment also means people have time on their hands and are not of a mind to bat down any distraction that diverts them from the pressing business of keeping their job.
Finally, the lack of mobility and general lifer culture means that many of the ambivalent, and even some of the down-right hostile, will eventually succumb to the peer pressure.
The above conditions are never going to be prevalent in the private sector, making it unlikely to ever become a happy hunting ground for the unions.
You jest Bartley. I’ve been private sector across two decades in a range of employments and what you describe seems utopian stuff as regards performance etc. I know this should be the way things are as per the private sector but as someone who worked for a couple of years.for a News International subsidiary in the UK I can assure you that even there there was little or none of what you optimistically describe. If not there, well, where?
Mind you, the redundancy was handsome and I’ll give Murdoch this, he genuinely loves print. It’s his politics that’s the problem.
The luxury of indulging in industrial action free of any consequences is of course an attraction.
Because of course you don’t lose any pay when you go on strike.
Really, what a stupid comment.
Thanks to WBS and Allstairs. Thanks to WBS for once again bringing up a topic that needs much attention. Thanks to Allstairs for prominently highlighting the bankruptcy and the increasingly threadbare arguments against unions and collective bargaining for workers (employed, unemployed, blue and white collar).
Here’s a truely appalling article about modern work conditions in the new US economy (not too long a read, but thoroughly nightmarish):
A Visit to the Warehouse of Soul-Crushing Sadness – - -
http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2011/07/ohio-warehouse-temps-unemployment
On another note, a pithy soundbite by a young American (not verbatim):
An American college girl to the US population: don’t invest in US multicorporations because they don’t invest in you.
As YC commented recently elsewhere, some people have work experiences that put the woes of IT-workers / academics / public-servants in the ha’penny place. That article shines a light on a world that the FG-voting shopping classes prefer to believe doesn’t exist, that doesn’t impact on their lives, that won’t ever be part of their existence. Maybe it won’t, but it will be part of their children’s and grandchidlren’s lives unless we start changing the economic / political direction now.
“Thanks to Allstairs for prominently highlighting the bankruptcy and the increasingly threadbare arguments against unions and collective bargaining for workers (employed, unemployed, blue and white collar).”
Cleverly disguised as clear stated support for unions. Strange that.
Whatever flips your lid
Just trying to set the record straight – You wouldn’t like someone misrepresenting you either.
‘The above conditions are never going to be prevalent in the private sector, making it unlikely to ever become a happy hunting ground for the unions.’
This doesn’t explain why until the 1980s the majority of large private-sector workplaces in Ireland were unionised. All the big names, Fords, Dunlops, Irish Cement, Semperit, who name it, all unionised. In the 1970s the stereotypical Irish trade unionist was a private sector worker. The decline of traditional industry, the social partnership years and the decline of union militancy (related to partnership)
all have played a prt in narrowing the union base. But that is not an inevitable fact of life.
To turn it round from ‘lazy’ teachers etc. Davenport Hotel this January. Boss tells workforce that changes in the minimum wage mean that they legally HAVE to take a pay cut. New contract is presented in English, to a largely eastern european cleaning staff. One woman appraoches SIPTU and discovers that the boss is pulling a fast one- there is no legal obligation to cut the wage. Strike takes place, zero publicity, no big SINDO features on these private sector workers, but is successful. Unions eh, who needs em?
By the way, I don’t think that stockholm syndrome explains much. Unions also have a bad rep because of the practice of high salaries for union leaders and their sitting on govt boards, Begg on Central Bank etc. Its hard to present yourself as speaking for the low paid if you are quite obviously comfortable with the well-off yourself.
If Alastair isn’t the only person interested, you might want to consider the point about union membership once being very high in the private sector? Anyone?
The decline of the indigenous industrial sector, the increased importance of multinationals in our manufacturing sector – and their refusal to recognise unions, the growth of the SME sector with an increase in the corresponding historic difficulties in organising across fragmented workplaces with a higher degree of churn and workforce turnover?
Thanks for the answer so you had no problem taking money as a result of negotiations by people who tolerate the “ill considered representation of the indefensible”
One more question is it only labour unions who take the piss or are employers’groups like IBEC and ISME above this?Cheers
I’m not interested in your game tbh. You seem determined to miss the point. Cheers!
Sorry you took this up wrong but the question about employers’ groups is genuine
Oh I didn’t take anything up wrong. I think we both know that.
Comment 21 is for Alistair sorry
Ahh, the middle class scumbag returns.
Ah now – namecalling is a sensitive subject in these parts – ‘sub-troll’ nothwithstanding.
That’s not name-calling, alastair, that’s a statement of fact. you ARE a scumbag – pampered, middle-class sumbag who takes all the benefits of a unionised work-place, but won’t do anything to defend those benefits.
We have all worked with people like you – scum who leech off the work of others, who suck up to the boss but who take the pay scales and working week agreements.
you’re a scumbag – a low-life scab – no offense, now, just stating a fact. I mean, that is what people like you have been called in the trade union movement for over a hundred years.
Scumbag, scab, leech – take your pick. The lexicon to describe you and your kind is long and varied, from the 1890 new union strikes up to the miners strike of 1984.
You’ve got some issues there friend. Best of luck with that.
Well, as I said, you have no grounding in the trade union movement. you have no experience of organising, and because of that you don’t know what you and your kind are called.
This goes back over a hundred years. You, Alastair, are a scab.
Look it up. This is not trolling. This is a lesson in the history of the trade union movement.
James Connolly called people like you scumbags and scabs, as did Jim Larkin. And that was a hundred years ago.
Vile little pieces of dirt, sucking up to the bosses, and ready to attack the very people who protect their rights.
The word scab is still used, but it has been replaced somewhat by scumbag.
and that is what you are. A vile little piece of dirt, a scumbag who leeches off the gains of others, a cab who is ready to stab his workmates in the back.
As I said, I’m just giving you the facts here, alastair. It’s time that you faced them.
You are a classic example of a scab – a scumbag if you will. you comments above show that clearly.
That’s just the way it is.
Here’s a good idea.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/17/unite-start-reduced-membership
It is?
You’ve checked with big Jim in your fevered imagination, just to be sure? heh.
Haha! I don’t need to check with Jim Larkin to spot a scab when I come across one!
answer me this, scab, what do you think you are called?
What do you think the trade union movement thinks of scabs like you?
you are scum, my friend, the worst turn-coat possible. you shit on your workmates and, what, you think they just shrug their shoulders and go ‘oh fair enough’.
Alastair, the Scumbag Scab of the Cedarlounge Revolution.
Again, I state, this is not trolling. This is what people like you are called.
Time to fact facts, scumbag. It’s time you faced up to what you really are.
Scab.
I think I’ve found just the candidate to advocate on behalf of the 81% of private sector workers who haven’t yet joined a union!
You’ve missed your calling. With that imagination and charm who could refuse?
hehehe.
what a scumbag! – too scared to fight his own battles so he runs off to hide behind others. 
you are a scumbag, Alastair. A pampered, middle-class scumbag – and as with all those who came before you, all the blacklegs and scabs who are your pedigree, you take all the fucking benefits you can, and then you piss on your workmates once the going gets tough.
you are a spineless, scumbag scab.. A shit-stain on the cacks of Judas.
no offense, now, but that is what you are.
Just laying the facts down my friend.
‘He’s not the messiah – he’s a very naughty boy!’
Are you here all week?
I”m in a weeks holiday at the moment with SFA Internet access and little appetite to be involved bar posting up a pre written post per day and here we are, this is what happens. I’m sick to the fucking teeth of yor belligerence and insulting attitude Alastair and the ridiculous and pavlovian response from you Julius This was precisely what I feared would happen when I debanned Alastair at the end of the months banning and lo and behold here we are. When I get home I’m banning people permanently on the grounds of deliberate provocation designed to generate conflict. I’ve worked too long and too hard on this site day in day out for five fuvking years for this and I won’t take it and by the way thanks a bunch for spoiling my holiday.
Two issues are jostling here for attention:
1. The de-unionisation of the private sector and the failure of the relevant unions (over the past 15 years) to face up to this.
2. Teacher unions and ‘bad’ teachers, who should ,apparently, be sacked.
Which flipping issue should I address now? Let’s try no.2.
We can agree that we all, whether personally or through our children, have had experience of, at least, one bad teacher.
I am aware, historically, of the dismissal of teachers in Co. Wexford in the ’70′s and ’80′s, in both the VEC sector and in religious controlled schools. In the VEC, it sparked off civil war between the TUI and the CEO, the crazed PB Walsh (r.i.p.), who is famously supposed to have said that his purpose was to “keep things stirred so that the scum would not come to the top”. It resulted in an official enquiry into the affairs of Co. Wexford VEC.
In the mid-1970′s, David Storey (r.i.p.), a probationary teacher and a protestant, was dismissed by the Loreto secondary school in Wexford. No reason was given. He was said to be have been a very good, popular teacher. It caused huge scandal within the ASTI at the failure of the ‘union’ to defend him.
In the 1980′s, another good teacher, Eileen Flynn, was dismissed by her school in New Ross because she fell in love and became pregnant. She had failed to join the ASTI and suffered the consequences. (See last year’s documentary on RTE).
My point is this: Weaken the teaching unions and give powers to school managements to dismiss teachers and those who will pay the price will not be the relatively small number of incompetent conformists but those who may be different and those whose ‘lifestyles’ or politics don’t conform.
I served for a number of years on a secondary school Board of Management. If a teacher is not doing his/her job the procedures are there to begin to address it:
1. The Principal may be met and the complaint/s lodged.
2. The Principal may call the individual teacher to account.
3. Inspectors may be called in to the school.
4. The teacher, of course, may be represented at any time by a union rep.
5. A complaint may be brought to the Board of Management and the teacher may be called before the Board. Again, he/she may be accompanied by a rep.
6. There is now a teaching council which may deregister a teacher after investigation.
In my opinion, and I made this point in another post, the biggest problem in the schools is the significant number of bad principals, who get the positions because they are seen as safe, acceptable conformists. I assert that if a school has a bad principal then teacher morale plummets and problems of all kind are not addressed. If a school is run as a co-operative, collective, with both student welfare and teacher welfare, and respect for parents, central to its ethos, then you will have a good school, regardless of the social background of its pupils.
Good post WBS.
I was in a job where a full-time position was being replaced by a “casual” one. Years previously the union stepped in and sent a strongly worded letter informing management that a full-time vancancy left by a full-time was to be replaced with same. Eventually when another vancancy happened “during the boom years” the union said nothing or at least wasn’t as forceful. It was the constant chipping away.
If in the second instance the union had of insured again that a full-time position was filled you could’ve held it up as a victory of sorts and thus a positive for unions.
As far as I could tell SITPU backed the workers from the Davenport Hotel and won which was good.