Today I find myself amused by noting how many of the moans and groans about the Tube drivers strike, particularly those mentioning the drivers' working conditions, contracts and existing remunerations packages, are coming from those whom I might describe as "under 30, something-for-nothing-socialists".
I suspect they have no idea that these and other "cushy" positions held within the rail industry are the direct legacy of the nationalised services of the 1960s and 1970s and that it is not possible in law for the "private" companies now responsible for providing the services today to get them changed.
Trade Unions, initially created to avoid workers being trampled on by their employers, didn't stop at defending their members' reasonable interests and achieving fairness across the board. Instead, they kept on improving their own members' lots at the expense of the lots of other workers, many of whom were also funded by the public purse. Collective greed is still greed.
Socialism might be wonderful in theory but it doesn't work when you apply it to real people in the real world. It never has and it never will. There will always be generous people and greedy people and there will always be lazy people and those who work hard. Any system that ignores these differences and overlooks that some people will simply cheat for their own personal gain whatever the rules are will be doomed to fail.
All true but unprovable many people replicate on a micro level what they see around them..tuber driver like printers before the
ReplyDeletethem need to put some of this -hardly bank bonus -extra income into better use but lectureds on union greed can be dismissed as reactionary in this political climate
All true but unprovable many people replicate on a micro level what they see around them..tuber driver like printers before the
ReplyDeletethem need to put some of this -hardly bank bonus -extra income into better use but lectureds on union greed can be dismissed as reactionary in this political climate
My knowledge of the rail industry comes from experience of working within it and is not mere supposition. There are many still working under favourable contracts and employment terms originating from British Rail and preserved by the TUPE system (itself a nice idea but not properly thought through for the long term) ever since, thus preventing many sensible efficiencies that could otherwise have arisen.
ReplyDeleteThe union greed referenced is historic and remains unchanged by the passage of time. The political climate, on the other hand, changes from room to room.
A view that is considered reactionary in one room now may be thought mainstream in another, or may become mainstream in the first room a little later.