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Original poster

Strikes how do unions work?

128 replies

alasangne · 09/12/2022 19:56

I've never been in a union there isn't one for my profession. How do they work? Are all the royal mail post people automatically put in a union when they join? And if they don't want to strike do they have to or the union fires them?

OP posts:

upinaballoon · 14/12/2022 23:34

ivykaty44 · 10/12/2022 16:55

in the 1960 there were very strong unions and this meant that there what was referred to as a "closed shop" it meant to get a job in a particular factory (for example) you had to be put forward by someone that already worked there and you had to join the union.

During the 1970s this changed and the rules were changed, by 1980s Mrs T certainly took away power from the unions and imo to far, some rules did need changing but it swung to far away form the unions having medium power and now we are where we are.

In 1981 my father was earning £12000 per annum as unskilled labour. The average wage 40 years later is £23k so not double. A house would have cost
£15k for a terrace two bed in my area, now it would cost £400k for the same house.

The Labour Party was started in the 1920s for the labour of the country, the workers. So they had representation in government, but Starmer warned his MPs they'd be sacked if they showed up on a picket line...

Before 1974 I was in a union, by choice. In 1975 I dropped into a seasonal job in a factory. It might have been then, but I think it was actually 1976, that I had to join the union because it was a closed shop. One day there was a union meeting, not about a strike, but some matter. Voting was done out in the yard, by a show of hands, so everyone could see what everyone else voted.

Later in my life, 1987 on, I was in permanent work in a government department and I didn't join a union for a while, really as a kick-back against having been made to join for some years. After a while I did become a union member again, in a different union from the 2 I'd been in before. From 1987 until I retired voting was always by a private ballot form through the post.

Is all voting done by private ballot now in all unions? Is that the law? If it is, I am glad, because it lessens the possibility of intimidation.

ilovesooty · 15/12/2022 01:43

melonraspberry · 14/12/2022 08:22

@brainstories568 I think you're entirely missing the point of a union.

Absolutely

Gwenhwyfar · 16/12/2022 13:33

"I've seen it split families up. It's hard when the numbers show that some of the breakers must have voted for the strike and are letting others do the dirty work."

In the long strike of the Penrhyn quarry in north Wales, houses had plaques on their mantlepieces 'nid oes bradwr yn y ty hwn' = 'there is no traitor (scab) in this house". It is believed that some scabs were killed as well.
A taxi driver carrying 'scabs' was killed during the 1980s coal strikes in south Wales if I'm not mistaken.
It can get nasty.

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