to congratulate Tristram Hunt for crossing the picket line

[longfingernails]

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tom-watson-hits-out-at-scab-tristram-hunt-for-crossing-picket-line-to-give-marx-lecture-9121775.html

Shame about his lecture material...

Zero hours contracts and the proliferation of commission only 'jobs' are just two of the sadnesses workers in this country endure as a result of weakened unions.

We don't teach the history of the industrial revolution, the rise of workers associations and collective bargaining anymore ... Children have to learn about kings and queens and the 'merits' of a non meritocratic aristocracy. By not knowing the history of their ancestors and the real reasons 'great great granny and grandad fought in the war' and the politics of the intervening years, understanding of how our country for so long was so great has been lost.

We were great because of the welfare state, the NHS and our workers associations looking out for their members. It was possible to come from the poorest home, get to Uni and into a good job without being saddled with debt and the prospect of a zero hours contract or a commission only job ....

I got this far into the thread:They laid the foundations for modern capitalism, the greatest mechanism for prosperity the world has ever known

And had to comment.

Yes capitalism which sees workers treated like shit and paid peanuts. Capitalism which is flawed - economics is, after all, based on theory - and requires some state intervention. Yet people cannot see that.

I will also add - the governments (and I use the plural deliberately) slavish following of the market principle is naive and foolish at best.

There is scant evidence that applying a market principle to pretty much everything results in the best outcome. Simple because there is no such thing as a perfect market.

You need some protection for workers - who have relatively little power as individuals against their employers. Hence collective bargaining is required.

I suggest people read up on the history of trade unions and what it was like before.

Look at countries like India, Bangladesh where workers are paid a pittance and treated appallingly. That is capitalism. Don't you just love it? (and I'm not a communist by the way, I just think we need more balance in our economy)

TheGreatHunt India is a good example. For decades it was led by socialist strictures, and withered away. The reforms in the early 1990s opened it up to a slightly more market economy; the result was staggering and transformative. Hundreds of millions of people moved off the breadline. Now, though, it seems to be leaning towards protectionism once more, and is suffering for it.

union thugs fought & died for your rights
to work,
to vote,
to earn a living wage,
to work in healthy & safe conditions so your job doesn't kill you
to associate freely and combine with other employees
to have job security
to be able to work an 8 hour day
to stop child exploitation
to take maternity leave
to have a job-related pension
to have sick leave and paid holidays

and so on.

Dr Hunt should not have crossed that picket line.

I'm a little confused about this. Could someone explain why he is a scab if he is not a member of the union striking?

For example, when NASUWT and NUT were on strike last year, staff who were not members of these unions were still expected to be in school as otherwise they were breaking their contract. None were called scabs when they crossed the picket line.

I didn't think you were able to strike unless you were a member of the union that had agreed strike action. Have I got confused somewhere?

You can join a union at any time, even on the day of a stoke itself and you will be afforded the same legal protection.

I don't have much regard for anyone who crosses a picket line, regardless of whether they are a member of a union or not. As was pointed out upthread, solidarity matters. Sadly you don't see many non union members declining the benefits and improved working conditions that their striking colleagues have suffered to secure. I think that's grossly hypocritical.

I didn't realise people still said things like 'scans are scum' these days.

You would have been disgusted with the teachers in my school during the NUT/NASUWT strikes last year. First of all we deliberated for aaaaaaaages about whether we should strike at all in our school (because a decision needs to be made in advance whether or not to shut the school so it is 'polite' to let the head and then the parents know). And then once the strike had been decided on, a couple of people in those unions did actually go in because they didn't want to lose pay. Of course those in the ATL didn't strike at all and therefore crossed the picket line to go into work that day and get to catch up on loads of work, grrrrrr

I never heard the word scab, or anything derogatory at all like that ever mentioned or alluded to at all!

Sometimes I feel there is no collective voice left and the notion of 'as long as I'm alright' is one that a lot of people think. I wouldn't cross a picket line, whether I was in that union or not.

This strike isn't even widely supported by the union organising it so why should people not in the union be troubled by it? Only a small minority (22%, I believe) voted for the strike action (turnout 35%, around 66% voted to strike). This is not about job security it is a protest about only getting a 1% pay rise, at a time when many people in other job sectors will have had no pay rise at all.

Letmethinkaboutit, of course your analogy doesn't work. Read my post again for the analogy I actually made.

I hate with a passion the attitude that anyone who dares to disagree with a union or not participate in their strike are scabs or scum.

Yes, the unions have done immense work in many respects such as those that UptheChimney listed but that doesn't give them the right to treat people who disagree with them so badly. People have got the right to choose whether or not to take part in a strike. They may choose not to because of financial pressures and to have the people that you work with everyday screaming at you that you are scum is pretty fucking horrendous.

If children in a playground stood in a group screaming horrible names at another child for disagreeing with them there would be uproar - why is ok for adults to behave in this way?

As for TH. He can do what he likes, but it seems very bad politics for the Shadow Education Secretary to cross an education picket line. Will give a very bad impression to people he really needs to get onside.

When you cross a picket line, you undermine the collective action of everyone else who is fighting for their rights

I don't have much regard for anyone who crosses a picket line, regardless of whether they are a member of a union or not. As was pointed out upthread, solidarity matters

Scabs are scum. End of

If you wanted to support the strike action without being on a strike, you could take sick leave, annual leave or unpaid leave

Or you cross it because you have no choice, including not being allowed to take leave.

Calling someone that crosses a picket line a 'scab' without considering why they may have crossed it is infantile. I was called a scab once for doing so - bloody ridiculous, I don't have the right to strike and whether I supported the strikers or not was beside the point. It made me look differently (and pityingly) at the person that called me it - because they obviously didn't understand the industry they chose to work in and were just bandwagon jumping.

Don't make assumptions without knowing the full story.

You can support someone's right to strike. You can not want to strike yourself. You can cross the picket line.

It is called a democracy.

Is Tristram Hunt actually in the union striking? If not, he hasn't crossed the picket line has he...

Tom Watson in trying to be controversial shocker...

The people he needs to get onside are voters. The days of education secretaries pandering to teaching unions should be long behind us.

Would you stand in front of a door and force it shut to stop a colleague going in and negotiating with the employer? No? That would be beyond rude and its disrespectful.

Well that's what you do when you cross a picket line. You take away the opportunity to return to meaningful and equitable negotiations. Whether you like it or not, that makes you a scab because you are happy to allow an employer to do exactly as it wants without any collective input. Whether you agree with the cause, you shouldn't stop people having a voice.

German companies have Trade union representatives sitting on their boards, it allows the workers perspectives to be heard and it reduces problems. Who's economy is stronger?

Next time you enjoy the weekend off, the evening in, maternity leave, the fact that you don't work in dirty squalid unsafe conditions and your equality at work, thank a trade unionist.

Well that's what you do when you cross a picket line. You take away the opportunity to return to meaningful and equitable negotiations. Whether you like it or not, that makes you a scab because you are happy to allow an employer to do exactly as it wants without any collective input. Whether you agree with the cause, you shouldn't stop people having a voice

I am NOT a scab. I am someone that works within an industry that DOES NOT have a union and CAN NOT strike.

If I didn't cross a picket line I could be disciplined - I would lose a hell of a lot more than one days pay.

When you are calling people names try to think of the bigger picture - one size does NOT fit all.

I worked in a school for two years. I didn't join a union as I wasn't prepared to strike should action be called.

There was a strike and I worked still. I didn't "cross the picket line" as I wasn't in the union. I went in and cared for the few children who turned up who's parents had either forgotten/not got the message school was shut.

But yes. A scab. Of course I shouldn't have looked after them. What a scab

My DW is a University lecturer. She crossed a picket line because she thinks it is unfair on students not to give her lecture.

However, she also thinks that lecturers lower down the pay scale are being treated appallingly with little or no pay rise for years and higher and higher workloads while senior management in universities are getting inflation busting pay rises.

The potential power of unions is crucial, as is the right to strike. No arguments from me there.

However, to all the people who are suggesting that simply crossing a picket line makes you a scab, period, I ask this: if a hypothetical union held a strike to, say, fight for higher pay for just male employees, or fight for higher pay when their members were already being paid millions each per year at the expense of the tax payer, would you still be wrong to cross the picket line?

Sorry if this question has been asked upthread - no time to read it all!

(I should add that in my post I meant a theoretical job where they were being paid millions each per year).

There are many issues in university employment that I would be more prepared to go on strike for than a 1% pay rise not being enough. The fact that by Thursday I will have worked all day every day since last Monday (ie 11 days straight, 7.45 - 5.30 most days) on a 21 hour per week contract, because I have too much to do that I must do or let down students. The union seems to think pay is the most important issue at the moment, I don't agree. I would be probably feel bound to honour a strike if a majority of the union voted for it, we didn't.

However, more positively, they should also learn about Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, and the like. They laid the foundations for modern capitalism, the greatest mechanism for prosperity the world has ever known.

It would be lovely if we actually had capitalism, but we don't. I'll correct that. We have capitalism for the poor and SMEs, they're allowed to fail. We have socialism for the banks and the rich, who we continue to bail out.

Also, Adam Smith was for paying workers fairly, so he'd loathe this low wage economy.

Tristram Rhyming-Slang should resign.

LOL at all the commies getting upset because someone wants to earn a living.

There is just as much right to ignore a picket line as there is to strike.

For those with a 70's view of Labour - welcome to what the rest of us have known for years, they're exactly the fucking same as the Tories you saps

The Unions are the only ones that gain from any of this, Fat Cat arses like Crow sit there milking it in - they're not the ones that go hungry are they?

The real workers are getting sicker & sicker of Union driven whinging, you'd soon cry if the important workers (supermarkets, counter staff, Internet Providers, Mobile Phone Companies) withdrew their services. No-one cares if a bunch of lecturers don't turn up, or if the London tubes stop for a couple of days....