OT: Worker Union's

[Capercat]

I've never been a member of one, so I'm not familiar with them. Can someone explain there roll? Thanks :smile:

 

[tooraktrash]

Trade Unions/ Professional Associations are generally meant to represent their members, stand up for your rights when it comes to conditions, salary, rights, help with negotiating AWAs, provide support services etc etc etc.

Although in my profession our "trade union" audits, investigates and prosecutes its members!

Although I'm sure someone else on here will be able to give you more information specific to your industry.:thumbsup:

 

[TimT]

Unions are here to represent their members via power in numbers. Until corruption sets in. Then theyre here to profit from and pressure their members and the industries they oversee.

 

[BarneyBoy]

Also bear in mind that some Unions go by other names - Associations, Guilds, Chambers...

They tend to do this to distance themselves from being thought of as Unions, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

They have their place (provided the corruption thing is absent - but that's the same with anything) and some folks do need to be represented in wage negotiations. At my workplace there's people on the factory floor who consistently get whacked by a boss who outwits them and gets them to (sometimes) even take a pay cut!

Like most things, we have laws not for the majority of people, but for the minority. I mean, why do we need laws against murder when the vast majority will never do so? It's for the very few who do the wrong thing.

And the same with Police, the Judiciary, Unions, ACCC, Guilds, whatever.

Personally I've been on the rough end and the plus end of Unions, as I have with Management too. :word:

 

[YouSnooze]

My home town is Broken Hill NSW - the birthplace of the union movement in Australia. Prior to union involvement the wages, conditions & injury/death rates in the mining industry were horrific. These things improved solely due to a strong union movement. Admittedly strong is an understatement if you read the history of just how powerful the union movement in BH was.

Many people take the results of these interventions for granted - the world is a better place for many workers due to the union movement.

That being said, I agree with the statements regarding corruption etc. The world is a totally different place in 2008 compared to the frontier days in the late 1800s & early 1900s in Australia & I appreciate this. There is no place for uncompromising, militant unions as there has to be a fine balance between rights of workers & employers. Getting the balance right is the tricky part...........

 

[TimT]

I think we should pay qantas mechanics more money cos clearly theyre doing a fantastic job at the minute

 

[vwgtimkv]

Their purpose is to monopsonise the supply of labour in the economy. Just like microsoft wants to be the only OS provider and hence charge an inflated price, unions want to be the sole providers of workers, so that they can, too, charge an inflated price for their 'product' (in this case, workers). And you might think that there's no big deal in workers receiving an artificially high rate of pay, but this role of trade unions is a big contributing factor to the natural rate of unemployment in the economy. For a similar reason, they are also one of the culprits responsible for inflation.

Cheers

 

[Maverick]

I think we should pay qantas mechanics more money cos clearly theyre doing a fantastic job at the minute

That's the problem, Qantas is sending more and more work offshore to be done a lot cheaper and sacking the staff in Australia.

The number of defects that they miss in the budget overseas operations is staggering compared to what was missed when they were serviced in Australia. Sure most of them may be minor but one of them was a hastily installed kitchen that electrocuted one of the crew and if they are missing the basic items that you can see then you can bet they are missing the important parts that are hard to get at (like oxygen bottles).

Why do you think Qantas is in the news so much recently, it's only pure luck that a plane hasn't crashed and killed all on board and only a matter of time before it happens.

 

[vmq6695]

And you might think that there's no big deal in workers receiving an artificially high rate of pay, but this role of trade unions is a big contributing factor to the natural rate of unemployment in the economy. For a similar reason, they are also one of the culprits responsible for inflation.

Fair enough. And we can take that further: in the Australian economy, trade unions (and their equivalents in the professions) have pushed up the remuneration received by the employees, which means that capitalists have been given incentives to increase efficiency of production (by, for instance, investing in technology).

Further, Australian workers with their higher rate of pay have been able to purchase houses and cars (contrast with the home ownership rates in Europe). That change, most clear after WWII, led to the growth of banks and other financial institutions.

And one argument goes that the addiction of Australian workers to loans and hire purchase (to buy cars, homes, television etc) is what then led to an increase of personal debt, decreasing the chance that Australia could (as was sometimes suspected pre-WWII) turn socialist. That consumerism and personal debt is closely associated with the decline of trade unionism in contemporary Aus.

 

[Capercat]

Ok, it would appear there are good & not so good unions. The main thing is a choice whether to be a memeber or not.

 

[Maverick]

Ok, it would appear there are good & not so good unions. The main thing is a choice whether to be a memeber or not.

It depends on the your industry that you're in.

My wife is a teacher and she is a member and you'd be mad not to be a member as a teacher but for my profession which is IT there isn't really a union for us and generally no need for one.

Some unions are compulsory like wharfies and construction workers or you end up either swimming with cement shoes or as part of the foundations of a highrise. These are the unions they should bust apart because of all the corruption.

 

[firsttimedub]

Maverick,

Why do you think Qantas is in the news so much recently, it's only pure luck that a plane hasn't crashed and killed all on board and only a matter of time before it happens.

Qantas is in the news so much because the media is watching them even more closely than usual. Sure, there is no denying the QF30 incident was a major one and we don't know yet exactly what went wrong, but it was dealt with by the crew exactly the way they are trained. Since that particular incident every single little problem has been blown up by the media and made the travelling public (such as yourself) paranoid.

These incidents do happen on a regular basis and every airline suffers them, and you would be none the wiser. It's only because the media are watching everything so closely that we even know about it.

Looks like you have been sucked in...exactly what they want, so you'll tune in to Today Tonight, AcA and buy the newspapers the next morning.

Comments like yours about aircraft crashing and all being killed are absurd and I urge you to edit them.

Regards

 

[Jester_Fu]

Anyone know the name John Coombs? He's my uncle :biggrin:

There's no union for IT as it's not a skill. It's an industry based around supporting a poorly engineered and built system that was marketed very well and released in suitable formats before its' competition was ready. No-one is interested in IT getting a fair deal as everyone realises the world would be a better place without it.

That is all.

 

[YouSnooze]

There's no union for IT as it's not a skill. No-one is interested in IT getting a fair deal as everyone realises the world would be a better place without it.

That is all.

Ha Ha! :bellyroll::bellyroll::bellyroll:
Is there an engineer lurking around here somewhere? :wink:

 

[aus-mkv]

That's the problem, Qantas is sending more and more work offshore to be done a lot cheaper and sacking the staff in Australia.

The number of defects that they miss in the budget overseas operations is staggering compared to what was missed when they were serviced in Australia. Sure most of them may be minor but one of them was a hastily installed kitchen that electrocuted one of the crew and if they are missing the basic items that you can see then you can bet they are missing the important parts that are hard to get at (like oxygen bottles).

Why do you think Qantas is in the news so much recently, it's only pure luck that a plane hasn't crashed and killed all on board and only a matter of time before it happens.

Just to take this a little more OT :threadjacked: ...

If anybody is wondering why Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association is not making a big noise about the incident on QF30 as part of their campaign against offshoring

Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, said it would not speculate on a possible cause.

"We just hope that Qantas and CASA investigate the matter promptly and if necessary take all steps to ensure that the rest of the Qantas fleet is safe to fly," Purvinas said.

it may pay to consider that,

"The most recent maintenance check on this aircraft were for a 'D' [most thorough] check in Qantas's Sydney facility in 2004 and two 'C' [regular] checks in Qantas's facility in 2006 and 2008."

The aircraft was refitted at Avalon on Feb/March this year.

It appears the ALAEA is keeping a lower profile after a false accusation was made against a Singapore company last year.

Qantas knows that the illegal stapling of electrical cabling in a 747-400 was done by one of its own employees and not in maintenance performed while the jet was being overhauled in Singapore last year.