I'm undecided. On the one hand, despite being a student (and thus automatically a member of a union in the UK), I hate unions. A union of students is fine since we don't go striking or doing anything like that, mostly it's just about organising things to make life easier for students, the resources are there in universities but we don't have to do anything about them. It's nothing like trade unions. Personally, I hate trade unions completely. Fine, I agree that someone needs to look out for the common worker, but in the UK trade unions have way too much power. Thanks, Maggie.
In Leeds right now, we're suffering a binmen strike (since early September and threatening to continue into the New Year) and threats of lecturers striking at university over proposed job cuts. The postal strike is the last straw. Trade unions are the worst thing to happen to this country if you take out the BNP being racist bigots and Labour screwing things up over the past twelve years.
However, I can't complain too much about the postmen. Having seen the binmen strike first hand I know that they're being pretty selfish. The unions have been exposed lying about the reasons for the strike, claiming staff will lose £6000 per year in pay cuts while the actual figure is only £3000 per year. Plus this won't happen until at least December next year due to pay protection schemes being in place through 2010. And the local council has been blamed because it's mostly Tory and Lib Dem, even though Labour councils all over the country are doing the exact same thing. Plus, there are the obvious things, like inherent health risks at allowing rubbish to literally pile up in the streets for months at a time (especially considering they timed it with the arrival of us students, and anyone living in Leeds will agree). So yeah, the binmen are being twats up here. It's grim up North...
But the postal strike? I find that to be more of a conundrum. As I say, I hate unions. But one of my housemates has a father who works as a postman and he appeared on Five News today giving a brief statement. It was part of a feature on the strike and he was one of several postmen who were asked to just sum up their feelings on the strike. He basically said that "they didn't have a choice...they had nowhere else to go". I can pretty much agree with his feelings. The unions have a habit of forcing their members to take strike action when many of the actual members don't agree, and any worker who bothers to turn up to work gets abuse hurled at them and called a 'scab'. But then again, this isn't just pay cuts, it's actual jobs being lost, and as my housemate's dad said on national TV, they really don't have anywhere else to go. I recall my dad losing his job last year. Now, he isn't a postman. He's a contracts manager with all sorts of qualifications and industry awards under his belt. He knows a lot of people and is very well respected in the building industry in the West Midlands. And yet it still took him almost a year to find a new job after he was made redundant. This new job is on pretty much half of what he earned before despite being the same position, and it's at a much smaller company. So imagine what it's like for the postmen who are probably less qualified than my dad, and don't have the same experience and awards or anything as him. It'll be a lot harder for them. So I can see why they would be prepared to take strike action if it meant keeping their jobs.
So overall it's a bit of a morally grey area. On the one hand, they have good reason to strike. On the other hand, is it worth the inconvenience and the cost of striking simply to help out a few people, when there are so many more who will be worse off because of it? I don't like the way unions deal with situations like this, and they need a lot less power. But I can't decide yet what my feelings are on the postal strike. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.
