For the original topic, I really think that anyone who thinks that unions are awful and striking is terrible should take a good hard long look at the standards and working conditions they have? I wonder how those were provided.
It's the basics of democracy, that a group of people can stand together as a collective to fight for what they believe in.
When I was working for a corporation, I spent a lot of time preventing benefits eroded away and encourage salary increases at least in line with inflation, we worked hard to improve benefits and conditions. I attended meetings with crew who were about to be truly screwed over because they weren't aware of the employment conditions.
When I left the recession hit and the company was trying to remove those benefits, whilst I suggested that an agreement was put in place to ensure that when the share price returns to a certain level the benefits are returned, no-one fought for that and those benefits are lost.
For those public sector workers, THE PEOPLE WITHOUT THE GOLD PLATED PENSIONS many of whom are professional people, have a right to protect their interests. If they've been told for their whole career they can expect this or this pension and then suddenly they reach 55 and and are told 'sorry recession, say goodbye to that' and its all changed, is this fair? I know some people in the private sector might be upset because they haven't received their pay rises this year or see the state of the economy, but thats not the fault of these low end public sector workers.
If your with a big company and your not in a union, then I think your mad and when the union people gain better conditions and rights, the non union people should be left behind on the old conditions? Sound Fair?
