RIP Bob Crow

Bob Crow 1961 - 2014

Looking through the news headlines this morning my I read "RMT Union Leader Bob Crow..." and immediately I thought 'Oh great what now.' I clicked on the link ready to get wound up by whatever Bob was going to be complaining about this time. As long as I have had an interest in politics I have had a dislike for Bob Crow, His complaints often seemed very self serving and trivial and his view of strike chaos being his ultimate symbol of success I always found abhorrent. However when I read that the final word of the headline was "..Dies" I actually found myself sitting in a mild state of shock. As tends to be the modern way I immediately went onto Twitter to try and cage the reaction of my fellow man and most seemed to be in agreement - there were a few distasteful comments, as there always are unfortunately, but the general view was altogether very respectful - Which is how I feel it should be. As much as I disliked pretty much everything about Bob Crow's Politics I still appreciate that he is a human being with family and friends who are in mourning.

When all of the nasty negative attacks were circulating after the death of Margaret Thatcher I did have a conversation with a "leftie" friend of mine in which I said. "How would you like it if everyone acted like this if Bob Crow died." Ironically I picked Bob Crow as I reasoned that despite being a Union Boss rather than a publicly elected official he has probably been the most important and gutsy Left wing politician since Gordon Brown sneaked away. Whatever your feelings on the politics of Bob Crow you can not say that he has had no effect and whilst I personally will not miss him from our political landscape I am sure that he will be greatly missed and I feel slightly sorry for whoever succeeds him as RMT Secretary as they will have very big shoes to feel - I do worry that in order to try and make a name for themselves they may over reach early on so I would expect some interesting times ahead for the London Underground.




 

Bob Crow Vs. London

Yesterday saw the second of the one day strikes by the RMT and another less known union - probably as they lack the marmite style leadership of Mr Crow - now as I work out in Bexleyheath this really should have had little or no effect on me, however this strike coincided with my companies annual management conference so I was forced to make my way into London.

There was plenty of debate over if the public supported strike action or the law should be tougher to stop it happening, personally I fully believe in the right of people to withdraw their labour, but I do fear that with an apparent desire for strike for strikes sake as demonstrated by Mr Crow and others (Unite for example) the public will start to support making it harder to down tools, and possibly make it illegal altogether. As I say I think that strike action very much has a place in a unions Arsenal, but if it is not used more sensibly I can see it being removed. For example, when the general public are desperate to keep hold of their jobs they will struggle to understand why BA need more air stewards than their competition (in fact more from Heathrow than Gatwick.) And like wise as you are struggling to get to work, or a job interview, it is hard to have empathy with guys being asked to work outside their ticket office, after they have been assured that there will be no redundancy.

So I would pass on a piece of advice to all Unions - pick your battles, you are out of touch with public opinion and in danger of losing everything.

Bob Crow rattles his cage again

Just seen an interview with Bob Crow on Sky News calling for a campaign of civil disobedience in response to budget cuts. Mr. Crow has called for people to sit down in the middle of motorways. It sounds like a good way to campaign to me, just as long as he starts early and lets the tube passengers who are so regularly effected by his ridiculous demands of TFL know where he will be doing it. unfortunately though once again this loud minority will be the one to get the most protection, they probably wont let us drive through them.

Unemployment Rises make (Bob) Crow's Day

A leaked presentation seen by the Guardian has announced that there may be a 1.5 Million rise in unemployment from the Public Sector. Now to deal with that first even the Guardian have admitted that the (Independent) Office for Budget Responsibility have said that the Private sector should create 2.5 Million jobs in the same period. These seems like typical Best Case/Worst Case politics, I would imagine therefore that we have to look somewhere in the middle to find the truth, supposing that without the Public Sector millstone round the nations neck the public sector should be able to create 2 million jobs, but there will probably be an increase of around 1/2 a million unemployed from the cut backs. However the main question here is how many people would have been made redundant had George Osbourne not decided to cut quick and fast? I have always believed that if the public debt got to 1.5 Trillion that it would have necessitated the near collapse of our public economy with a near total paralysation of our Private economy - surely a much higher level of unemployment would have followed.

So despite the fact that the case for these figures is in no way proved RMT Leader Bob Crow has called for a summer of wide spread strikes, he has called for all unions to join together with community groups to have full disruption to society. Now Bob Crow is considered one of the more extreme Union leaders (which could explain why the Train Drivers are constantly on strike - £30,000+ for sitting down holding a handle?) but I think this shows the typical arrogance and selfishness of the Union movement.
"WAKE UP, THE COUNTRY IS ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE"
This is not the time to try and destroy the economy, this is the time to pull together and work to try and undo the damage of 13 years of the worst financial management

Unite Stalled Again

In Just under an hours time the court of appeal will hear from Unite in their quest to overturn a ruling given yesterday preventing them from striking.

As Unite are quite a large Union you would think that they could get a matter like balloting their members on strike action - especially when you think about how much they love their strike action. Yet for the second time in this dispute they have been stopped from striking by the law. The first time (Back at Christmas) I think it was more serious, I seem to remember that it was to do with Balloting people no longer employed. This time it seems that they simply did not do enough to advertise the result - Again you would assume there was a plan established for this.

Personally I think this is quite possibly the most stupid of all the strikes I have heard - Unbelievable with Bob Crow being General Secretary of the RMT. but they went on strike because they didn't want to operate from Heathrow with the same amount of staff as operated from Gatwick, they were told if they went on strike they would lose their travel perks, they went on strike, they lost their perks and now they want them back. Welcome to the real world, I have as one of my targets that I have to have a "Company Attitude" if I am publicly not supporting my company I will not receive my bonus, luckily my company are really great so not an issue, This is not victimisation it is simply my Bonus is not a part of my wages it is additional.

They are also having trouble with more than 50 staff members who have been disciplined over their roles in the strikes, Unite want them to face no discipline as you can not get disciplined for taking strike action - However from what I have heard from within BA some of these people have been alleged to have intimidated people not going on strike. Surely if the right to strike is as Tony Woodley (Unite's Joint Leader) says a Fundamental Human Right, surely so is the right to go to work free from intimidation... or are Human rights only for Fee Paying members.