Bob Crow RIP

Fenris said:
How exactly do they have an equitable relationship when their method of improving their own positions is essentially blackmail? If they had an equitable relationship with their employer they wouldn't need to strike every 6 months.
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You do realise this is exactly the same inequitable relationship the employer has with the employee? Work unpaid overtime, or be fired. Work outside your job role, or be fired. Work without training, or be fired. Work for below minimum wage (and keep quiet about it), or be fired. Work under threat of being made redundant, or be fired.

The right of an employee to withdraw their labour is one of the few tools the employee has to assert themselves over the employer.
 
El Pew said:
You do realise this is exactly the same inequitable relationship the employer has with the employee? Work unpaid overtime, or be fired. Work outside your job role, or be fired. Work without training, or be fired. Work for below minimum wage (and keep quiet about it), or be fired. Work under threat of being made redundant, or be fired.

The right of an employee to withdraw their labour is one of the few tools the employee has to assert themselves over the employer.
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He did a fine job at that, of course it was at the expense of everyone else. The other million or so people that need public transport to survive have gone in the last 20 years from being symphathetic to absolutely despising the underground workers.
 
Freefaller said:
If you want to lambaste his policies, start a thread about it, if you want to be disrespectful about his death, this is not the place to do it.

I would say the same about any person whether famous or not. It's called being a decent human being and not being unnecessarily callous which is completely uncalled for.
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Hmm, not sure. I don't think you would say it about anyone that's recently died, but rather exclusively British/Western celebrities.

I don't see mods taking down the "good riddance" type posts for suicide bombers or convicted murderers. For example, someone calling Abu Suleiman al-Britani "a clown" in the recent thread about Syria. He was also a father, a husband and 'a person'.

Unless, the family of said person frequent these forums I don't see whose feelings you are protecting.
 
Didn't like the bloke, didn't like his politics. That said, 52 is no age to go.

According to the BBC it's a suspected heart-attack.

** Comment removed **
 
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Freefaller said:
It's not about being immune to criticism.

However, he has only just died - he may not have been liked (I certainly wasn't a fan) however, he is still a person, a father, a husband and a friend to many people.

If you want to lambaste his policies, start a thread about it, if you want to be disrespectful about his death, this is not the place to do it.

I would say the same about any person whether famous or not. It's called being a decent human being and not being unnecessarily callous which is completely uncalled for.
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If he was my friend or in my family I would be upset and I do feel for them and am sorry for their loss. I would hate to lose my dad and it would be a tradgedy to do so. But at the end of the day it's how it affects me. I am not his son. The country as a whole and most individuals are better off for his passing and I feel no one as outrageous will step in his place.


As for the thread being for to give respect. The OP doesn't say this is the case. Perhaps you should start one that is simply for mourning his passing.


There is no reason why there should be a specific amount of time where we can't critisise people after their death. It's at most an outdated illogical tradition. Obviously he wasn't an evil man but his policies were outrageous. Closing ticket offices and using machines is progress. Do workers at Asda strike because of self service checkouts?

Also he himself would have found it humorous that those that disliked him would mourn him.
 
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Quite a young age to be taken and a very sudden death.

In my opinion he was a ducker and diver and perhaps wrong for the job. I wasn't a fan of his public front at all.
 
He once said that all they to do to solve the financial crisis was to "tax E-mails at a penny per mail", when quizzed how this tax would be collected he had no answers.
 
He had some considerable skill at communicating and standing up for his beliefs, few of which I could support.

The people he claimed to represent will probably be better off without him, but there's never a good age to pass away. 52 seems terribly young.
 
Love him or hate him the guy has done a lot of good for the people he represents. Kept their wages high where everyone else in country have been seeing falls in wages. Won the battle on ticket office closures. Better working conditions. Achieved bonuses for his workers during 2012 Olympics for normal working days. Just show you how weak the rest of us are in accepting below inflation wage increases.
 
The_Abyss said:
He had some considerable skill at communicating and standing up for his beliefs, few of which I could support.

The people he claimed to represent will probably be better off without him, but there's never a good age to pass away. 52 seems terribly young.
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I am very interested to hear why I would be better off without him.
 
ubersonic said:
Nope, he called a strike without balloting (because he knew he would lose as most miners were in favour of the cuts designed to safeguard the industry) hence why the strike was illegal and the government were permitted to freeze the assets of the union.

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No, but it was proved that after his unions assets were frozen following an illegal strike, that he contacted the USSR to try and get funding on the basis it would cause major problems for the UK government. And that until a few years ago his second home was STILL being funded by the union.
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I'm no Scargill fan/apologist, but if you can open your mind to some information that may not reinforce your evidently somewhat biased perception: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25549596
 
starfighter said:
If he was my friend or in my family I would be upset and I do feel for them and am sorry for their loss. I would hate to lose my dad and it would be a tradgedy to do so. But at the end of the day it's how it affects me. I am not his son. The country as a whole and most individuals are better off for his passing and I feel no one as outrageous will step in his place.


As for the thread being for to give respect. The OP doesn't say this is the case. Perhaps you should start one that is simply for mourning his passing.


There is no reason why there should be a specific amount of time where we can't critisise people after their death. It's at most an outdated illogical tradition. Obviously he wasn't an evil man but his policies were outrageous. Closing ticket offices and using machines is progress. Do workers at Asda strike because of self service checkouts?

Also he himself would have found it humorous that those that disliked him would mourn him.
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I'm not expecting you to give him respect, just have respect for the event that has occurred and bite your tongue rather than making a nasty aggressive comment.

And frankly if this thread starts to degenerate - I'll just close it. No skin off my nose.

I'm not trying to censor people's opinions, there is however, a style, time and place to do things. IT's not about tradition, it's about being a reasonable, compassionate human being, not an animal.

Sure, the argument that this is a public forum and so on is fair, however, we are duty bound as a community to try and make people realise that people need to moderate their behaviour and cannot behave like little brats because they think and feel it is fair and can get away with it.

This is the last I will have on the subject, I'd rather leave the discussion to flow here - which has in general been perfectly okay (bar a few unsavoury comments).

IF you want to take this further I suggest you do it offline with me.
 
estebanrey said:
Hmm, not sure. I don't think you would say it about anyone that's recently died, but rather exclusively British/Western celebrities.

I don't see mods taking down the "good riddance" type posts for suicide bombers or convicted murderers. For example, someone calling Abu Suleiman al-Britani "a clown" in the recent thread about Syria. He was also a father, a husband and 'a person'.

Unless, the family of said person frequent these forums I don't see whose feelings you are protecting.
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If you want to take it offline with me please do so - this is not the place for it.
 
bam0 said:
Do you resent that as a group those workers have a more equitable relationship with their employer than you do? That they don't have to simply 'take it or leave it'? Why should there be such an imbalance of power between employers and employees?
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Baahhhaaaaa, I resent the huhjerachy of who I pay money to, make my working life unsafe and harder. so they can have a boys club and protect mates who constantly ****, I resent how the union does not listen to its members and only take ideas from the ones they are protecting. the turn out fir votes is appalling as they don't represent us. And the only reason people strike is for a day off. They don't actually support the cause.


The hole thing is a sham, and this is hopefully the best thing ever to happen to rmt, unless rmt get another boys club member into the top job. with tbh is extremely likely. They need a forward thinking and a lot less arrogant **** in charge.

I can't blame it all on RMT, Network rail do not understand the importance of giving decent wages to HR, so they can employ decent people, that won't tremble at RMT. And even ORR turned out to be spineless, with higher ORR management blocking certain actions.
 
Tunney said:
So are most of the people in this thread. You seem particularly narked off at Bob Crow. Maybe you've been reading too much of the Metro? :p
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I think he's jealous of how much Bob Crow got paid. Rob - maybe if you worked harder and were as good at your job as Bob was you'd get paid more.
 
The one thing with being a rep is knowledge in the workplace and what Management can and can't do to us. When I was a rep, I had some knowledge of law and what I didn't know, I researched. Sometimes, I couldn't find things out, so I would call on my colleagues or if they didn't know, I could phone my Regional Organiser to get further assistance. Without going into detail, management recently was telling us that we had to work with hazardous substances and here is the PPE for the job. I sent the details off to our regional organiser who said that it wasn't adequate and management had no right to force us to work with this hazardous stuff and we was full within our rights to refuse.

After having a shant meeting and going to management with these details, we got the correct PPE. This to me is why the Unions are vital in the workplace and without them, people don't feel they can argue with the hierarchy for fear of losing their jobs.

Bob Crow was a strong willed man who was militant and very left winged but at the same time, he would fight for workers pay and conditions and he worked his way up from the bottom. My small fee I pay each month is worth it to me and would I be working in such a safe and well paid job if not for the RMT? I have to say "No".

Edit:

Not sure why my post was deleted, as I was only asking a valid question?
 
Maybe now London wont be held to ransom every year.

Try working in the private sector and realize just how good the unions have it.

IMO f we could reanimate Maggie to have a go at the unions I would be for it.
 
Gregster said:
The one thing with being a rep is knowledge in the workplace and what Management can and can't do to us. When I was a rep, I had some knowledge of law and what I didn't know, I researched. Sometimes, I couldn't find things out, so I would call on my colleagues or if they didn't know, I could phone my Regional Organiser to get further assistance. Without going into detail, management recently was telling us that we had to work with hazardous substances and here is the PPE for the job. I sent the details off to our regional organiser who said that it wasn't adequate and management had no right to force us to work with this hazardous stuff and we was full within our rights to refuse.

After having a shant meeting and going to management with these details, we got the correct PPE. This to me is why the Unions are vital in the workplace and without them, people don't feel they can argue with the hierarchy for fear of losing their jobs.

Bob Crow was a strong willed man who was militant and very left winged but at the same time, he would fight for workers pay and conditions and he worked his way up from the bottom. My small fee I pay each month is worth it to me and would I be working in such a safe and well paid job if not for the RMT? I have to say "No".

Edit:

Not sure why my post was deleted, as I was only asking a valid question?
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Your post was deleted, as it contained the original post which was a crass comment - not that you broke any rules, but that the original post did. I could have edited it (and if you notice, the quote of your post is still there, as it doesn't contain the original post), but decided to just nuke the pair of them for ease.

Also, I left the reason why within the deletion statement, just to pre-empt the question! ;)
 
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