Nick Legg says Tories are "bristling" for a fight with the Unions

[Gromit]

http://www.telegraph....-to-fight-unions.html

Is provoking confrontation with the Unions dangerous? Even if the Government win, the cost, disruption, and divisiveness to the country is too high a cost surely?

[jackthehat]

Let's face it...........even if there were not much wrong in the country, the Unions would find some way to organise confrontation with any Tory government..........it's what they do.

[Sqad]

It was clear that whichever political persuasion were elected at the last election that swinging cuts to the public sector was necessarily, the only differing factor was the rate of onset of cuts.

Public sector cuts is equal to Union disquiet and so this impending confrontation is no surprise.

The Unions would rather do battle with the Coalition than the Labour Party............but do battle they will.

[Gromit]

Who's Nick Legg? Could be Nick Clegg.

[R1Geezer]

Unions had a use when kids of 5 were working 18 ours a day. Now they are a bunch of "us and them" marxists who hate wealth creation and progress. Cannot(will not) see when a job is necessary and have an anyone (except me) that makes a decent living, is a rich barsteward doing it on the backs of the poor, attitude. Can they not see that they are the cause of a lot of unemployment by their dogma and general attitude. I say they need a good slapping, Unions are a cancer that need a cure. Let them go on strike, save a fortune, most public sector are a show3r of sh1te who think a job exists for them to earn a living rather than any inherent function.

[Old_Geezer]

Unions do not need to choose to organise confrontation with a Tory government, the usual Tory policies with incite them anyway. and whilst the unions may have trust in a left of centre party and so hold off longer before complaining of attacks on their members, they will have little confidence/incentive on a right wing government, coalition or no coalition.

The thing is that generally speaking unions are mostly supported by the lower paid who are more affected by cuts. It is their pay & pension promises that are targeted, whilst the cost of living just soars.

[riptide]

I feel very sorry for the lower paid workers, it must be very hard for them. The people who run the unions must obviously just want a fight with the tories and are using their members to do so. Do they not realise that we as a country just do not have the money to leave the public sector running the way it is.

[anotheoldgit]

/// Unions had a use when kids of 5 were working 18 ours a day.///

That statement is quite true they were needed in days of old, to improve the lives of the workers, but now in that capacity they are a bit dated.

In modern Britain, what they should now be fighting for, is the protection of jobs for the British workforce and British work to stay in Britain.

But that's not going to happen is it? Because of their Left-Wing liberal leanings.

[emmie]

Nick Legg, as in Legg over, up, ?

[emmie]

no one wins these confrontations, the real losers are the public who have services stopped when strikes are called. Provoking the unions, isn't it about time that someone did, we don't use child labour anymore, conditions in work are safe, and most people earn a reasonable living, the town halls are staffed to the rafters, many of these top people are on salaries unheard of, when working for the council was considered a civic duty.

[modeller]

Activists in all organisations look for trouble they need it to feed their egos.
Looking after the workers rights is just an excuse to justify their existance .

During WWII they called strikes which at times deprived the services of munitions and equipment . It's not just aimed at the Tories . Remember the winter of discontent when the country was brought to its knees, that was under a Labour government. My union before I retired was run by the militants and did not represent the majority of the members.

And what happens when anyone criticises the unions here on AB they are immediately challenged with silly remarks about , sending boys up chimneys or children working 18 hours a day, or quoting Thatcher or Churchill .

A few more constructive suggestions and facing the fact we are in financial
trouble and tough action is needed under any government .
In the meantime the Union bosses enjoy their £120k plus expenses and live in subsidised council accomodation. Remember Scargill and his deputy who used the miners pension fund to buy their houses. When challenged they agreed to pay it back . Did this weaken support from the their dedicated supporters ? No of course not ! Like most union members they followed their leaders like sheep.

[Gromit]

Admittedly nit-picking a bit here modeller, But
// My union before I retired was run by the militants and did not represent the majority of the members. //
How were they elected then? The law would not allow anything but a majority of the votes cast for it to be legal?

[modeller]

They were elected because the rest of us didn't want the job. The last three jobs I had we had 4 unions and Labour and Socialist Worker Party activists were our representatives .