Anyone care to tell us some of the silly union claims in their jobs?
- Thread starter thedaras
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A few years ago I worked in Australia on a 500 man job, the minute it started to rain we were sent inside, If it rained for more than 30 mins, we were sent home, (we worked outside). I found it strange and often said if this rule applied at home, we would never get things done. Funny thing was all 500 workers on the job were issued with full lenght snowy river type wax rain coat with union crest attached. Why did we need rain coats???
WaterWater
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The IBOA put in a proposal for bin liners for the office bins.
True story - NCT staff were in Labour Court last week - claiming payment for starting work 4 minutes early each day. Court recommended they recieve additional 4 days holiday this year to compensate.
Based on this claim - given I work at least 20 hours extra each week, then
1 min = 1 extra days holiday
60 min = 60 days extra holiday
20(hours) X 60(min) = 1200 min = 1200 days extra holiday
1200/5(day working week) = 240 weeks off.
Yippee!! All I need to do, is to join a union and put a claim in.................
Ron Burgundy
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True story -
Is that a joke?
Nct claiming for extra 4 mins pay per day.you are joking right?
And they were given four days extra holidays for it
Complainer
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Given that I heard the identical story about a civil service office, it may well be one of those urban myths.
Have you ever tried cleaning spilt yogurt or left over over-ripe banana from an office bin with no liner?
Should we start a thread about dumb things that managers/owners/shareholders have done to employees? Could the AAM servers support the load?
MissRibena
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Are they eating or working? And you mean people in unions empty their own waste paper bins?
As for the clock story ... think the clue may have been in 'wind-up'
Yes , let me start. Of course , some people here , I suspect some of them are employers would have us believe that unions are the devil incarnate!!
Right , how would you feel if as a 19 year old with no job security and dependent on the employer for future references, you were expressly forbidden to use latex gloves and told to use your bare hands instead to pick up bloody dressings and swabs from an operating floor?
Well , it happened to me and when I say that if I had refused , I would suffer down the line, I tell the truth. Apart from the fact that then I wouldn't have had the courage to refuse.
How would you feel if out of your close circle of seven friends , five of them needed back surgery before they were 32 because they were used as mules basically and then they wonder where a lot of the nurses are gone. They're at home with back pain!!!
So, thank God for Health and Safety legislation and if you are so foolish as to think that a lot of employment legislation that protects workers is unnecessary ,well to be honest I am sorry for you.Does anyone here remember the unions fighting so that married women would be fairly taxed?Well , I do. Forty years ago , you could be fired on marriage, fired if pregnant. You had very poor health and safety legislation and little compensation for injury or disability caused by your work conditions.
And no , I absolutely don't agree with rampant trade unionism. In fact I detest fanatics of all types. However, I am sick of this endless bashing of trade unions and have come to the conclusion that some of it comes from genuine ignorance and some comes from people who find that unions and the employee protection afforded employees now, is an unwelcome situation in their particular workplace.
Agree that unions have (in the past) played a key role in defending workers from expolitative employers. Worth noting that most of the advances for women were as a consequence of our membership of the EU, and not because of unions taking a stand.
The balance of power has shifted too far in favour of workers - which has led to wholesale abuses, especially in the sheltered public sector. It is imperative that their is a rebalancing of power - if we are to have any hope of recovering our competitiveness.
Addressing this issue is not the only action we must take, but it is a critical one, and an urgent priority!!
I do believe that the original post was a joke. The punch line being, it might have been a wind up.. Wind up clock?
Many years ago I worked in a steel fabrication plant, where there were some pretty lethal machnes used for pressing steel plates into various shapes. The gaurds were never on the machines except when an insurance rep would call around for a look. The myself and another employee were told to put them on. When the rep left, we would have to take them off again.
It was this and other types of employer abuse that lead to a Union being formed, which eventually lead to some better working conditions and pay increases in return for delivered productivity increases.
Unions have a part to play in todays world just as much as in the past. The balance of power may have shifted too far to the Unions but without unions, most employers would be far more liberal in abusing employees.
For the record I am a member of Siptu. I will vote against the proposed strike and will not support it, even if I get kicked out the union. I am in favour of the pension levy even though it will cost me thousands of euro in take home pay. However, I will not be tolerant of any more cuts to my pay in the short term unless it is coupled with some other measures to make everyone take the pain for the country to recover.
It was this and other types of employer abuse that lead to a Union being formed, which eventually lead to some better working conditions and pay increases in return for delivered productivity increases.
Unions have a part to play in todays world just as much as in the past. The balance of power may have shifted too far to the Unions but without unions, most employers would be far more liberal in abusing employees.
For the record I am a member of Siptu. I will vote against the proposed strike and will not support it, even if I get kicked out the union. I am in favour of the pension levy even though it will cost me thousands of euro in take home pay. However, I will not be tolerant of any more cuts to my pay in the short term unless it is coupled with some other measures to make everyone take the pain for the country to recover.
You need someone to help with your sums, too.
20 hours = 4 hours per day = 240 mins per day
@ 1 day's leave per 1 min per day = 240 days.
dockingtrade
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refreshing
This sort of thing typifies what’s wrong with many large organisations (both public and private); why the hell would putting bin liners in office bins be an issue that requires a decision at a high level.
What’s wrong with;
Cleaning staff to office manager, “Can you get bin liners for the bins? There’s bits of banana and dried yogurt stuck to the bottom of the bins and it stinks.”
Office manager, “Sure, good idea. I’ll get the person who buys the stationary/cleaning goods to get them.”
It’s BS like that that keeps layers of middle management busy.
It says a lot more about the bank than it does about the union.
There are some total idiots on Union committees and there are some total idiots working at management level. There are also lots of sensible people on unions and on management boards.
Its easy to come up with a list of isolated incidents spanning God knows how many years and assume that means Unions per se are a bunch of idiots. I have over the years seen an awful lot of good work done by unions in the areas of health and safety, anti-bullying, migrant workers rights etc and, in my own area of work have often had to consult them as key stakeholders and have got very sensible feedback on important proposed policies (and, in fairness, I've never seen any really silly incidents in my own workplace).
Yes, there probably is the odd eejit who plods around making sure no one is turning on the lights but they're not representative of union officials in general. You get people who go over the top in all walks of life.
Its easy to come up with a list of isolated incidents spanning God knows how many years and assume that means Unions per se are a bunch of idiots. I have over the years seen an awful lot of good work done by unions in the areas of health and safety, anti-bullying, migrant workers rights etc and, in my own area of work have often had to consult them as key stakeholders and have got very sensible feedback on important proposed policies (and, in fairness, I've never seen any really silly incidents in my own workplace).
Yes, there probably is the odd eejit who plods around making sure no one is turning on the lights but they're not representative of union officials in general. You get people who go over the top in all walks of life.