Made in China, Sweatshop Britain and Royal Mail!

I went shopping yesterday. I bought some pants, two different brands, both made in China.I bought some socks, again two different brands again both made in China.I bought a belt - made in China of course.
I couldn't seem to buy anything that wasn't made in China.
Everything nowadays seems to be made in China - or Vietnam is apparently another popular place for manufacturing at the moment.
I can of course see the attraction for big business to the likes of China what with it's sweatshops paying pennies to people working long unregulated hours in poor conditions to manufacture goods that they then sell on to us for ££££££££££'s.
Strange as this may seem I've drawn a parallel between sweatshop China and the current Royal Mail dispute (see a previous post for a postman's - mine - view of events). In Britain, Trades Unions have fought for years to end sweatshop practices (it's not that long ago after all that we were sending children down the mines, into the mills and up chimneys etc), but as I say we've stopped all of that now. We've moved on and secured decent pay and conditions for the average working man and stopped child labour of course.
What we have going on in this country at the moment is I believe an all out attack (by big business) on the working man (I'm starting to sound like a Socialist here - a right wing Socialist? Hasn't that been tried by someone before?). Anyhow, Royal Mail are a perfect example of this attack. They are slowly but surely getting rid of all the full time postmen and replacing them with part timers on twenty five hour contracts.
All postmen are now bullied into working forced and unpaid overtime. The pension fund has been decimated - and put out of bounds to new starters as has sick pay etc. There are people who work forty hours every week doing a forty hour job (and are paid forty hours) but only have a twenty hour contract so in effect when they are on holiday they only have half pay!
When you point this out to a lot of people they say 'welcome to the real world - we all have to put up with that so stop moaning and get on with it'!
To these people who are knocking the so called lazy greedy postmen I say 'Wake Up! Don't put up with it yourselves - fight back. The big corporations would like us all to be working for peanuts so that they get richer'.
When Royal Mail and the government defeat the postmen and the CWU (I'm no great fan of some of the activities of the CWU but on this issue they're right) which I fear they will then we will be one step closer to sweatshop Britain.
In years to come maybe instead of Made in China everything will have Made in Britain on it - and in prosperous China people will look at the goods and sympathise with the poor British workers working long unregulated hours in poor conditions manufacturing goods for pennies to sell to the affluent East for (Chinese) ££££££££££££££££££££££'s!!!

In Defence Of The Postmen

The main issue at the heart of the postal dispute is this:

Years ago when a postman finished his delivery early he would return to the office and be made to sort mail until his shift ended then go home.

If he finished his delivery late he would book overtime for this.

Of course this booking of overtime was obviously open to abuse as no-one knew if the postman really was late or just swinging the lead.

So Royal Mail came up with a solution called 'job and finish'.

Job and finish was this: if you returned to the office early having finished your delivery then you could go home early, but if you returned to the office late you did not get overtime for this.
So, it saved the firm a fortune in overtime and postmen also got to go home early on quiet days.
But soon after all of this Royal Mail stopped taking on full time postmen. Every time a full time postman left/retired/got the sack he was replaced by a part timer on (say) a thirty hour contract and the remaining full time postmen would then absorb the ten hours of work (between the forty hour job and the new thirty hour postman).
This of course led to a gradually increasing workload for the remaining full time postmen.
Fast forward about five years to today and in most delivery offices the full time/part time ratio is about fifty fifty.
You can imagine the increased workload.
Where in the past there was a 'swings and roundabouts' approach to things (you'll make time somedays lose time others) now it's a case of 'you'll lose a little time some days and a lot of time others'.
If a postman asks a manager to be paid for the extra work he has to do (some days up to three hours) he's told 'job and finish' - you'll make up the time on quiet days, which of course now is rubbish.
So postmen are now working probably about forty five hours a week for forty hours pay - which is okay if you're salaried but postmen are NOT they are contracted to be paid by the hour.
So there you have it. The actual CRUX of the dispute.
There are other things going on of course and management and the union will fall out all day long, but for postmen it's all about being forced to work for nothing.
How do I know all this - well it's because I am a postman of course!!

Deliberate Misunderstanding of British Jobs for British Workers

It seems to me after watching tonight's BBC News that the BBC, the unions and the government are deliberately misunderstanding the 'British Jobs For British Workers' dispute.

As far as I can see it the dispute is this: if there are British workers who are capable and willing to do any particular job then they should always be hired ahead of foreign workers as a matter of principle. End of.

The way that the BBC, the unions and the government are choosing to see it and report it is that it is all somehow about the rights of foreign workers to be employed with the same pay and conditions as British workers!

This is not the case at all.

The strikers want, plain and simple, British jobs for British workers. They don't want foreigners doing British jobs when there are British workers ready willing and able to do them.

This simple fact is unpalatable for our ruling elite and they are stuffing their heads in the sand and waiting for it to go away.

But I think that when they come up from the sand to take a look around things will have got a whole lot worse for them.

Rank Hypocrisy of 'Foreign Labour Protest' Union Officials

Got 'em!

I have watched today's news with growing incredulity at the behaviour of the union officials involved in the protests over foreign workers in this country.

For sheer hypocrisy read this from The New Statesman of two years ago.

The best bits of which are:

From 11 September in Brighton, the Trades Union Congress will demonstrate its enthusiasm for the free movement of labour with a show of tolerance towards the current inflow of migrant workers, mainly from eastern and central Europe. Far from clamouring for controls, the unions will back an open-door policy and oppose any government move to stem the flow.

and:

"We favour the free movement of labour and intend to say so loud and clear." (TUC)

and:

Some, such as the Transport and General Workers' Union, the shopworkers (Usdaw) and those in the building trade (Ucatt), are already recruiting among migrant workers.

and:

Instead of fearing workers from eastern and central Europe as a threat to members' jobs, the unions regard their arrival as a stimulus to organise.

None of this is surprising but what is unbelievably shocking is that now, today, union officials are showing so called solidarity with their members and protesting against the influx of foreign labour.

They are liars and should be exposed as such.

As I said, got 'em!