Free Trade Unions?

The dispute between cabin staff and British Airways hopefully will be resolved soon, industrial disputes do not tend to benefit anyone.

With the news media only interested in soundbite tabloid journalism I have put the BA cabin staff case in the hyperlink http://www.unitetheunion.com/PDF/078-BA%20flyer%20the%20facts.pdf

The High Court ruling today that blocked the strike action by unite is frankly unbelieveable, a judge says the ballot is legal and a majority of unite members support strike action, but the unions method of relaying the ballot result to their members was not legal and this should be enough to halt strike action.

The best result for this dispute is a negotiated settlement, but in a free democratic society people should have a legal right to remove their labour, the fact employers can use the law to frustrate those democratic rights will not help solve this dispute or help industrial relations in the future.

Have workers less human rights than their employers? High court judges believe they do!

Stephen Timms MP

I was shocked to hear that Stephen Timms MP was stabbed today, doing his job! In the previous period MPs have been ridiculed, the vast majority of MPs do a great job and are open to their constituents, thankfully attacks on our elected MPs are rare, but I wish Mr Timms a speedy recovery.

I'm Back

So, after a very hard fought general election campaign, where I decided not to blog, I feel it's time to re-start this blog.

I've also decided that I'm only going to write one blog only, it seems silly to compartmentalise my blog, so it warts and all.

I'm glad to see that the new politics that the odd couple (Cameron and Clegg) promised lasted about a day.

I see they are proposing that parliament will need 55% of MPs to get a vote of no confidence passed, the Cons have 47% of MPs, Constitutional expert Peter Hennessey says it looks like they are priming the pitch, doctoring it a bit, not good, it was about a different politics, new politics.

So much for the a new parliament having a greater say over the executive.