fishtank wrote:dingo wrote: Seniority is still the fairest way to select duties when they are all the same grade of job. What is the alternative ?
If all jobs are the same stick 'em all in a hat and trust to luck...
Completely fair and entertaining at the same time.
There, that wasn't so hard.
The seniority system and the way it undermines solidarity and screws over the junior mostly part-time staff in a unit is an embarrassment to the union, end of story.
Time the union started looking after the younger members, they are the future of the union, not us.
seriously emotive subject and in my eyes coming from a military background you always had to ' earn the right ' .
RM is a unique employer I guess , due to its longevity as a business and the fact that an employee can spend their whole working life at the RM. now that alone is probably not unique , but the amount of people that work for RM that are long servers is substantial , if my MC is any reflection. I have done just about every job in RM deliveries, MTT, LSM, Tipping, Sorting and now Driving and I have only worked at RM for a mere 20 years. and to be honest that was one of the great appeals of working for RM , you could change around every now and then. however, times are changing and I believe it is now much harder to swop around and people become anxious with regards to what kind of job they are stuck with at the moment. RM used to encourage you to swop around so you learnt new skills and they could utilise this knowledge but now they are more concerned with developing a part time workforce. the pension age increasing puts more pressure on the older staff to stay on and often they now go job sharing which means decent jobs are split into 2 @ 20 hour jobs and this full time job is lost forever.
with regards to the Union , at every meeting I have attended over time , most of the faces are aged a tad , to say the least and again I think a Union outlook / mentality is something that is acquired over time served in life's University.
I don't believe a young person is there to be used and abused but the way things are going , not just in RM but in general , I think Seniority just creates some sort of order , some sort of recourse. its not perfect because of the things mentioned above but I think it is more in the interest of the working man against the backdrop of Capitalism's desire to work us into the ground.
"why should it just be the bankers, politicians and the idle rich who get all the best things ? we demand a standard of living for our members that enables them to share in the fine wines and times that the likes of Cameron and his Eton buddies take for granted " - the late great Bob Crow RIP.
