hertfordshirehog wrote:Or was it in fact a case of some CWU hotheads who didn't get the Yes vote they were expecting imposing the will of the minority on the less militant majority, and orchestrating a strike by the back door that split the membership and went against all the democratic principles that trade unionists are supposed to cherish ? Not abiding by the outcome of a democratic ballot because that outcome is not in line with how you personally voted is bang out of order. If you say it is wrong for people to cross a picket line in today's dispute (when 77% voted for strike action) yet applaud people who defied the outcome of a democratic ballot three years ago, then you throw the union and everything we are supposed to stand for into disrepute and the credibility of your argument is shot to pieces.Spartacus wrote:The walk outs in 2003 were inevitable once the RM managers revealed their true face and the petty spitefull vendettas started.
RM could have virtually destroyed this union if they had the sense to control their managers,thankfully they didn't and enough members had the balls to show the bastards that we weren't a busted flush.
It was a classic case of the rank and file taking control of the union and showing union hq how to win a fight.
Unofficial action this time around would play straight into RM's hands and would sound the death-knell for the CWU.
We have to be smarter than that and escalate the dispute by entirely legal means, carrying EVERYBODY with us. I know people in my office who, like myself, are 100% solid behind official strikes who will most definitely not support unofficial strikes. Given RM's current total intransigence, members could be out out for weeks on end, only to have to come back with all the strings we're fighting against imposed on us as a condition of the return-to-work agreement. Exhorting people to go unofficial would be like telling turkeys to vote for that nice Bernard Matthews chappie
Democracy is great isn't,after all Hitler was democratically elected wasn't he?
Sometimes democracy can get it wrong,Margaret Thatcher and the Poll tax comes to mind.The real democracy was hundreds of thousands of people refusing to pay the tax.Would you tell them that they were wrong to question an unjust and unfair tax breaking the law while doing so?After all Thatcher was democratically elected so was her Poll tax justifiable ?
Sometimes you have to go outside the law to change the law and that is exactly what the rank and file union members did in 2003.
No more talk of democracy please,our leaders don't believe in it so why should we?
:cfo :lfo
