To an extent, we absolutely are.
Johnson is on the ropes and probably gone within six months. The Tories will have a choice between one of his cabinet, guilty by association, or to take a tack more to the centre. In the latter, more likely, scenario it's better deals all round for ALL the British public.
I'm sure there are levers the RMT can pull without national strike. Overtime bans, sudden bouts of "Covid", steering Sir Keir down their path by, well, the old fashioned art of sitting down and talking, getting the message that Boris is a fat oaf, convicted and fined even more out there.
Now the Tories can say "see - if you don't vote for us you get the Unions".
It's exactly what Thatcher did. She was utterly useless in her first term and heading for defeat until she flew the Union flag over The Falklands and started to remind people about the winter of discontent under Labour. For today, swap in Ukraine and a national rail strike. And Labour? They opposed her with Foot
Yep. The trouble with some unions is the SWP element. They no more want a labour government than they want a tory government. They imagine that somehow constant nit picking will drive the proletariate into their arms. But we don't even know who they ****ing are. I couldn't name their supreme Dalek let alone any of their mid-range thinkers.
This always got me. The UCU had a legitimate case a few years ago about the erosion of pensions. The employer (HMG) changed its arrangement with the pension company to greatly reduce benefits to ongoing pensions. Even this is a tad nuanced, but it effectively resulted in a 40% reduction in final pension for a young lecturerer, already 10 years into the scheme. This is not an easy sell because you could argue that just as interets rates go up and down, the return on an investment pention may go down. I 'lost' maybe £40K when my pension went for final salaray to average salary when for the final 7 years of its lifetime. Could have been worse....makes the job far less attractve though and 2 young lectureres left work recently for the private sector - unheard of in my previous 35 years...
What did UCU do? It campaigned on behalf of those who would lose out most - those yet to join the scheme. What? And then it combined the pensions issue with unequal pay for women. Women are not paid unequally in the higher education sector. Fact. But average income for women is lower. This is because the older we get the fewer women stay in the game due to deciding parenting will be more fun, meaning there are fewer female professors (who can negociate whatever salary they can get away with). There is also an argument that women professors earn less than male professors because they are poor at negociating their salaries. I call that sexist bollocks. Nevertheless the UCU conflated sex discrimination ('the gender pay gap') with pensions in their campaign.
Then there is the issue of short term contracts. This is where it gets silly. I have recently employed someone on a short term contract. It is a 3 year postdoctoral contract, starting at around £40K. It is funded from a British Heart Foundation grant, which I wrote (with the assistance of the person I have employed). She knows it is a 3 year contract. The idea is she publishes some papers and applies for her own fellowship, the next rung on the ladder. The UCU, however, expect my college to guarantee my post doc a job for life. Far cough. If you have done 3 or 4 postdocs where somene else raised your salary, and you either can't or won't write your own fellowship or apply for a lectureship elsewhere, maybe you should be looking a bit lower down the employment latter.
Anyway.... it's all bollocks and I will sit back and wait for the next GE, putting right any wrong nonense that floats past my peripheral vision
