You can’t really compare the public and private sector like that

Remember benchmarking??

Isnt it the doctor that makes that decision??

But in fairness the nurses do bleep them… Bleep bleep bleep

This.

That doesn’t even mean anything.

How about- “link pay to merit and work performance.”

Granted it’s a concept that unions are terrified of, but doesn’t it sort of make sense??

Unions save workers from substandard working conditions.

Unions don’t give a toss about workers they are only interested in membership numbers so they can pay themselves inflated salaries.

That’s a gross misrepresentation of the Trade Union movement as a whole. Like every part of society, every organisation, interest group, it is not without its flaws but it it simply not fair to judge the worker’s rights movement in Ireland on them alone.

Unions are the greatest shower of wasters i’ve ever come across. They are bigger gangsters then the Irish Politicians. Where the hell have they been while the people paying THEIR wages have been getting & still are getting done over by this EU/Irish Government???

Jack O’Connor sitting on his massive salary has been marching up in Belfast (Yes Belfast where they love to march) because he’s afraid to take to the streets of Dublin after his last 2 appearances. Siptu are more worried about regenerating their offices then Workers rights.

The reason they are jumping on the retail bandwagon now is because all the tradesmen & women in this country are heading elsewhere

Unions don’t save workers from anything, capital accumulation does.

unions are scabs on the ass of this country

Glenn
The Law protect workers. Unions are an unnecessary and costly form of protectionism today.

Gerard so what they gave me 3 per cent rise this week how bad

Sorry Aileen I think you will find it was Dunnes gave you 3%

Sorry Gerard can you not read us it ????

Union fought for it Dunnes wud not have given it so no need for smart talk where do u work out if interest

Well Aileen let’s hope Dunnes can sustain your wages and any of the other retailers the unions are targetting too.

In a healthy capitalist economy, a healthy and thriving retail industry creates demand for retail workforce thus pushing the wages up. In a skewed system like we have today, the wage raises are achieved through union blackmail and completely out of line with the reality of the labour market. In a market with 15% unemployment mostly at the lower end of production scale there can be no wage increases in the same or similar labour categories until the surplus labour clears (I.e. get jobs). If Dunnes have profit to spare the same could have been employed to create new facilities and employ some of the currently unemployed. Instead, the unions ‘negotiated’ a raise. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what unions do, they force some to take 100% pay cut so some others can get 3% raise. Great victory for labour indeed.

Unions relevance has passed. Where once they were necessary to ensure worker safety and fair treatment these things are now enshrined in law and workers can seek legal redress where employers are found wanting. Now unions are merely refuges for malcontents with an exalted sense of self importance.

A union is made up of its members. Hence why its called a union.

Te unions didn’t ‘give’ us any of these things. Each ‘right’ costs money and if money isn’t there the unions can parade up and down the road as much as they like there will be no change in conditions of workers. It was the rise in productivity that facilitated the leisure time of workers in the developed world and the rise in productivity comes from capital accumulation. More capital in the system leads to higher wages. Capital isn’t coming from David Begg’s beard (maybe it does given his salary) it is coming from savings and reinvestment of profits and from productivity increases. Unfortunately many today believe slices of bread fall from the sky and all we need is ‘fair’ distribution. This is why today we have do many capital misallocations mandated by laws and hence the progress in improving the general population well being has stalled in most of the western world. Where we used to have 5-6% growth today we struggle to make 2%. That is the result of too much socialism and as on any shape or form socialism will lead to failure. So there you go, keep on applauding to unions for saving you, but I assure you, those who do so are clueless and will march you into failure.

Spot on Dom, exactly right. We have a standard of living previous generations could only have dreamed of and its ultimately down to the Innovations and productivity improvements that make us all richer, but we in the west have forgotten that.

China is going to eat our lunch unless we (the western world) re-learn how to be flexible and dynamic.

You see Tim, for such thinking you get thumbs down from the general voting population. They don’t want dynamics and flexibility, they want something for nothing and they want this in perpetuity. There is little hope for this entitlement culture to be reversed and therefore most of the western democracies will suffer a slow decline as there will be no driver for policy change.

Belly up well done for been so negative we work hard and deserve it why not force your negative comments on the people who are actually screwing over the country same to you Dom . Dunnes do still employ people by the way more than can be said for most in this country now

good video

Good video but this leaves a lot out. They also gave us weekends, 40 hour working weeks, the minimum wage, overtime, work contracts and guaranteed hours.

Bollocks – an open economy and competition amongst employers gave us these things. Lots of non union companies (almost all FDI) and the conditions are excellent

Your suggestion would be?

Go on strike! Sure isn’t that the solution to everything? Or do you think, maybe, that it’s just a load of faux left wing union leaders justifying their own existence and union subscriptions which are double and treble the household charge they’re so against.
Can you go on strike against your union to get them to reduce their annual subscription, something that have failed to do despite pay cuts and so on