Quote The Ghost of '99="The Ghost of '99"Amazon and the supermarkets are operating continually in anti-competitive ways. They need to be broken up to restore our free market. A client of mine used to supply Tesco with tomatoes. Tesco would come to them and set the price, no negotiation and they set terms of something like 180 days. This isn't a free market of supply and demand, it's big businesses hammering small suppliers because they have all the power in the world. . https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pressco ... ip_20_2077 Let's not even get started on how Amazon sells books. But like all huge companies its main aim is to drive competitors out of business after which it can jack up its prices. Likewise we know about the working conditions at Amazon warehouses. Amazon is even more egregious. They have been allowed to expand into the marketplace. You would no doubt laud small entrepreneurs bringing products they have conceived to sell on Amazon Marketplace. However... if a product does well, suddenly an Amazon equivalent will appear. And the product of the entrepreneur will mysteriously fall down the rankings so that nobody goes to it any more. Amazon shouldn't be both the biggest retailer in the world and the biggest marketplace for goods in the world. It's a blatant anti-trust violation If there's one ethical thing you can do today, one stand you can make it's to stop buying at Amazon, stop using Tesco and Asda and walk down the street to your local shops and buy there, or use second tier internet sellers. And encourage everyone you know to do the same. Because the dream of these big, unregulated monsters is to have no competition and the ability to jack up prices and profits in the long run, all at our expense.'" Watched a segment on John Olivers Show about Amazon and this very thing about a month ago Very interesting Also seen various segments about what lengths they will go to, to stop Union representation etc.

Quote The Ghost of '99="The Ghost of '99"Amazon and the supermarkets are operating continually in anti-competitive ways. They need to be broken up to restore our free market. A client of mine used to supply Tesco with tomatoes. Tesco would come to them and set the price, no negotiation and they set terms of something like 180 days. This isn't a free market of supply and demand, it's big businesses hammering small suppliers because they have all the power in the world. . https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pressco ... ip_20_2077 Let's not even get started on how Amazon sells books. But like all huge companies its main aim is to drive competitors out of business after which it can jack up its prices. Likewise we know about the working conditions at Amazon warehouses. Amazon is even more egregious. They have been allowed to expand into the marketplace. You would no doubt laud small entrepreneurs bringing products they have conceived to sell on Amazon Marketplace. However... if a product does well, suddenly an Amazon equivalent will appear. And the product of the entrepreneur will mysteriously fall down the rankings so that nobody goes to it any more. Amazon shouldn't be both the biggest retailer in the world and the biggest marketplace for goods in the world. It's a blatant anti-trust violation If there's one ethical thing you can do today, one stand you can make it's to stop buying at Amazon, stop using Tesco and Asda and walk down the street to your local shops and buy there, or use second tier internet sellers. And encourage everyone you know to do the same. Because the dream of these big, unregulated monsters is to have no competition and the ability to jack up prices and profits in the long run, all at our expense.'" Watched a segment on John Olivers Show about Amazon and this very thing about a month ago Very interesting Also seen various segments about what lengths they will go to, to stop Union representation etc.

I wonder what sort of pay rise MPs will receive this year?
It’s been above inflation throughout the austerity years, will they have the brass neck to take a rise several times higher than the rises being offered to public sector worker?
You betcha!

These strikes will have limited impact during the week - WFH will reduce the impact significantly

WFH, a cushy little job perk that train staff don’t enjoy

Well durrr.

Haven’t you got the message yet about personal attacks on members

Different strokes for different folks - What you can't have is huge profits and supressed wages - there needs to balance.

On the other hand you can't have a "jobs for life" as the union wants if you believe in continuous improvement. There also needs to be balance here.

Lynch is very good at distracting the attention away from the intrenched union position and blaming the government.

We have a government, I hadn’t noticed thought they had become party planners.

Imagine being so out of touch with how most people think that you tweet this - https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/ ... teQdw&s=19 Shapps saying "archaic rules" mean people can't be forced to work their rest days. The country has turned against this kind of BS. The Tories keep reaching for a "be afraid of unions!" lever that used to be so powerful but now is only connected to their elderly pre-Brexit base. It certainly isn't a way to hold those Red Wall seats.

Imagine being so out of touch with how most people think that you tweet this - https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/ ... teQdw&s=19 Shapps saying "archaic rules" mean people can't be forced to work their rest days. The country has turned against this kind of BS. The Tories keep reaching for a "be afraid of unions!" lever that used to be so powerful but now is only connected to their elderly pre-Brexit base. It certainly isn't a way to hold those Red Wall seats.

Suppressed wages throughout the austerity years, coupled with raging inflation, there was always going to be some kind of reaction.
It's great keeping the lid on public spending and squeezing those workers, while many of the large companies make staggeringly huge profits, whilst taking huge handouts from government under the furlough scheme but, as you mentioned in your previous post, the scales have tipped far too much in favour of the employers and there needs to be some redress.
Maybe it's payback time ?

What I did find unsavoury, is the notion that anyone asking for a pay rise to match or beat inflation was some kind of traitor or pariah, trying to blame the working man for the utter mess that we are in. That is just wrong.

There has to be more balance - drip down obviously doesn't work - perhaps CEO's bonuses should include a clause about the lowest labour costs in relation to their pay?

My wife works for William Hill - they handed back all the furlough monies despite having their shops closed for months. Many large businesses did the same once the trading environment had been known.

What do we consider to be a reasonable return for a business to make - Centrica made 1.5bn which sounds like a lot but it was only 8.5% of revenue - that is not excessive. If you look at supermarkets Morrisons 2.5% on 17.6bn - not a great return wouldn't take much for that to be a loss - give all the staff £1k increase you would c40% of the profitability.

Lynch is clever he is hanging on no redundancies - easy get out for him, not realistic but it means the bits he doesn't want you to talk about don't get mentioned.

I would agree about the government they need to grow up take the debate out of the schoolyard

Interesting read that jools
When you were offered the position/job did your employer not outline what was entailed?
If they did why did you accept it ,if was so bad ?
The answer to all these ongoing strikes is to let the public sue the unions.