Why should people be allowed to strike?

Question

Are you for or against unionised striking? Have you ever done it? Should we just ban all the unions full stop? :o

See, my theory is they get people all riled up, and put ideas in their heads sometimes. I'm all for people standing up for their rights, but if they wouldn't think of doing it / know how to do that themselves, then I don't see why they should be allowed. Oooh, controversy.

Answer 1

Striking no longer has the impact it had in the 70's and 80's.

There is enough people needing jobs for work forces to be replaced.

Unions can be a good idea, but they have never helped me. I have been made redundant twice and forced to leave my job due to a re-organisation. The unions, that I was a member of basically rolled over for the management to tickle their tummies.

Answer 2

Well, sometimes the only way to get both parties to the bargaining table is through a strike. The whole reason the labor movement began was because employers were telling their employees, "Well, there are ten people waiting in line outside to take the job you're complaining about, so you'll work sixteen or twenty hour days for minimum wage or less, with no benefits and no retirement fund, and you're going to like it!" and there wasn't anything people could do because they were right. Only when the whole company, or sometimes entire industries got organized and stopped all work through a strike did they force the issue, and it didn't always work -- you'd have scabs come in who were willing to cross the picket lines and go to work. So on principle, unionization and strikes help the average worker get a better living wage and fair benefits at least up to an industry-wide standard.

That being said, I think that some unions use the leverage this kind of thing affords them to try to get more than their share. I remember the dockworker's union in a city I once lived in went on strike because their contract with the port (which was up for renewal in a year) promised them a starting salary of ONLY $100,000 a year. So some schmuck walks in off the street with the union dues in his pocket and no experience and starts off with a hundred grand a year right off the bat, and complains it isn't enough. There are two sides to the issue, neither of them pleasant, unfortunately.

Answer 3

A strike is an attempt by the workers to peacefully get more from their employers. In the original idea about capitalism, the employers are supposed to try to get the worker to work as much as possible for as little pay and benefits as possible. The employee is supposed to try for as much pay and benefits as possible for as little work as possible done. When they meet, it should be somewhere in the middle where it is fair for everyone, a fair pay and benefit deal for a fair workday.

Unfortunately in the early years of capitalism it didn't work. The workers had no real power at the time and so they got stuck up to 20 hours per day every day of the year for as small as 50 cents per day (not hour, per day). Striking was an attempt to equalize that and it worked. That is why we have benefits like insurance and decent pay and vacation and so on.

But the employer is always supposed to be trying to fix it down again (some employers are fair, but not all and the majority aren't because they want the money), so striking can still be necessary to keep them in check.

Answer 4

Because they have a right to stand up and be counted, the unions of this country used to be really good at making sure we got our rights, the government don't like them because it stops them getting away with what they would really like to do to the British worker, I have been on strike, though many years ago, a man was sacked for taking a day off to be with his pregnant wife who was having a particularly nasty birth, even today some companies still don't accept men should have paternity leave to be with their newborn child, no unions should no be banned, why because one day you just might need one yourself for your rights.

Answer 5

everyone has the right to withdraw their labour if its warranted no one wants to strike but sometimes its the only way and if it hadn't been for the unions we would still be earning pennies work in dangerous environments etc.etc. don't have a union wish I did sometimes ..The bosses aren't right all of the time ..

Answer 6

If people weren't allowed to strike conditions at work would still be at the time of the 1830s. We'd still be stuffing children up chimneys and the workhouse would still be around.

Answer 7

Because that is the democratic right of every working man in the country as is the right to defend one's property one's loved ones and one's way of life or that's how it used to be until the pc as@holes took control

Answer 8

If their companies are treating them like crap then the only way may be to have a strike. I am for it in some cases. Sometimes it seems ridiculous though.

Answer 9

To prevent victorian era bosses coming back to town. would you work for a penny an hour or would you go on strike?

Answer 10

you seem to use this medium to answer your survey questions? anyway, without peopol fighting for their rights, a lot of people would have been prisoners of one kind or another. if you do not fight for your right, no one will hand it over to you. strikes are like freedom fightings.