Mayr-Melnhof Packaging (MMP) have a facility in Bootle - in Feb 2012 they decided they needed to make 50 redundancies - they announced the reasoning, Unite promptly brought it members out on strike. They started to picket the site which resulted in conflicts so serious the police were called and the workers locked out - the first lock out of a print facility for 50 years.

The company duly issued the 50 redundancies in March - unite continued to kick off about how their chapel bosses had been selected etc and now MMP have decided to close the plant resulting in 150 redundancies.

If Unite had accepted the 50 redundancies in the first place >100 others would have kept their jobs - a great example of Unite in action, really working for its members!! No worry McClusky, Burke and Sibbald will just hop in the mercs from this shambles to next. If I were the tanker drivers I would not let these muppets anywhere near the talks.

Stupid people.

I've highlighted the word "print" because I'd guessed that MMP would be a printers before I reached that part.

As you know "SP" the job I do involves me getting involved with the working practices of many and varied types of businesses all over the country from virtually every business sector and I've been doing the job for nearly 30 years now.

Of all the business sectors that I visit there is only one now that stick to the 1960s principles of unionisation, demarcation, and an "us and them" attitude and that is the printing trade. My uncle was a litho printer all his life and apparently it was a skilled job during his time although if you ressurected him and placed him in the same job now he would tell you that his skills had been made redundant by computers - but he'd still expect the same wage scales, shift premiums, job demarcation, etc, etc, etc - and here's the rub, he was a dyed in the wool Tory party member until the day he died but he'd still walk out if the union told him to.

Litho/Web print is still a highly skilled job which is still very well paid - the fact you turn virgin paper into a 32 page booklet in 2/3 seconds is pretty amazing.

We are lucky we don't have any union presence in the sites I am involved in - 2 years ago we introduced flexible labour into the plant - surprise surprise we started to improve profitability - at the time there were 5 Litho sites - 4 had union control and no flexibility and one didn't one didn't - no the company has one Litho site - guess which one it is!!

Really? Just like that, eh?

I suggest you need to think about the link between what you actually post and the facts - or are you really saying that it is was an illegal strike?

I've said before and I will say again, unions need to realise that if a company cannot sustain the current level of employees - for whatever economic reason - then redundancies sadly have to be made so that the company can survive.

50 redundancies out of 150 people is better than going bust and putting all 150 out of work.

While directors are awarding themselves mega-buck bonuses?

Where did I say that?

Strangely enough, you didn't, I did

Then you're an idiot, because no one has suggested that this is the case, here.

Responsible directors DO exist, you know.

I hadn't heard about any of this until I read this thread, so I have looked to see what's been in the newspapers.
It seems that the firm decided that the jobs of about 1/3 of the plant's employees would be redundant.
The other 2/3 disagreed with the terms of those redundancies and also with the selection process.

They ended up on strike.

Within a couple of weeks, the parent company has decided that not just 1/3 of the jobs are redundant but the whole plant should close.

Now, I don't know the ins-and-outs of what has gone on (who on this message board does?) but to go from 1/3 of jobs being redundant to the whole plant being redundant, within two weeks, suggests that the parent company is using criteria that are not purely about which roles are redundant.
It's certainly not as clear-cut as some seem happy to believe.

If you look at the very end of what I originally said, you'll see a squiggly thing like this - [size=200?[/size

It is known as a question mark (also known as an interrogation point, interrogation mark, question point, query or eroteme), is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop (period) at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages.

And you call me stupid?

Hahahaha.

That is the silliest attempt at saving face I have ever seen.

Asking remaining employees to change their terms and conditions could be seen as part of the entire restructuring package for that site or company. For instance, it could be that without the proposals for the remaining workers, another, say, 10 or 20 people may have to be made redundant. You may or may not think that's OK, but losing so many workers may materially affect the factory's ability to run.

If the union rejects the proposals for the remaining workers then it could indeed be seen as the factory is unviable and they simply cannot run it as there will be too few people, therefore it would be more economical to do their manufacturing elsewhere.

However it could ALSO be that the management are trying to strongarm the unions by issuing threats. Unfortunately no-one knows this, except of course for the management. We also do not know HOW the management are handling this, and to what extent negotiations with the union has taken place. Either way it should not be automatically assumed that redundancies and changes are being implemented for the sake of it so that the management can get more money. Unfortunately too many people are unwilling to look beyond that.

Saving face?

Look, I'll type this slowly, in case you have a problem reading, although I do realise that comprehension is not your strongest suit.

You have long maintained that management know best, especially if management also happens to own the business. So to that end, I will pose the question once more, although to assist you in better forming an opinion and in the vain hope that I may get something approaching a coherent answer. Here goes:

"Do you think that unions should simply accept management decisions to reduce headcount, in the name of retaining profitability or mainting (or even improving) margins, when those cutting costs are awarding themselves large bonusues?"

Quite, and by exactly the same token, too many people are happy to simply blame Unite and are unwilling to look beyond that.

The above is yet further proof, that you

a) read into things what you want, with little regard to what is actually written
b) form opinions based on very little.

I have never said that in 100% of cases, management know best, or are 100% straight. You get your bad eggs and you get your good employers. As someone who has a business with hardly any staff turnover - nobody has resigned in over three years - I'm one of the latter.

Neither have I ever said that anyone should accept decisions or opinions without asking questions. I ask questions and challenge people all the time, so why wouldn't anyone else? Clearly this is what unions SHOULD be doing, and I have never, ever said anything different.

What I do object to, however, is people (like you, for instance) who put all these matters into one simple formula, universally applied...

Management = BAD
Workers/Unions = GOOD.

It simply does not work like that, and the sooner people accept this, and by that I mean EVERYONE, then we will all get along just that little bit better. The problem is, there are always people about who let their pride and opinions get in the way of facts, and in this case in particular, I don't believe ONE fact about what is actually happening at MMP has been divulged, which sort of makes this thread, well, a bit pointless.

Lack of facts and public information makes any decision to blame Unite - or the management - for this situation null and void in my opinion.

As someone noted recently: when did you last read a story about a trades union that was anything other than a slag off.

But what does that tell you - really?

Are you fecking serious? Honestly?

I'm certain she is.

The last one I can remember is [url=http://viewtopic.php?f=11&t=514911&hilit=ballsing&start=20this one[/url and if you look at page three, there's even a comment from you

How about no redundancies and lower profits for a while?

That would never do would it!

The "Oh dear, profits are down, sack some people that will work" mentality that pervades the simplistic business model we are stuck with these days is ridiculous. It is just total short termism.

I'd imagine your company is private not public so you are not beholden to stock market "sentiment" so if things are not going to so well no one is breathing down you neck asking for instant gratification which usually results in the "sack some people that will work" kind of response.

I have worked for both private and public companies and my experience bares out what I say above. Redundancies in private companies are a last resort. Redundancies in public companies are the first thing anyone thinks of.

One of the biggest private companies was Phones 4 U. When its founder retired a few years ago he was worth over £180m. The profits his company made year on year were never great for the size of it. Around £3m a year but the people who worked for him were all very well paid, never went on strike (because they were well looked after) and they didn't make people redundant if things were not going that well.

How about that for an alternative model?

Seems a darn sight better than the paranoia that requires CEO's of public companies to sack people at the drop of hat because if they ever said it might be an idea to let the share price drop because long term it makes sense to keep trained staff on and whether the storm would see them out of job themselves.

What a bankrupt system we have ended up with.

And guess what? In Germany its more like the Phones 4 U model than we have here and look which country has the largest EU economy.

Tories always have been and always will be self serving economic morons. And that is being polite. I often think a certain N Bevan was more accurate.

Entirely.

If you fancy investing the time, though, you could list recent stories and articles – and even reports on the TV/radio – that presented unions in general or a union specifically – in a positive light.

I was thinking more of the way unions are represented in the mass media, but that's another perfectly valid example.

It's the sort of background against which you get dips on the [iTorygraph[/i website commenting that it's no wonder there's been all those there naughty goings on at News International – because that's what NUJ members are like!

They were apparently entirely unaware that Murdoch barred any unions from Wapping and replaced them with his own in-house staff association.

It could be argued, indeed, that the lack of an independent trades union there helped to allow a culture where bullying and illegal practices could flourish over a long period.

But the point in terms of this discussion, is that those comments illustrate how there is a negative view of trades unions that isn't even grounded in facts.

why should this be a surprise MF ?

union membership isn't just a privelege of a Labour Party member or anyone leaning towards left of centre