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September 11, 2012 1:43 pm
I would love to see an article, talk,interview with some shop stewards and memebers of unions who were part of the partnership corporatism between 1987 -2007.
Based on the decline of industrial action and lost days, its evident that the policy was no industrial action by the trade union leadership.
But at what cost to their membership, shop stewards and their reputation.
It now clear the the only real gainers of this approach was capital. The perception at the time was we all had better living stnadards,this is now proved to be a fallacy and all we were doing is living beyond our means from debt created by cheap credit.
It would appear that even with the restrictions of the 1990 Industrial Relations Act. Unions pursued claims within the partnership framework to the Labour court.But what happen when shop stewards or members did not agree with the recommendation, these issues could be blatant abuse and bullying of shop stewards or equality issues and a contradiction of partnership.
Looking at the trend of lost days through industrial action and the decline in union membership.
It hard to believe that all shop stewards and members of unions excepted all labour court recommendations or is it the case that the membership did not even get a chance to vote on recommmendation, whish is in breach of trade union law and the Industrial Relations Act.
Its quite easy to reach the conclusion that most membership got their modest pay rises, but any objcetives set out in partnership was aspirational at most.
But at what cost???