[Politics] Do we need a General Strike?

[Swansman]

Maybe we just need to increase recruitment in the army then we have a lot of cheap labour on £16k-£28k a year to do everything

I imagine it would be difficult to recruit people to the army if they knew it meant some mundane work on some airport.

Surely every kid that grows up with the dream of being a soldier imagines himself emptying his M16 rifle on some stone-throwing arab... checking passports is pretty far from that.

 

[rogersix]

So many questions and not a hint of a solution. It looks like you are just another that wants to be part of the problem and not the solution.

Aah! A pointless word salad!

As easy as it gets,

It's all about philosophy you see,

Vote the Tories into oblivion

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Just nine passengers detained at Heathrow during Border Force strike

Figure compares with 189 during same three days of 2021, but detentions at Manchester airport rose slightly

www.theguardian.com

Well.

The same article says more have been stopped at a Manchester than in previous years?

Seems they are lashing out as the strikes didn’t have the affect they wanted, now unions are threatening to sue the gov for getting the posts filled by the army.

The unions wanted hours of waits for normal people trying to get home for Christmas, or even worse to not to be able to get home at all.

 

[CHAPPERS]

That's gone well then.

 

[abc]

That's gone well then.

Pathetic. Of course any discussion on pay has to include discussion on productivity. Increasing productivity means achieving more from the same or less amount of effort. Nurses and other nhs staff cant be expected to work longer hours or 'harder', so finding ways of making their work easier/better, but also achieving the desired outcomes for patients, is essential. That is called improved productivity and that produces benefits that can result in higher wages.
I don't profess to know how one does that in the nhs but it is a challenge that every business, small or large, faces up to on a daily basis. The Unions have just as much responsibility as the government to engage in both aspects - pay and productivity.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

Yes. Co-ordinate all strikes. Tories wasted hundreds of millions of pounds on poor quality PPE "outsourced' to their friends. The 'Britannia Unchained' budget (lauded by their Daily Mail sycophants as 'at last, a real Tory budget') cost the taxpayer £40 billion - with no apology from the Mail. And after all this, and 2008, no cap for bankers' bonuses but a cap for essential workers' wages. And the Tories DARE to suggest there's 'not enough money' for decent wage increases as the number of billionaires hits record levels due to stock market shenanigans during Covid.

General strike now, with one demand: a general election. This government of 3 prime ministers and a mandate to 'get Brexit done' in the distant past has no legitimacy and no credibility. And the Tories' desperate, Trumplike attempts to steal the next election with a voter ID system that makes it easy for my credulous, servile, benighted, brainwashed generation - not all, but 65% as the Tories know - to vote and sticks obstacles in the way of the young (pensioner bus pass OK: over 18 student pass not) needs to be confronted. Any legitimate voter turned away at a polling station for 'wrong ID' should refuse to leave the queue. Direct action works. We did it, we know it. Build a bonfire. Stick the Tories on the top. End this disgusting nonsense.

Paragraph 1 - Completely agree.

Paragraph 2 - Disagree - if we watched an election in - say - an emerging West African democracy - where you just rocked up without any ID and were asked where you lived and then voted, we'd laugh. Voter fraud may be VERY small, but why not eliminate it?

I'd issue FREE ID cards to everyone - what is there to hide - after all you need photo ID now to pick an away Albion ticket....

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Paragraph 2 - Disagree - if we watched an election in - say - an emerging West African democracy - where you just rocked up without any ID and were asked where you lived and then voted, we'd laugh. Voter fraud may be VERY small, but why not eliminate it?

I'd issue FREE ID cards to everyone - what is there to hide - after all you need photo ID now to pick an away Albion ticket....

Would we? If there's a properly maintained electoral roll there's no reason there should be an issue.
Free is a difficult term, they have to be paid for some how. Either they're expensive to prevent them being easily forged, or they're cheap and anybody could make a fake anyway, making it a waste of time and money.

 

[nicko31]

That's gone well then.

9% is nurses left the profession in the UK last year, the workforce are exhausted and de-moralised. The government have picked the wrong fight.

Wait till Australia targets them with higher pay and better conditions

 

[Baldseagull]

Pathetic. Of course any discussion on pay has to include discussion on productivity. Increasing productivity means achieving more from the same or less amount of effort. Nurses and other nhs staff cant be expected to work longer hours or 'harder', so finding ways of making their work easier/better, but also achieving the desired outcomes for patients, is essential. That is called improved productivity and that produces benefits that can result in higher wages.
I don't profess to know how one does that in the nhs but it is a challenge that every business, small or large, faces up to on a daily basis. The Unions have just as much responsibility as the government to engage in both aspects - pay and productivity.

Why would any discussion on pay have to include productivity gains, if pay rises have not kept up with inflation?

 

[Goldstone Guy]

Pathetic. Of course any discussion on pay has to include discussion on productivity. Increasing productivity means achieving more from the same or less amount of effort. Nurses and other nhs staff cant be expected to work longer hours or 'harder', so finding ways of making their work easier/better, but also achieving the desired outcomes for patients, is essential. That is called improved productivity and that produces benefits that can result in higher wages.
I don't profess to know how one does that in the nhs but it is a challenge that every business, small or large, faces up to on a daily basis. The Unions have just as much responsibility as the government to engage in both aspects - pay and productivity.

The way to improve the productivity of NHS nurses and other staff would be to remove the mountains of targets, CQC inspections, protocols and proformas, appraisal, revalidation, and other rules and regulations which the staff have to work under and which take huge amounts of time. These have all been brought in by successive governments (not just Tory, Labour have done it as well but it's got worse in the past 10-13 years). The only people who can remove them and improve efficiency are the government and the management structures introduced by the government. Therefore it won't happen.

For years NHS staff have worked extra hours, on days off etc to improve patient care. This was commonly referred to as "goodwill". That goodwill has gone. In the short to medium term expect "efficiency" to go down, as more staff stick to their scheduled hours and don't work extra hours for nothing or the odd round of clapping.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Pathetic. Of course any discussion on pay has to include discussion on productivity. Increasing productivity means achieving more from the same or less amount of effort. Nurses and other nhs staff cant be expected to work longer hours or 'harder', so finding ways of making their work easier/better, but also achieving the desired outcomes for patients, is essential. That is called improved productivity and that produces benefits that can result in higher wages.
I don't profess to know how one does that in the nhs but it is a challenge that every business, small or large, faces up to on a daily basis. The Unions have just as much responsibility as the government to engage in both aspects - pay and productivity.

Sure

But it isn't the Union's job to come up with ways to improve productivity, so what is the proposal?
This isn't the rail strike, where "modernisation" is used as a way of hiding change to t's & c's.

What do they want nurses to do to increase productivity?

It sounds like bluff and bluster to me. A way to be seen as doing something, but actually doing nothing.
The government don't want to be seen to be giving in to the Union demands.
Therefore they will string it out until they feel they have the right spin on the situation.

 

[Machiavelli]

Sure

But it isn't the Union's job to come up with ways to improve productivity, so what is the proposal?
This isn't the rail strike, where "modernisation" is used as a way of hiding change to t's & c's.

What do they want nurses to do to increase productivity?

It sounds like bluff and bluster to me. A way to be seen as doing something, but actually doing nothing.
The government don't want to be seen to be giving in to the Union demands.
Therefore they will string it out until they feel they have the right spin on the situation.

Spot on. It becomes incredibly difficult to make productivity gains in what is essentially a care role. Robots might do it but, on balance, it's unlikely -- there's something about affective labour that isn't replicable.
The poster you're responding to is very keen to have a debate about the status of the NHS, at just the same time as most of our press is calling for this which, in turn, follows on from a context in which funding/supply has failed to meet needs/demand and that really begins to bite once that funding shortfall is sustained for a prolonged period -- and we're looking at 12 years of it now.

 

[abc]

Spot on. It becomes incredibly difficult to make productivity gains in what is essentially a care role. Robots might do it but, on balance, it's unlikely -- there's something about affective labour that isn't replicable.
The poster you're responding to is very keen to have a debate about the status of the NHS, at just the same time as most of our press is calling for this which, in turn, follows on from a context in which funding/supply has failed to meet needs/demand and that really begins to bite once that funding shortfall is sustained for a prolonged period -- and we're looking at 12 years of it now.

I agree with all you say, except that productivity gains do not have to involve 'robots'. There are many other ways including, perhaps, reductions in bureaucracy, management tiers, effective IT systems, and so on. To refuse to discuss productivity at all means the nhs will never be what we want it to be, regardless of the amount of funding.
Actually, you are not quite right in saying I want to debate about the status of the nhs, but rather I think we need a debate about how it is going to deliver what we want. For example, I believe this involves everyone paying more tax which appears to be politically unacceptable at the moment and so we, as a population, need to have an honest and open debate. If 'we' are not willing to pay more in tax (or accept more cuts elsewhere in state expenditure) then we have to accept an underfunded nhs. Personally I would be willing to pay more tax but I would also want to see a plan to remove, for example, the bureaucratic inefficiencies in the nhs so that all the increased funding goes to improved care and the lives of those that provide it.

 

[abc]

.

 

[Machiavelli]

I agree with all you say, except that productivity gains do not have to involve 'robots'. There are many other ways including, perhaps, reductions in bureaucracy, management tiers, effective IT systems, and so on. To refuse to discuss productivity at all means the nhs will never be what we want it to be, regardless of the amount of funding.
Actually, you are not quite right in saying I want to debate about the status of the nhs, but rather I think we need a debate about how it is going to deliver what we want. For example, I believe this involves everyone paying more tax which appears to be politically unacceptable at the moment and so we, as a population, need to have an honest and open debate. If 'we' are not willing to pay more in tax (or accept more cuts elsewhere in state expenditure) then we have to accept an underfunded nhs. Personally I would be willing to pay more tax but I would also want to see a plan to remove, for example, the bureaucratic inefficiencies in the nhs so that all the increased funding goes to improved care and the lives of those that provide it.

Well, I agree with the vast majority of what you're saying here, although maybe?/probably? not on one point.
First on the agreements. Yes, there probably are efficiency savings in the management tiers that can be made (although I don't feel remotely qualified to address this), and it is a widely held view from many different functional roles and political positions that more integrated IT systems would benefit the NHS.
I also think we need to pay more taxes to deliver services and make them more relevant and/or address rising demand for them. I have a widely expressed and quite simple view of how such tax increases should be paid, but let's not go there to remain on topic. I see very few politicians being honest about the fact that we've entered into -- or are entering into -- a crisis point with numerous services that have been under-funded for over a decade now. Kemi Badenoch at least had the honesty to argue that the state needs to do less in her leadership campaign, which was refreshing, because either the state needs to withdraw from the delivery of certain services (eg NHS, social care) or we need to collect more revenue in taxes. There's no sugar-coating this and the situation has actually arrived at such a dishonest point that both (ie state doing less and more taxes) might be needed.
I'm not so sure that the NHS is quite as bureaucratic and inefficient as many claim, and its size might imply (it remains the largest single employer globally I think). Being free at the point of delivery means that there's far less financial bureaucracy than with other healthcare systems, for instance. But if it can be made less bureaucratic and less inefficient (which I'm sure it can), the input on how to achieve this that I'd most value is from key practitioners within the service.

 

[Highfields Seagull]

I agree with all you say, except that productivity gains do not have to involve 'robots'. There are many other ways including, perhaps, reductions in bureaucracy, management tiers, effective IT systems, and so on. To refuse to discuss productivity at all means the nhs will never be what we want it to be, regardless of the amount of funding.

Whether that's right or wrong, I fail to see what that's got to do with nurses? None of that stuff is in nurses' control so I don't see why that would be linked to nurses' pay. The NHS as a whole is inefficient, therefore frontline care givers should accept an(other) real terms pay cut? Doesn't make any sense.

 

[abc]

Well, I agree with the vast majority of what you're saying here, although maybe?/probably? not on one point.
First on the agreements. Yes, there probably are efficiency savings in the management tiers that can be made (although I don't feel remotely qualified to address this), and it is a widely held view from many different functional roles and political positions that more integrated IT systems would benefit the NHS.
I also think we need to pay more taxes to deliver services and make them more relevant and/or address rising demand for them. I have a widely expressed and quite simple view of how such tax increases should be paid, but let's not go there to remain on topic. I see very few politicians being honest about the fact that we've entered into -- or are entering into -- a crisis point with numerous services that have been under-funded for over a decade now. Kemi Badenoch at least had the honesty to argue that the state needs to do less in her leadership campaign, which was refreshing, because either the state needs to withdraw from the delivery of certain services (eg NHS, social care) or we need to collect more revenue in taxes. There's no sugar-coating this and the situation has actually arrived at such a dishonest point that both (ie state doing less and more taxes) might be needed.
I'm not so sure that the NHS is quite as bureaucratic and inefficient as many claim, and its size might imply (it remains the largest single employer globally I think). Being free at the point of delivery means that there's far less financial bureaucracy than with other healthcare systems, for instance. But if it can be made less bureaucratic and less inefficient (which I'm sure it can), the input on how to achieve this that I'd most value is from key practitioners within the service.

Agree with all your points I base my views re bureaucracy, management etc largely on three relatives and a close friend that have worked in the nhs for years in various different medical roles. But I certainly wouldn't claim to be qualified in the subject or have a clue as to the solutions.
If i was to summarise what I think they all believe, they would all say they are fans of the principles of the nhs but have no faith in the ability of the organisation to deliver it anymore. None believe that more funding alone is the answer but it has to be part of the solution unless, as you suggest, it does less. Personally, as life expectancy increases and medical science advances, I am not sure that 'doing less' is a realistic alternative. Therefore we have to pay more into the pot, but the pot has to be fit for pupose too.

 

[abc]

Whether that's right or wrong, I fail to see what that's got to do with nurses? None of that stuff is in nurses' control so I don't see why that would be linked to nurses' pay. The NHS as a whole is inefficient, therefore frontline care givers should accept an(other) real terms pay cut? Doesn't make any sense.

My beef here is that the Unions are refusing to discuss productivity at all, not whether nurses should get a pay increase. I don't claim to know what might or might not be achieved by such discussions but to simply refuse to have them is absurd. The best chance of the nurses (and other equally deserving front line nhs staff) getting a pay increase that is anywhere near what they are demanding is finding a way to make it affordable to the nhs and ultimately the taxpayer. That means discussing everything and anything, even if that means doing it with a government that has completely lost all credibility. It may not be palatable or ideal but it does 'make sense'.

 

[Goldstone Guy]

I agree with all you say, except that productivity gains do not have to involve 'robots'. There are many other ways including, perhaps, reductions in bureaucracy, management tiers, effective IT systems, and so on. To refuse to discuss productivity at all means the nhs will never be what we want it to be, regardless of the amount of funding.
Actually, you are not quite right in saying I want to debate about the status of the nhs, but rather I think we need a debate about how it is going to deliver what we want. For example, I believe this involves everyone paying more tax which appears to be politically unacceptable at the moment and so we, as a population, need to have an honest and open debate. If 'we' are not willing to pay more in tax (or accept more cuts elsewhere in state expenditure) then we have to accept an underfunded nhs. Personally I would be willing to pay more tax but I would also want to see a plan to remove, for example, the bureaucratic inefficiencies in the nhs so that all the increased funding goes to improved care and the lives of those that provide it.

I agree that reductions in bureaucracy and management, and effective IT would all greatly improve productivity. The problem is those things are nothing to do with nurses, and everything to do with the government (who are telling nurses to be more productive!).

 

[jackanada]

I agree with all you say, except that productivity gains do not have to involve 'robots'. There are many other ways including, perhaps, reductions in bureaucracy, management tiers, effective IT systems, and so on. To refuse to discuss productivity at all means the nhs will never be what we want it to be, regardless of the amount of funding.
Actually, you are not quite right in saying I want to debate about the status of the nhs, but rather I think we need a debate about how it is going to deliver what we want. For example, I believe this involves everyone paying more tax which appears to be politically unacceptable at the moment and so we, as a population, need to have an honest and open debate. If 'we' are not willing to pay more in tax (or accept more cuts elsewhere in state expenditure) then we have to accept an underfunded nhs. Personally I would be willing to pay more tax but I would also want to see a plan to remove, for example, the bureaucratic inefficiencies in the nhs so that all the increased funding goes to improved care and the lives of those that provide it.

Yes there are productivity gains to be made.

The easiest one would be to reverse Cameron's introduction of CCGs which as well as opening the door to privatisation increased admin costs by £2billion pa.

Of course other efficiencies which we already pretty much have would be:

As few beds as possible, think we're there
Contracted staff at absolute minimum... Oh we're way past that.

There are arguments against efficiency too.
Slack in the system means a better response to various effects like pandemics, winter, make incidents.
An excess state employee is plus one on taxpayers and minus one on unemployment.

Paying NHS staff "too much" ( ha ha ha ha ha) puts money into the economy where it does the most good, due to tax multipliers being a real demonstrated and explainable effect while trickle down economics is patently bollocks.