I have spent time on both sides of the union/management divide.
My experience was that unless something was important enough for the membership to be willing to get off their butts and fight for it, it was "compromised" away.
A number of key phrases kept cropping up.
Here are some
In the current climate.
Reasonable compromise.
Unrealistic expectactions.
Unreasonable expectations.
The best we can do for now.
and so on ad nauseam.
Not once, never, ever, did I hear "we are doing well now, we can afford to offer something more".
Maybe I was just with airlines that were born losers, but that phrase never was heard.
So colleagues/comrades you hold the key to your futures, not the union executive. They can talk till they are blue in the face, if the membership is not willing to back their talk with some sort of action, then it is just that, mere talk. They will be fighting a rearguard action, and the company will chip another little bit off.
(edited for spelling)
Last edited by ZQA297/30; 23rd Aug 2005 at 10:04.