Has freedom of speech gone or can i not say what i want as nothing of bad taste was said in my last post.WW and AH are/were men hated by many that is a fact. As for her Grandfather we go to war to stop evil like AH so we can live in a free country fact.
Apology to Ruthanne if you can't understand my mindset but not in any way were my comments directed at you or your Grandfather.
I have edited it to reflect my view.
In short, you have freedom of speech - it is here on this site (not on CF), and one expresses their view here with the knowledge that it is open and free, and that other have the right to challenge, rebut and disagree with your opinions and views. You post here with the knowledge that your syntax, insinuation, turn of phrase, implication and facts will be challenged by educated participants - that is the nature of the beast.
That is democracy - that it has been established that equating this labour disagreement with fights for political freedom is insulting and inappropriate, and the path by which we reached that conclusion as a community on this forum is transparent and open for all to see as well.
Complaining that forum is undemocratic simply as someone disagrees with you is tantamount to a gross misunderstanding of the concept of freedom of speech. Shouting louder than the next person, failing to address valid criticism and evading accountability as Unite has done is the opposite of democracy.
It worries me greatly that an organisation whose major aim other than representation is the funding of the Labour Party at the core of our democratic processes, has so little tolerance for valid criticism and debate. Contrary to what many of the large union figures throughout English union history have thundered, the importance of being "on message" is of far lesser importance than establishing a consensus among the multitude of internal views that comprise the membership of an organisation.
The whole reason that unionism is dying as a concept is the failure of the participants to address the real concerns of the workforce and work across a broader range of industries, rather than fighting to the death in marginal industrial businesses with little future in the UK due to the cost base at which they operate. Not to mention that there is no longer an real exploitation of the type that Victorian England saw during the rise of the Labour movement.
I am not going to attack you at a personal level (f40 has educated us all); I would however encourage your posts now to be locked for editing, as it would establish the manner in which outdated union politics attempts to create a sense of solidarity through unwarranted calls to a greater good, which have little or no relevance to the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is that the reps failed to negotiate a not unreasonable set of requests from management to arrive at a mutually acceptable outcome!
As the age-old saying goes, if you can't stand the heat...