Lenox, I think you are off topic I came out a PP on the questions. I feel the gap will narrow during the last few days before the election and it will be close, in Andalucía anyway. What do you think?

My dad knew a little ditty sung to the tune of The Red Flag:

'The Working Class can kiss my A£$e, I've got the boss's job at last'.

Scargill used the Unions for his own ends just as much as Thatcher did.

Although I do agree with Bil in that just because certain members of an organisation is corrupt, doen't mean that the concept or philosophy of the thing is wrong. ( I hope he will remember to apply that to Christianity instead of always going on about peadophile priests).

Trades Union were, and are, a necessary thing to allow the working wo/man to fight back. I agree that many were far too militant in the past and a few are still, but that does not negate the good that they have done and are still doing for working people.

(For Jackytoo) I've lived in Andalucía for a long time. Since before the Autonomous region was invented. The PSOE returned to power in the eighties due to the ideas and energy of Felipe Gonzalez, Alfonso Guerra and several other comrades from Seville. Heady times. Then Seville became a huge power block and, with the introduction of the autonomies and the Junta de Andalucía, together with the EXPO in 1992, Seville became a by-word for corruption.
It's not changed since then. There are too many people tied to the status quo. However, there are cracks in the wall.
Griñán inherited his job as President (rather like Gordon Brown), and, like Brown, knows that he will lose it in an e-lect-ion. As a result, rather than having an autonomous election on Nov 20 (Andalucía always has its elections together with national elections), he is holding on until next March where, he hopes, either we will all be bored, unemployed or living in Germany.
Seriously though, the PP contender in Andalucía, like Rajoy in Madrid, has lost so many elections that he is 'damaged goods'.

Oh yeah, for the benefit of Dick, where did your right to vote come from, the reactionary conservative side or the progressive people who might well have been what you could call socialist, if we define that as wanting a move towards a fairer society?

You are quite right, and I agree. There should be a box that you can tick, in addition, or instead of, your vote, and this would have to be counted and announced.

Perhaps it could be titled "I hate you all'?

I promise you that were I in a Union, and there was institutionalised paedophilia throughout it, you would hear me scream loud and long. Very loud and very, very long.

If the sort of people on here put half the effort into campaigning against the corruption in the church that they do into trying to tear down the unions, then the world could be a much better place.

You don't hear Dick or anyone like him saying that the unions shouldn't be criticised because they do soem good, eh?

He can't even answer the question about where does he think all his rights come from.

Can you or anyone else name a single right we have as the common people that was freely given by the right? That wasn't paid for in blood or hard labour to get?

My mum in her youth spent many a long hour knocking on doors trying to persuade people (especially women) to join Unions and/or vote Communist. This was in the 1940s, before I was born. Both these things were a strong and vibrant voice for working people at the time.

My dad believed in closed shop Unions, I never have, even when I was votong Labour. We had many a disagreement about it.

I can see why closed shops were necessary at one time, but would not want them now.

When I first worked for Local Government I spent ages not in the Union at all as NALGO were too militant for me. In the end I hivered and hovered and finally signed up for NUPE.....just before it amalgamated with NALGO and became the even more left-wing and militant UNISON. I did opt out of the political donation though.

UNISON (at least in my Council) cared not for the office workers, it worked mainly for the cleaners and other blue-collar workers.

There are many faults in the union system.

I remember a lovely story about Tony Booth, Bliar's father in law.

A journo from some rag was interviewing him, trying to wind him up by asking him about the misuse of power by the unions. Booth looked at him hard and said "You are right. For a few years the Unions had too much power which they used unwisely and improperly. Let's just compare that with all the hundreds and hundreds of years that those at the top have ruthlessly exploited the working man, and see which weighs heaviest in the scales."

Me, I'll second that. What's more, people at the top are still doing it, paying impoverished workers below the minimum wage, making them pay for their own safety and protective gear out of their own wages (completely illegal, and in some areas common practice).

We need unions.

It's alright for people like Dick who feel they have all the rights they need, to turn around and shout 'I'm OK, you can pull the ladder up now!'

Maybe you didn't notice bil, but we have moved into the 21st century and a totally different ball game. The Unions did a useful job in their day, however over the last half century they have cost working ppl.very dear in lost jobs closed factories and businesses moving abroad to avoid the aggravation.

At the present time they are making there presence felt in situations where it is not really required, whilst at the same time remaining powerless to help those that really need it.

They have also done a lot of good, even in those times.

The current time doesn't call for no unions, it calls for changed unions to match the times.

Tell me, without a union, who will fight for proper conditions and pay for those at the bottom of the heap?

At present it seems no one, least of all the unions are capable of helping those at the bottom of the heap.

So instead in a sad attempt to justify their existance they switch their muscle to situations where it isn't really required and cause unnecessary aggravation, doing no one apart from their own sweet selves any good at all in the long term.

So what's the alternative?

On the whole I agree with you (Is that a first??)

I haver decided that I am going to vote for whoever can make life better for my son and his partner. They are young, they have their life to lead and their working life still to do. I am retired and my pensions are not going to disappear. I'll do what I can for them. He is a shop worker and she is a cleaner, both on slightly more than minimum wage.

At the moment it appears that getting the country out of this financial hole is the priority, and will benefit my son anfd his girlfriend more in the long run. I feel that Cameron's Tories can do that better than Miliband's Labour. Ergo, I will vote for them until I feel someone else can do a better job.

I can't argue with your logic. I might even consider doing the same, tho it would stick in my craw to do so.

However, in all honesty, as someone on here once said to me. The heads of government, in times like these are as much in control of the situation as you would be in a row boat in a hurricane.

I truly think that a sock puppet wouldn't be much worse, especially if they used a clean sock.

Do you really think that factories have been closed and businesses moved abroad because of British trade unions? I think it's far more likely that these things happened as part of the globalisation trend - companies getting more or less slave labour in less developed countries, going wherever they can maximise their profits without having to worry about such niceties as safety, environmental impact, and all the rest of it.

Perhaps you think that British workers should have accepted the same working conditions as those in China, India and the other fast growing economies? Would you have been willing to do so yourself?

There seems to be something of a disconnect in some people's thinking on this issue. On the one hand, they bemoan the way that workers in the private sector have been treated, their jobs, wages and pensions decimated. On the other hand, they complain that workers in the private sector (in their own words, the area where trade union organisation remains strongest) have been protected. Don't they see any connection here?

The biggest enemy of the working class is apathy. Trade unions per se cannot achieve everything on behalf of their members - some situations demand that the members themselves are willing to take action, and if necessary lose money, in order to protect what they value in the long term. As long as they remain slumped in front of Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor and Big Brother and swallowing the bilge about evil trade unions shoved at them by the tabloids, they will carry on getting shafted. "Bread and circuses", "Opium for the masses" - plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose".