Strikes are getting massive publicity in the UK at the moment due to several strikes by various unions who are taking advantage of the Olympics to put extra pressure on unions.

In this article, the Immigration Minister, Damian Green, complains that due to a low turnout, only 1 in 10 PCS union members actually voted for a strike....

BBC News - Home Office staff vote to strike over jobs and pay

Whilst I can see his point, aren't politicans getting into a dangerous area here?

For one thing, I have never seen politics complain when a majority of people who voted against a strike. It seems only when the vote goes against what they want do they complain - otherwise they are quite content to accept the vote.

More importantly, low turnout in many UK elections means that many MPs were elected with considerably less than 50% of people eligible to vote, let alone 50% of people who did vote.

To take the most extreme example, in the 2010 general election, in Manchester Central only 44% of eligible voters actually did vote.

The candidate who won, Tony Lloyd for Labour, got 53% of the votes cast - but that means that less than a quarter of the people who were entitled to vote actually voted for him, and more than three-quarters did not vote for him.

More people did not vote than did vote - therefore is the result valid?

Should there be laws relating to strike ballots, and if so, what should they specify? Will a 50% + 1 turnout be sufficient to validate the result? Or would they have to go even further and say that more than 50% of the people eligible to vote must vote in favour of a strike?

Strikes are crap, the workers suffer to advance the gains of yet another group of power mongers.

Sort out the issues before it gets to strike talk, mediators should be doing their job and Gov should be making sure there is as fair a balance as possible between party's has been struck...by court order if thats what it takes.

50% + 1 for me although the National Union of Miners [when they had mines!] had a 55% minimum for strike action.

If they dont vote thats not the unions fault, count the votes that is cast and majority wins.

No. Striking should be allowed under the following conditions:

- No member of a union can be forced to strike.
- Any striker (someone who refuses to do their job) can be summarily fired and replaced.
- Any persion or organisation coordinating commercial action against any anterprise or person can be charged with anti-cometitive practices and/or blackmail depending on the details.



That would help sort things out satisfactorily for everyone, except for union fat cats, standover merchants and political wannabes.

Originally Posted by Tombo

No. Striking should be allowed under the following conditions:

- No member of a union can be forced to strike.
- Any striker (someone who refuses to do their job) can be summarily fired and replaced.
- Any persion or organisation coordinating commercial action against any anterprise or person can be charged with anti-cometitive practices and/or blackmail depending on the details.



That would help sort things out satisfactorily for everyone, except for union fat cats, standover merchants and political wannabes.

What you are doing there is effectively neutralising the right to strike through the back door.

Originally Posted by Tombo

No. Striking should be allowed under the following conditions:

- No member of a union can be forced to strike.
- Any striker (someone who refuses to do their job) can be summarily fired and replaced.
- Any persion or organisation coordinating commercial action against any anterprise or person can be charged with anti-cometitive practices and/or blackmail depending on the details.



That would help sort things out satisfactorily for everyone, except for union fat cats, standover merchants and political wannabes.

I wonder did you ever work in a factory , you might change your mind if you did.

The low turn for strike votes in Britain is directly as a result of Tory (anti-)union legislation that requires all strike ballots to be carried out by postal vote. Postal votes traditionally have had a very poor response. Prior to Tory legislation all strike votes took place on the shop-floor and generally had a very high turn out.

Originally Posted by Tombo

No. Striking should be allowed under the following conditions:

- No member of a union can be forced to strike.
- Any striker (someone who refuses to do their job) can be summarily fired and replaced.
- Any persion or organisation coordinating commercial action against any anterprise or person can be charged with anti-cometitive practices and/or blackmail depending on the details.

That would help sort things out satisfactorily for everyone, except for union fat cats, standover merchants and political wannabes.

This was actually the situation prior to the scrapping of the Combination Acts in 1824 - guess what - it didn't stop strikes, they were just far more violent affairs as workers had to engage in clandestine activity (meeting vicious repression from the state) to win their rights.

Perhaps Green then would be in favour of people only getting elected to the House of Commons if more than 50% of the electorate vote for the winning candidate.

Sounds as if Damian Green is in favour of PR but his political party are not.