Unions are an anachronism, a leftover from the steam age. All unions do is provide another, parallel level of management between the workers and the profit.

Disagree with me, union-card holder? What vehicle does your Boss drive? What vehicle does your union-Boss drive? What vehicle do YOU drive? I rest my case.

We have laws to take care of workers these days. In my not even close to humble opinion, we should get rid of unions; they are a parasite living off the backs of workers.

now the couple of days work they've been working on for us for the past several months, will take even longer

I hope the spineless bastards I worked with (was IBM, then TUPEd to Fujitsu) have grown a set of cajones to strike. I tried to organise a "blue flu", but everyone was too scared to take the risk. I left there in disgust to a £10k pay increase.

Having spent some time on the inside, I don't believe the majority are "field engineers" nor based on customer sites.

Also, I understand the majority of Fujitsu staff are not union members so what impact is a customer really likely to see from this? Collective bargaining can only hope to achieve if the collective is large enough and, in this case, I don't think the officially represented collective is.

"Companies could not arbitrarily change working conditions and basically reduce people's pay like fujitsu and the rest are trying to do."

Uh ... They CAN'T. Not unless the folks doing the work are too clueless to have a real contract with the company in question. Which, in theory, the union was supposed to take care of. Right?

Seriously, if there was a real contract (union driven or personal) this wouldn't be an issue.

This is 2009, not 1809 ... Education, people. It's kind of important. Understand whatever contract you decide to agree to ... unless you want it to bite you in the ass.

But whatever, AC 04:27 (may I call you that, or am I being too familiar?), if you want the second, parallel tier of management to make your decisions for you with regards to your contract with any given company, instead of making them for yourself, who am I to argue?

Follow your bliss. But don't gripe at me when your bank balance suffers because you are paying parasites for no good reason.

"Fujitsu employees signed contracts that included DB pensions."

Ok. They have a contract. Where is the issue?

If it doesn't include a "fire/lay-off/re-hire under same terms" clause, it's hardly Fujitsu's problem. And again, wasn't the union supposed to be taking care of that kinda thing? Why didn't they? And are any of the union-Bosses going to be losing any money (or sleep!) over this?

I am educated. And my eyes are wide open. Unions are an anachronism, living on the backs of the workers, in parallel with traditional management.