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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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 Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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Dear LCK,
Well, there's always a downside, but IM(not so)HO, unions have accomplished a lot more good than not.
Regards,
John |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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Without them we would still be working 6-7 days a week, 10+ hours a day, alongside 10 year olds... no vacations, no sick days... no benefits... subsistence pay. It is obvious to see how the working conditions have gone downhill in the US since the weakening of the unions after Reagan.
Most employers want slaves... a situation that can be seen clearly when one looks at the Gulf where workers have zero rights... and increasingly so even in the US as worker rights have been rapidly eroding.
It makes me glad to be retired.
VS |
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Kalima Shahada
Joined: 11 Sep 2009
Posts: 198
Location: I live in a house, but my home is in the stable.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Citizenkane wrote: |
Even if they did allow trade unions, would it make any difference on the ground?
Look at Saudi Labor Law, for example. It's hundreds of pages long, very thorough and reads as though it very much protects workers' rights. Has anyone ever heard of any foreigner successfully making a case with the Labour Laws, however? I haven't. Last year, a few former colleagues of mine had a very good case where their employer was clearly breaking the law. One of them came close to taking legal action, but in the end was told that it would just be a waste of time and money, as the employer always wins. So the Labor Laws are worthless in practice. I've a feeling the same would be true of trade unions, were they to be allowed. |
No truer words were ever said on this forum! You'd have a better chance of getting your embassy to help you than anything written on the books of Saudi Labor Law. |
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Kalima Shahada
Joined: 11 Sep 2009
Posts: 198
Location: I live in a house, but my home is in the stable.
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
| Without them we would still be working 6-7 days a week, 10+ hours a day, alongside 10 year olds... no vacations, no sick days... no benefits... subsistence pay. It is obvious to see how the working conditions have gone downhill in the US since the weakening of the unions after Reagan. |
That along with the weakening of the economy right along with it!
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Most employers want slaves... a situation that can be seen clearly when one looks at the Gulf where workers have zero rights... and increasingly so even in the US as worker rights have been rapidly eroding.
It makes me glad to be retired.
VS |
You should be glad! Most of us who are younger than you will never get chance to retire. We will have to work until we die and our social security accounts will be drained before we ever get a chance to apply! Forget about pensions! Forget about medicare! Forget about 401k plans - or is that a dirty word these days? As an American citizen, I have felt like a tax slave to a federal government which doesn't care about future generations. If I'm not a slave in the Gulf, I'm still a slave nonetheless. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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Who wants to retire? Teaching's too much fun. Why would I want to stop doing something that's so enjoyable?
Regards,
John |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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| When will we see the emergence of a Jimmy Hoffa for the EFL working stiffs ? |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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Dear scot47,
Jimmy Hoffa has been a stiff for lo, these many years. What we really need is a reincarnation of the Molly Maguires:
The Molly Maguires was a secret society of largely Irish-American coal miners who allegedly used violence and murder to redress mining labor grievances in the mid-1800s. However, many regard them as champions of the labor movement to create fairer working conditions.
Regards,
John |
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lazycomputerkids
Joined: 22 Sep 2009
Posts: 360
Location: Tabuk
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| 7168Riyadh wrote: |
| The university are moving aggressively to take control of the PYP programme, but will likely remain heavily dependent on Bell for recruitment. |
You don't proffer a reason. Since posting to this forum, I've learned of Skyline (my recruiter) serving more than one contractor. How is a recruiter viewed favorably when its client is not?
Perhaps the recruiter is inconsequential given the role of chance with finding a successful candidate. A few months after I arrived, competing recruiter ads two-thirds the offer I accepted were surprising. Ads for a 1/3 more have less appeal, I must admit, but only in the short term. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Has anyone ever heard of any foreigner successfully making a case with the Labour Laws, however? |
Yes. And cases of the employer backing down when confronted by the lawyer.
As all the cases you mention never went to court they don't count.
To win a court case you have to file it.
The problem normally is not winning the court case. It's the long wait while it's settled. If it's for SR20,000 or more it's well worth it, as you give a lawyer power of attorney, and his fees are not a significant percentage, but employers are fully aware of this and try and nickel and dime you of much smaller amounts. |
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Kipling
Joined: 13 Mar 2009
Posts: 371
Location: ...Ah Mrs K peel me a grape!!!....and have one yourself!!!!
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| Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 3:50 am Post subject: Joseph Stallion was a night Mare!!! |
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| Quote: |
Even if they did allow trade unions, would it make any difference on the ground?
Look at Saudi Labor Law, for example. It's hundreds of pages long, very thorough and reads as though it very much protects workers' rights. Has anyone ever heard of any foreigner successfully making a case with the Labour Laws, however? I haven't. Last year, a few former colleagues of mine had a very good case where their employer was clearly breaking the law. One of them came close to taking legal action, but in the end was told that it would just be a waste of time and money, as the employer always wins. So the Labor Laws are worthless in practice. I've a feeling the same would be true of trade unions, were they to be allowed.
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One of the greatest pieces of legislation ever written about the rights of the individual and collective worker was Stalin's 1937 Constitution
However as one historian remarked
" It wasn't worth the paper it was written on"
Mr K
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Kalima Shahada
Joined: 11 Sep 2009
Posts: 198
Location: I live in a house, but my home is in the stable.
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| Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 6:44 am Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
Who wants to retire? Teaching's too much fun. Why would I want to stop doing something that's so enjoyable?
Regards,
John |
Don't say that in a room full of unionized American teachers or you're likely to receive the largest amount of boos and hisses in your entire lifetime. Next thing you know, we will be reading a cover story on the papers about how johnslat was mauled to death by scores of angry retirement aged teachers. |
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PoS2010
Joined: 29 Mar 2010
Posts: 21
Location: rock n hard place
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
Without them we would still be working 6-7 days a week, 10+ hours a day, alongside 10 year olds... no vacations, no sick days... no benefits... subsistence pay. It is obvious to see how the working conditions have gone downhill in the US since the weakening of the unions after Reagan.
Most employers want slaves... a situation that can be seen clearly when one looks at the Gulf where workers have zero rights... and increasingly so even in the US as worker rights have been rapidly eroding.
It makes me glad to be retired.
VS |
Heard a nice thing from Mr Noam Chomsky a couple of weeks back, he was explaining how prior to the First World War their was a growing Feild Movement that was aimed at exposing the total inhumanity of renting oneself and wherein for your labour you recieved nothing more than a wage. You had no stake in the enterprise in which your labour was used to build up and so essentially they saw it as little different from Slavery.
However as Noam tells it after much independent press and activism the big bad capitalist ways won out and the movenet was crushed.
JUST out of interest........
The reason ( well the theological basis, the Fatwa ) for the prevention of Trade Unions in the Kingdom is that it encourages factionalism, something which because all Saudis are Muslim then runs contrary to the noble aims of Islam which is to join Muslims as brothers in faith. Hence any type of factionalism is generally discouraged, ( ofcourse notwithstanding the massive problem of tribalism which still bubbles away under the surface)
If anyone here has been around the Muslim world a little then they will be aware that in any other given Muslim country you will find different Masaajid entrenched in differing interpretations of the Islamic Creed and as such factionalism is rife, such as in Yemen. You have in yemen Trade Unions
However IN KSA they jealosly protect the masaajid from becoming springboards of factionalism, not only Masaajid but any type of movement or activity which would encourage splitting of the ranks of the faithfull.
Michael.... now not a lotta people know that ........ |
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Sheikh N Bake
Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 1307
Location: Dis ting of ours
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
Who wants to retire? Teaching's too much fun. Why would I want to stop doing something that's so enjoyable?
Regards,
John |
Oh yeah, I always say "you mean...we get paid for this?" You believe me, right? |
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Sheikh N Bake
Joined: 26 Apr 2007
Posts: 1307
Location: Dis ting of ours
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| PoS2010 wrote: |
[
Heard a nice thing from Mr Noam Chomsky a couple of weeks back, he was explaining how prior to the First World War their was a growing Feild Movement that was aimed at exposing the total inhumanity of renting oneself However as Noam tells it after much independent press and activism the big bad capitalist ways won out and the movenet was crushed.
........ |
Good god, Chomsky is a fringe crackpot who should stick to linguistics and his debatable language organ. Poorly educated Arabs love to quote him because he never says anything positive about his home country, which makes Arabs feel good.
The US is not necessarily a place where the ordinary worker has no rights--just fewer, perhaps, than Western Europe, where people think more than 4 hours of work a day and less than 2 hours for lunch equals oppression. The US is at least litigious in the arena of worker rights and the little guy has a chance, unlike in Japan, say, where the the big corporation always wins, or China, where everyone boasts of the foreign exchange the government owns but conveniently forgets it's been earned on the backs of factory slaves who toil 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week for $150 a month tops. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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Dear Sheik,
Of COURSE I believe you. After thirty-three years, I'm still surprised they actually PAY me to do this.
As my dear, sainted Mom once advised me:
"Son, the secret to a happy career is this: discover what it is you love to do, and then find people dumb enough to pay you to do it."
So far, I haven't had any problem finding those dumb people.
Regards,
John |
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