Reply to: Unions vs Conservative government, the rematch

[The Spartan]

It surprises me. Each time I visit the UK, with my British passport, I´m asked by passport control 'how long do you intend to stay´, and occasionally ´are you coming here to work´. My first instinct is to respond ´none of your business´ seeing as I am a British citizen and have the right to live and work in the UK. Are they just pretending to do something useful by making things slow and difficult for people who are allowed to be in the UK?

I have a passport with a microchip so I get to use the fast track lane, one thing that really bothers me though is nowhere on the passport application does it say that I consent to the use of facial recognition

[darmstadt]

I don't know, but I don't like the fact that they know.

They can tell by looking at my passport as it was issued by the consulate here although in theory I could have lost it and had another one issued but I doubt that would be the case as it takes 6 weeks to come through. Interestingly enough I had the German police around the other day who wanted to see my passport and none of us could work out where it was issued as it doesn't actually say where, you have to find the TLA: FCO in it somewhere.

[Mich the Tester]

I've never been asked. How do they know you live abroad?

I don't know, but I don't like the fact that they know.

[AtW]

Get a diplomatic passport and you won't be asked any stupid questions

[petergriffin]

It surprises me. Each time I visit the UK, with my British passport, I´m asked by passport control 'how long do you intend to stay´, and occasionally ´are you coming here to work´. My first instinct is to respond ´none of your business´ seeing as I am a British citizen and have the right to live and work in the UK. Are they just pretending to do something useful by making things slow and difficult for people who are allowed to be in the UK?

Playing the devil's advocate, even if you're British but you live abroad, EU regulations demand that you register to the local police station or council if you intend to stay for longer that 60 days. This is not implemented in Britain but let's say you were French and lived in UK you'd be asked this question if you went back to France. I've seen it many times.

[TimberWolf]

Interestingly the Daily Mail top rated reader comments are somewhat leftish.
New law to ban strike militants: As Olympic chaos looms, Osborne calls for action to stop minority of hardliners holding Britain to ransom | Mail Online

[Moscow Mule]

I've never been asked. How do they know you live abroad?

Me either. You sure you're not going down the foreigners lane Mich?

[Bacchus]

Sack them all and draft in the police and the military.

Oh wait.....

Sack them all and outsource it!

Bob will do it, very cheap, very quick.

Works for IT in the banks and telecoms companies.

Oh wait.....

[NotAllThere]

It surprises me. Each time I visit the UK, with my British passport, I´m asked by passport control 'how long do you intend to stay´, and occasionally ´are you coming here to work´. My first instinct is to respond ´none of your business´ seeing as I am a British citizen and have the right to live and work in the UK. Are they just pretending to do something useful by making things slow and difficult for people who are allowed to be in the UK?

I've never been asked. How do they know you live abroad?

[centurian]

Can't wait until the Olypmics are over, so that the unions lose their massive bargaining chip.

Hopefully Boris will then finally take on the tube unions. Let them strike for a month if they like (*). If it means I have to walk to work every day, so be it if it means their stranglehold gets broken.



(*) - Which they won't - they can't afford to. It's not like the miners that were prepared to go hungry for months at a time. As soon as they can't afford their second holiday, they'll be back to work.

[SueEllen]

It surprises me. Each time I visit the UK, with my British passport, I´m asked by passport control 'how long do you intend to stay´, and occasionally ´are you coming here to work´. My first instinct is to respond ´none of your business´ seeing as I am a British citizen and have the right to live and work in the UK. Are they just pretending to do something useful by making things slow and difficult for people who are allowed to be in the UK?

No they are actually checking that your level of English matches what it says on the passport so you are really likely to be the person in the photo.

Unfortunately unlike their foreign counterparts they aren't intelligent enough to know what flight you came in on, and ask you something like "So you flew in from Heathrow?" When they know full well that there are no Heathrow flights within those hours.

If you don't give them a fluid answer in English, regardless of whether it's rude or polite, preferably with a nice British accent then you will get detained.

And I know people who have been detained.

[AtW]

If a company has really shafted you on employment law - these days you can have no win no fee lawyers.

First those "no win no fee" lawyers would only take sure win cases.

Secondly the person who agrees to go with them is likely to get shafted second time.

That said unions that have members in different companies should not be legal - it's a monopoly and just like companies are not allowed to offer unified working conditions in a sector same should apply to unions.

[doodab]

I find it umbelievable that the powers that be are pushing through pay cuts and job cuts when border security is a laughing stock and they are struggling to recruit staff. They should be worrying about staff retention, not doing their utmost to piss people off with the olympics round the corner. This is grade A management stupidity.

Those advocating they 'find another job' would look a bit silly if they did just that en masse as the problem would get far worse.

[IR35FanClub]

Reverse the reversal...

Not a fan of unions - I see them as pay in advance legal representatives. If a company has really shafted you on employment law - these days you can have no win no fee lawyers. It's not the 1920's any more. No need to pay £20 a month subs up front to pay the fat Cats union bosses at the top of the union pay scale. (Who I presume also get expenses top go and lobby over dinner??)

Even as a permie, I found no need - once we had two rounds of redundancies so I volunteered to be an employee rep and represent the staff in the management meetings deciding on how the selections criteria would be made and to discuss other alternative. Staff had a vote and deicide just to get it over with rather than doing short hours ets. Worked quite well, er, apart from the people who were made compulsory redundant.

Nope. I recall a union rep trying to sign us up, and his words were the best thing blair did was to reverse the legislation maggie bought in saying a company didn't have to recognise a union. Maybe Camerons lasting legacy could be reversing the reversal!

What I actually think - is that no strike will go ahead, but they are using the olympics to play politics to get their message across. Ie it's idle bully boy threats. So here's mine - if the strike does go ahead - and I suffer delays - I'll give a nice upper cut to any union reps picketing the stations. Am I going to really carry that threat out... hmmnn lets find out!

[Ketchup]

I would love someone to break the power of the unions. They are damaging to the economy. Look at BA, their cabin crew are the best paid out of all the british airlines (by a long way) and still go on strike for more money, because they know they have the company by the short and curlies.

Same as the firebrigade - threatened to strike on bonfire night. And now unions threatening to strike over olympics. It is basically blackmailing and pollutes the free flow of labour. The laws of supply and demand should be allowed to govern the jobs which people do, so if people aren't happy with their jobs, they should get a new one and then if their arent enough people to do a job, the wage should be increased to attract people to it. Not people complaining they don't have enough holiday, find a new ****ing job then, dont blackmail your employers,

When i was in permieland, i worked for a company who had a union, they collectively bargained for all payrises which i had an objection with. They started all graduate IT workers on the same wage, i started a month later than one guy so missed the pay rise for the year, i realised that because of that, i would never earn as much as him, and the gap between our wages would get bigger every year. I eventually proved that over 50% of the workforce weren't happy with colelctive bargaining so the company issued a vote, (ended up 75-25) against collective bargaining.

I became enourmously unpopular with the neandathols in the union, who threatened to go on strike over it, realised their strike would be illegal and many of them left. The company is actually better off for it now, people get performance based pay-rises, not just the standard 2.5% the union were negotiating