Leverage - A Legitimate Tactic?

[mushroom25]

http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/organising-toolbox/leverage/

Leverage - taking the industrial dispute to the company shareholders, its competitors, and into the wider community. And, to the families of company managers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10416408/Unite-union-accused-of-using-bully-tactics-in-Grangemouth-dispute.html

Are families of management legitimate targets for industrial action?

[Gromit]

The definition on the Unite website is different from the one you write. It makes no mention of managers families.

// Leverage is a process whereby the Union commits resources and time to making all interested parties aware of the treatment received by Unite members at the hands of an employer. Those interested parties may include shareholders of the employer; competitors of the employer; communities within which the employer operates; customers of the employer and the market place of the employer. //

That seems OK. Picketing someones home is not OK. In the Grangemouth dispute, it would appear the Union over stretched its own rules on 'leverage'.

Leverage as described by Unite is fine. The Leverage used at Grangemouth was unacceptable.

[youngmafbog]

The lefties are getting desperate and will do anything they can to grip power.

Providing they stay within the law then that is fine. Break it though and Plod should come down on the perpetrators like a ton of bricks.

[Gromit]

// The lefties are getting desperate and will do anything they can to grip power. //

The workforce at Grangemouth vote by 81% in favour of a strike.

[jno]

The Ineos director told the Daily Mail that he had feared for his wife and two young children when 30 protesters arrived at his home during the school holidays

feared for his wife and children? These wicked protesters were going to kidnap them and sell them to Greek Roma? lol

[ludwig]

// Leverage as described by Unite is fine. The Leverage used at Grangemouth was unacceptable. //

Quite. What they say and what they actually do is different.

// feared for his wife and children? These wicked protesters were going to kidnap them and sell them to Greek Roma? lol //

Easy to mock, but I suspect you wouldn't like a mob of thirty people 'protesting' outside your house if you had a young family inside. We don't know how threatening their behaviour was, but I bet they weren't just holding holding placards saying 'Down with this sort of thing' and 'careful now'.

[jno]

and if you'd told 30 people they were fired, you'd expect them to say "Oh jolly good" and "Sorry it didn't work out, but you're the boss, so no hard feelings"?

[ludwig]

^ not really relevant. Your point was that he was overegging the thing about fearing for his wife and children. My point was that he most likely wasn't, because it would be a scary experience for anyone.

[jno]

and my point was that neither of us knows but I am wary of anything from the Mail.

[woofgang]

As usual, i think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I am betting that the wife and children were very upset and that it was unpleasant, also that its taking things too far but I don't honestly believe that the family were at physical risk and I don't think that the director HONESTLY thought so either.

[ludwig]

// and my point was that neither of us knows but I am wary of anything from the Mail. //

Telegraph, and I accept we only have his account..which is why I said this
// We don't know how threatening their behaviour was, //

No doubt the Union's version will involve them behaving in an orderly and entirely lawful fashion whilst presenting their legitimate views in a robust but non-intimidatory fashion. A frank but fair exchange of views and fluffy bunny rabbits will perhaps be involved at some point.

As with most things the truth will be somewhere in between, but my guess would be closer to his.

[Philoctetes]

Surely the whole reason for "mass" protest is that a group of people is more intimidating than a single one. Even if they were being utterly orderly, and standing still and quiet, having 30 people there increases tension. And all it needs is for one person to overstep the mark.
And no, families are not legitimate targets. Imagine the uproar if management had sent 30 people round to workers' homes, to stand there with placards saying "Accept the terms - they are quite reasonable"

[LazyGun]

I would agree with Gromits original response. Leverage is a legitimate target, but lines should be drawn over things like individuals and their families.

Still, if Unite for instance wish to legitimize the tactic of leveraging individual directors, equally they should have no problem with, say, a crowd of disgruntled commuters gathering outside Bob Crows house, for instance :)

[jno]

if you sack a worker, do you think his/her family don't suffer?

Why shouldn't it work both ways?

[Peter Pedant]

Is this deja vu or am I dreaming ?
I thought I had added my ponsayz on this
possibly a different thread.

If the idea was to get on telly then it succeeded
He has to make out that a giant inflatable rat is terrifying to his children

Leverage has different meanings in other contexts

[ludwig]

// if you sack a worker, do you think his/her family don't suffer?
Why shouldn't it work both ways? //

Same reason we don't punish a criminal's whole family even though their actions may have caused suffering to numerous people realted to the immediate victim(s).

[ludwig]

// their actions //

clarification - their = the criminal, not his family.
(Meant to say 'his' actions really)

[jno]

a criminal's whole family is punished too. Same principle if the breadwinner's locked up/ has to fork out a fine.

[Peter Pedant]

Ludwig - there was a phone photo on the news
The hacks' cameras kept away - I am sure for reasons of taste and decorum

and looked OK to me. The really well paid directors have a fantasy that their private life can be kept private whereas we have the hacks shouting into our letterboxes - are you there ? we want your side of the story....

[ludwig]

// a criminal's whole family is punished too. Same principle if the breadwinner's locked up/ has to fork out a fine. //

They may suffer, but they're not deliberately targetted. That would be wrong, as I'm sure you'd agree.

I saw the union guy on the news last night. He came out pretty much word for word with the b0ll0x I wrote at 10.33 yesterday, (but disappointingly no mention of fluffy bunnies). I think he'd been on answerbank and thought, hey that sounds good, I'll use it later.

[ludwig]

// Ludwig - there was a phone photo on the news
The hacks' cameras kept away - I am sure for reasons of taste and decorum //

I think the phone photo was taken by neighbours. I'm sure if the hacks had any inkling that something was happening they'd have been there like the proverbial s&it off a shovel. Taste and decorum are two words not in their vocabulary.