Would Talk Talk have benefitted from TU membership/ manditory TU recognition?

I'm a bit confused by all this.
if TTalk employees were members of a union how would this have prevented TT taking the decision they did ?
And
If it would have made no difference to TT's decision how, at least, would the members be guaranteed a much better deal by being members of a union?

Oldnick poised two important questions and they deserve an answer.

1. Talk Talk would have taken the decision to throw hundreds of people out of work whether they were in a union or not.

2. The unfortunate TT employees are leaderless (other than for a few political hacks interested in their own political future). For TT employees there are two import occasions coming (a) the day of departure (b) redundancy payments.

Wait for the radio/television programmes along with the newspaper bites of the dour future for many of the TT people. I wont even mention the political people who will be trying for gain.

With jobs gone the important thing for the TT employees is now the Redundancy amounts which they may receive. Nobody will convince me that they will receive more because of lack of union representation. If you like the unions or not, at least there would be somebody to take on the TT management.

I dont have any fast figures about who is or who isn't entitled to redundancy payments in TT so therefore my answer is fairly general. Perhaps there is some Talk Talk employee on this forum who can share?

I have wondered the same thing. Talk Talk made a strategic business decision that involved closing down an entire operational section. Even if the employees were members of a union, and even if there was mandatory union recognition, neither the employees nor the union would have any kind of bargaining chip.

oldnick said:

I'm a bit confused by all this.
if TTalk employees were members of a union how would this have prevented TT taking the decision they did ?
And
If it would have made no difference to TT's decision how, at least, would the members be guaranteed a much better deal by being members of a union?

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At a minimum, any union would have made sure that the announcement of their decision was done in a way that was not the unmitigated disaster that Talk Talk's announcement.

Complainer said:

At a minimum, any union would have made sure that the announcement of their decision was done in a way that was not the unmitigated disaster that Talk Talk's announcement.

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I can see how the situation is a disaster for the employees concerned, however, I cant see how it is a disaster from TT's perspective - they got a clean break within a very short timeframe.

Complainer said:

At a minimum, any union would have made sure that the announcement of their decision was done in a way that was not the unmitigated disaster that Talk Talk's announcement.

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I agree that the announcement was a total disaster, but how would a union have mitigated that?

oldnick said:

I'm a bit confused by all this.
if TTalk employees were members of a union how would this have prevented TT taking the decision they did ?
And
If it would have made no difference to TT's decision how, at least, would the members be guaranteed a much better deal by being members of a union?

Click to expand...

Would have made no difference to the decision to leave or the timeframe.

I dont think the employees would collectively got a much better deal by being in a union. A multinational such as TT would have budgeted a set amount for redundancy payments - usually a bit in excess of the legal min. so that the employees have no comeback.

The only difference a union would have made is over the distribution of the portion in excess of the legal minimum in the overall budget - the company may have asked the union to decide how this should be distributed. My guess is that a union would have decided to reward its loyal supporters and given proportionately more to certain categories of worker (where % membership is higher) and to older workers (as most hardline union workers tend to be older). So the result would have been that the younger workers, with mortgages to pay/young families would have got a worse deal that the across the board proposal from the company.

csirl, I have said something similar before, when union workers are in dispute with a company,it is often the case that the older workers will be the most militant,the reason being they have the least to lose by striking..they are nearing the end of their working life.
Whereas the younger ones have large mortgages/.young kids etc

csirl said:

The only difference a union would have made is over the distribution of the portion in excess of the legal minimum in the overall budget - the company may have asked the union to decide how this should be distributed. My guess is that a union would have decided to reward its loyal supporters and given proportionately more to certain categories of worker (where % membership is higher) and to older workers (as most hardline union workers tend to be older). So the result would have been that the younger workers, with mortgages to pay/young families would have got a worse deal that the across the board proposal from the company.

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The union wont decide anything. The union members may decide through their normal democratic processes.

Eh no..thats not entirely correct.. the union leaders LEAD..and sometimes the leaders,lead in the wrong direction.

thedaras said:

Eh no..thats not entirely correct.. the union leaders LEAD..and sometimes the leaders,lead in the wrong direction.

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Unions are democratic. Members elect their shop stewards, members decide when to strike or not to strike, members elect their council members, and members would vote on any decision about redundancy.

How/Why do the members vote on redundancy?

You vote on the offer on the table, do you accept it or go back and push for something different

If the company needs to build up stock and have a smooth handover you have leverage.

Doesn't realy work in a call centre, all you need are some key people and the new hires can be trained up quickly

A key customer of mine relocated to a lower cost economy a few years back.
The company announced the closure 12 months ahead of time. They then put everyone on time and a half 'till the plant closed.
Staff from the new facility in the lower cost economy were trained in at the plant. Key people from the Irish plant were offered jobs in other facilities and on the day of the official closure the Chairman of the board of directors flew in from the US to shake everyone's hand as they left.

That's how it should be done. (no union BTW)

The Talk Talk company knew well what they were doing. They employed a fairly well educated Irish staff and knew that a huge customer base was going to be set up.

Now, all they had to do was maintain this customer base and recruited probably less well educated staff in Asia. Ingenius by Talk Talk. No unions were involved and thereforeTalk Talk had open territory in which to ride.

. . . and they probably received a whole raft of Irish government grants also.

Now, it's fingers-up time from Talk Talk to the staff. Personally, I feel very sorry for the staff.