Quote Originally Posted by soulman101 View Post
Our union at BT was a good one and worked well with management , apart from one 4 week strike.
The old "us and them" days was a big issue. As someone who spent most of my career as a manager I guess I'm slightly better placed to see both sides and have always advocated that you get a better result if both management and unions work together. This is also the accepted view of most unions today. The problem I see now however is that economic pressures are leading to a return to the past.

In some ways I think unions can be seen as the voice of "conscious" for employers, as a check to prevent them behaving badly or unfairly towards their employees but if union membership drops it is very easy for that voice to be ignored, particularly in times of economic hardship when companies tighten belts and cost cutting is high on the agenda.