Re: 2 EL's on Patrick's

[wsharris@ozemail.com.au (Bill)]

On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:24:20 GMT, pcc@ocean.com.au (Les Brown) wrote:

>"Exnarc" <gwrly@netspace.net.au> wrote in aus.rail:
>
>I just know I'm gonna regret posting this. Normally I wait until the
>next day before I send something just to be sure that what I've
>written is what I meant to say. I have made an exception on this
>occasion.
>
>>Look Les,
>>
>>I was pointing out the position of on train staff, if you knew anything at
>>all you would know that GSR. don't employ Drivers and I don't work for them.
>>However I get a little heated up when people who were employed by (AN) who
>>have homes and families to keep are exploited by companies who take them on
>>knowing they can get them to sign anything to get a job rather than end up
>>on the dole and people like you who sit back passing judgement about the
>>workers being subsidised by shareholders.
>>
>Funny comments about me passing judgements. My reply to you initially
>was because I believed you were totally one-sided about the judgements
>your were passing on others. All I was after was more information
>before I made up my mind. You seem to have gone straight for the
>jugular of the nearest throat you could find.
>
>>Get real where do you come from???
>
>The real world, Bob, not the sheltered workshops that once masqueraded
>for government railways.
>
>>What are you???
>
>Human being. More or less.
>
>>I guess you've already told me that by your reply to my last posting.
>>
>Stick around pal, there is a lot more I can tell you that should
>dispell once and for all any remaining doubts you may have about me.
>
>>If GSR. are half the businessmen they claim to be why did they buy into a
>>industry that is loosing so much money???
>>
>Why? Because they're people who can probably run a railway better than
>a government can,  because they can take risks that no politician
>would dare do. And if they don't do their job well, they're out.
>Welcome to the real world Bob, sink or swim. It's a world based more
>on merit and talent than seniority and brown-nosing the boss that
>gained you a promotion on a government railway. GSR are probably the
>kind of people prepared to take a risk and put their money on
>something they believe in. Could you ever imagine any government doing
>that, Labour or Liberal?
>
>I believe that if GSR can't do it, then certainly no government can
>(with perhaps QR excepted, but I reserve the right to change my mind
>on them at short notice). Politicians don't take risks.
>
>>Stiff luck to Serco and its shareholders, they've done no favours to anyone.
>>Personally I'd like to see them go under, however as always it would be the
>>workers who loose out in the end.
>>
>Yeh, it'll be the workers, and the shareholders, who are probably one
>and the same in many cases, but not the government - they couldn't
>give a rat's...
>
>>Serco (GER.) have taken the AWA's to there legal limits, they are a credit
>>to Peter Rieth and his screw the worker phylosophy.
>>
>As I said, where was the union? And as I also said, you aren't telling
>the full story either.
>>
>Listen sunshine, I tell you a couple of things. Any boss that wants to
>screw the worker is asking for real trouble. If I was a shareholder in
>a company that had that mentality I'd sell my shares as fast as I
>could. The best, most profitable companies rely on stability of their
>workers, and the more skilled the worker is, the greater the
>importance on stability. It costs too much if the workers go on strike
>or if they leave. To replace and retrain a skilled worker can cost an
>organisation anywhere between 1 - 2 years salary IN ADDITION to the
>cost of paying the worker to be trained. It's just not worth having
>disgruntled employees, to say nothing about pissed off customers. I've
>been there, I know the facts.
>
>If you are going to foster a "them and us" mentality instead of trying
>to encourage an attitude of getting along and making the railways of
>Australia actually work as they should, then you're either
>contemplating retirement, or if the railways of this country were
>closed down tomorrow, you wouldn't give stuff as long as you got paid
>what you think you're entitled to. 
>
>There are those of us who care more for the railway industry than you
>obviously do. What a shame you don't work for the road-lobby.
>
>Look, I don't argue with someone about how well or otherwise they do
>their job, but don't pick an argument with me 'cause you reckon
>railway management sucks and how the worker is the poor down-trodden
>bastard that management is always trying to screw. I've heard it for
>as long as I've been hanging around railway yards for over 35 years,
>and I was told it existed long, long before that. I can find too many
>examples of workers screwing management to take you seriously.
>
>Les Brown



Les you are a dipstick .....