Woodley, Simpson, and a BlackBerry

What larks on the 23rd floor! The Euston Tower in Central London was visited yesterday by members of the Socialist Worker rent a mob display team. Reports varied as to their numbers. Some put them at 60, while others at 200. If the former, then any hope of saving this once populous student body; famous for patronising the working class, looks grim indeed.

If reports are to be believed then these hero's of labour owe their presence at ACAS to none other than dear old Derek Simpson, the joint General Secretary of the trade union UNITE, who twittered his union's discussions at ACAS with British Airways via his BlackBerry to the world outside. As a consequence of Mr Simpson's asininity, it seems that the IT literate Trots knew where to go to support their comrades, who are, after all being humiliatingly forced to give up their travelling perks; which will leave their families facing no other option than to take a holiday at home.

This is not exactly an example of the 19th century suffering that inspired Lenin and Trotsky to bring far greater suffering to the world through their Utopian socialism - and for very little purpose. Indeed, what the behaviour of this pitiful throwback to nastier times demonstrates, is that by the presence of their frugal numbers, people have, outside of the university campus, long since stopped listening to them; and long may it continue.

For to find intellectual rigour among the student classes, you have to turn to the far more intellectually demanding disciplines of maths, science and medicine, to find the intellectual creme de la creme of academia - rather than turning for enlightenment to the various humanity departments in our universities.

This dispute at British Airways (BA) is set to drag on. BA needs to make a profit in order to survive as a company employing thousands of people with thousands of mortgages to pay off. The current state of the industry is dire. Cuts have to be made by revolutionising past working practices, but, as we have seen, this will make the UNITE union very angry. But unless the union agrees to the BA chairman's demands then the airline will become uncompetitive.

British Airways has no God given right to exist. Just as any other company, BA can be taken over or left to crumble. Obdurate trade unions will, in the final analysis, loose far more of their members yearly subscriptions through the belligerent opposition they now offer to British Airways.

Changes need to be made to BA in order to make it a viable company within the current market place. These changes will entail some redundancies and changes to working practices. To turn , as the union seems, their backs upon such a reform of the company will only lead to a far greater threat to their membership if the airline went into either liquidation or sought a buyer, say Virgin Atlantic.

No other purchaser would tolerate for one second what the chairman of British Airways, Willie Walsh, has tolerated. Either the UNITE union comes to terms with BA, or it goes under. Investors are turning away from British Airways. They are becoming an unsound investment, depending upon Willie Walsh's determination - or lack of such.

If Woodley and Simpson have, as seem likely, lost control of its BASSA branch membership then they should admit it for the sake of all BA's employees. The Union cannot win this dispute and I think Woodley knows it, even if his partner thinks that he can BlackBerry up opposition.

There needs to be some blunt talking from Woodley (I do not think Simpson is up to it). Woodley must challenge the membership of his BASSA branch. He must tell them that there is very little the union can do. He must, as a leader, explain to them the dire economic straight of the company which employs them. And if they cannot compromise beyond what their union expected from them; then they must set their sights upon the dole.

We live in difficult times and it is expected that, in order to secure our industrial future sacrifices will have to be made; as they have always had to have been made, despite union protest. We have, as a nation, had to adapt. This is the free market system, and the only system left to us to follow.

Adaptation to new technological environments is the key to progress. Unions can only hinder such advances. In the 19th and 20th century unions found their worth. But where technology trespassed upon their ancient domain, they could still not so easily relinquish their power over the working class. Technology, and thus progress, is, it appears, the enemy of modern trade unionism.