Work in the mineral water sector? UNISON wants you out of a job
Judging from this press release:
"Employers have a legal duty to provide their staff with drinking water in the workplace. But they often provide bottled water, which is expensive and has a high environmental impact. Where tap water is offered to employees, it is often from unsatisfactory sources such as lavatories.
The Water@Work campaign addresses three important issues. First is the health and safety aspect of encouraging more people to drink water instead of unhealthy fizzy drinks or tea and coffee, which have a dehydrating effect on the body....
And finally, Water@work promotes the fact that British tap water is among the highest quality tap water in the world and it's produced by our members. It costs less than 1p per litre, as opposed to fancy bottled mineral waters that don't necessarily taste any better.
In addition to these advantages, providing tap water in workplaces is an environmentally friendly solution. Where employers have attempted to do something positive by installing drinking water units that use large plastic containers, the environmental impact is huge.
Water is heavy, and transporting it in bulk around the country uses a huge amount of unnecessary fuel and energy. The containers are made from a type of plastic based on crude oil, which is not recyclable and takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. Tap water, on the other hand, comes straight into the workplace through the mains supply".
I'm sure that the people working in water bottling plants, which generally are not in areas with especially varied economies, will be delighted that UNISON regards their way of making a living as being so worthless.
"Employers have a legal duty to provide their staff with drinking water in the workplace. But they often provide bottled water, which is expensive and has a high environmental impact. Where tap water is offered to employees, it is often from unsatisfactory sources such as lavatories.
The Water@Work campaign addresses three important issues. First is the health and safety aspect of encouraging more people to drink water instead of unhealthy fizzy drinks or tea and coffee, which have a dehydrating effect on the body....
And finally, Water@work promotes the fact that British tap water is among the highest quality tap water in the world and it's produced by our members. It costs less than 1p per litre, as opposed to fancy bottled mineral waters that don't necessarily taste any better.
In addition to these advantages, providing tap water in workplaces is an environmentally friendly solution. Where employers have attempted to do something positive by installing drinking water units that use large plastic containers, the environmental impact is huge.
Water is heavy, and transporting it in bulk around the country uses a huge amount of unnecessary fuel and energy. The containers are made from a type of plastic based on crude oil, which is not recyclable and takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. Tap water, on the other hand, comes straight into the workplace through the mains supply".
I'm sure that the people working in water bottling plants, which generally are not in areas with especially varied economies, will be delighted that UNISON regards their way of making a living as being so worthless.
In other news from the Tribunes of the People, "UNISON and the GMB are looking to the Labour leadership contest as an opportunity to push for real change within the party - to policy as well as personalities...Between them, the two represent a third of the trade union vote in the electoral college, which they believe gives millions of ordinary trade unionists the power to influence the future direction of the Labour party...The two unions will now draw up a list of issues to use to assess candidates. These will cover privatisation, equal pay, employment rights, the NHS, and pay and pensions for public service workers". I am rather looking forward to Broon having to suck up to them if McDonnell gets on the ballot. That should scare the horses, should it not?
Labels: Sane economics, The would be Lord Protector Broon, Unions
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on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 4:58 pm.
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"Where tap water is offered to employees, it is often from unsatisfactory sources such as lavatories."
From an early age I have been careful to avoid anything resembling a job: now I see how right I was.
That reminds me of a very very old joke
A man walks into a bar with a huge lump on his head , the bar man says
"how did you get that?"
man: "putting toilet water on?"
barman : you smashed you head spalshing yourself with toilet water?
man :"yes the lid hit me on the head"
Strange I thought the Office and Factories Act ,says you must provide a seperate potable water supply direct, but with this lot who knows ,maybe the water suppliers won't join Unison,I think Iv'e really stopped caring so I'll go away..
I've always thought bottled water was a ghastly metrosexual conjob _ and love the taste of London tapwater. It also irks me that most of the green whingers also drink the bottled stuff. No-one can have any claim to green credentials if they drink bottled. Pleased to say my company is now finally switching to filtered tapwater. I'm sure extra filtering isn't necessary, but if it helps people to accept then it's probably worth it. Sorry to be so boringly worthy!
I don't drink bottled water because of my SCottish ancestry.
In Malaysia bottled water is price-controlled, but is still more expensive than petrol. However, when you see the colour of the stuff which comes out of the kitchen tap (thanks mainly to rusty or cracked 30+ year old mains pipes) it is understandable why many folks here prefer bottled. Just about every residence has a water filter installed in the line between the mains and the house. I change my filter roughly every 10 days, but within minutes of the new one being installed it becomes a murky brown colour. Thankfully, the recently privatised water companies are beginning large programmes of pipe renewal, but it will take years for the entire system to be done.
Re "other news": Are there still "millions of trade unionists" left in Britain? I thought most of them had either been outsourced or torn their membership cards in half.
PS: Re Monday's thread I see, contrary to the rumours, that the good colonel is still up and about. It's amazing what a couple of dates and a bowl of camel's milk can do..
Must say I could not tell the difference between tap and still mineral / spring etc water in a blind tasting, assuming both were chilled.
I rather like the fizzy stuff though, so that's me going straight to Hell.
Excuse my lavatorial sense of humour, but I can't get over the idea of toilet water being offered up to employees. Is this some sort of initiation ceremony?
...tea and coffee, which have a dehydrating effect on the body....
That old myth again? There have been plenty of studies showing that is false. Googling on it pulls up loads of results. But then I suppose it's unreasonable to expect trade unionists to be rational...
For the first time in my life I'm with Unison on this.
Tap water is cheap and doesn't have to be imported from France/Canada/Buxton and carried about the place, it doesn't produce mounds of plastic and saves employers money!
Water cooler water is nice though, because it's cold. We need tap water coolers!
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