Okay but it’s based on fact not fiction.
The whole idea of collective action falls apart pretty quickly if everyone subscribes to this line of thinking.
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Crux of the matter right here.
So don’t be in a union if you can’t afford to strike?
I didn’t read this last bit (you must have edited it) but it’s an insightful point. It’s exactly why pharmacists can’t ever mobilise into a strike.
It’s not the crux of the discussion we were having because that’s not the reason I’m not striking.
You can be in a union and not strike in support of your colleagues. You can pay your dues, get what you need from your union and beyond that take a wholly individualistic view about pay, conditions and industrial action. You paid your dues, that’s your right. Unions wouldn’t last long if that was everyone’s outlook, as the entire founding premise of unions is collectivism, and it’s a unions only source of power, but you are perfectly entitled to participate in union activity like strikes as and when you personally want to, or feel able to.
But for me the question is whether you can genuinely not afford to participate in industrial action. If you managed to make it affordable to strike when you felt your pay and conditions needed improving, but then decide against striking when you are personally in an improved financial position, it seems to me that it might be less about not being able to afford it, and more about it no longer seeming personally worth sacrificing money through striking.
Luckily that’s not the case.
Yes, luckily. But you are here propogating that line of thinking, which I find a little hard to square with you now saying it’s good most people don’t agree with the thing you said.
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As to the first paragraph, one of the reasons the NEU is the only teaching union striking is that the next biggest union is historically disposed to be a non-striking union, so clearly that union and its members don’t feel that striking is their only source of power.
As to the second paragraph, I’ve quite clearly explained why I’m not striking. Both the fact that it’s not affordable to me and it’s no longer a priority for me are key factors (the two aren’t hierarchical reasons, both are important). But I understand there is a need if you’re someone who comes to these discussions to announce what the correct and moral point of view is, and then repeat your point of view ad infinitum until you’re satisfied that you’ve “won” the discussion, that there is a need for you to also decide what my point of view is, discard elements which are inconvenient and engage on that basis.
I feel wounded.
Where in my post did I say striking is a unions only source of power?
The thing is, your posts left me a bit confused. Initially, you say your new terms and reduced commuting costs have left you in a position of being “fairly comfortable”, but in subsequent posts you say that a loss of a couple of days income would jeopardise your financial poaition and put you back into your former position of being financially insecure.
It doesn’t ring true to me. If losing a couple of days income puts you and your depedant(s) in financial jeopardy, then how is that being fairly comfortable?
I think you feel let down by colleagues/others during the pandemic (as you said) and have since adopted an individualistic approach to employment and politics as you moved away from the left, and are now trying to add further justification to not striking by saying you simply can’t afford it. I don’t think its really about being able to afford it, I think its about a change in your general outlook and your personally improved financial position.
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Don’t see the point of being in a union that declares a ballot and the vote doesn’t go your way you then you don’t participate.
You have to abide the majority decision. Just like every other ammendment past.
The meaning of the word “Union” as defined in the English language:
"the action of joining together or the fact of being joined together, especially in a political context.
“he was opposed to closer political or economic union with Europe”
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No you don’t. You can agree with the decision, and not participate.
Unions aren’t just about striking. There are plenty of reasons to be in one.
I wouldn’t say I propagate it, I disagree with it.
But I understand where people that do agree with it are coming from. Although I do hope I can convince my colleagues against this course, if they can’t be then what can you do. I get it. Unfortunately
That’s just pointless and doesn’t make any sense.
You can agree with something in principle, even if you can’t participate.
“No offence but one guy isn’t gonna change much in terms of disruption to things.”
That sounds like you expressing your thoughts, nothing there indicates to me that this was you repeating a viewpoint held by others that you actually disagree with. The “no offence” part in particular suggests to me that it’s your opinion.
Maybe that’s just my reading of it, must be as you’ve now said you don’t personally believe that 
If you perceive the only purpose of a union to be to strike, perhaps. But that’s not the only purpose of a union.
No, you don’t. I don’t pay my couple of hundred quid a year to have an obligation to do what I’m told. I pay the union for a service, and I can, as part of that service, join its strikes if I choose to.