Growns Ups Can Say No

Billy Connoly tells a story of his time in the shipyards when, at the end of a shift, grown men, war veterans among them, would hide behind walls, gates, doors waiting for the whistle to blow in order to leave their place of very hard work.  He manged to find humour in the fact that men, some who'd faced bullets in World War II, were scared to be seen awaiting the end of the shift by a suprvisor with his clipboard for fear of facing some kind of disciplinary.  Some years after this workers in dirty manual jobs won the right to finish six minutes early in order to wash up before leaving their factory, shipyard, colliery.  This basic right to choose to leave work in a clean state was won by those workers campaigning through their trades unions.

I remember the first time I said no to an adult.  I had been asked to do something that I thought was unfair to be asked to do.  I said no, explained why and was listened to and congratulated on the mature manner in which I had asserted my refusal.  The adult in question was a teacher whom I respected highly and respected more afterwards.  That was the first time I felt grown up and the first time I felt I'd been treated as a grown up. 

Workers, professional, manual, skilled, boiler suited or pin striped are able to say no to unfair changes in their working day through their respective trades unions.  It strikes me that changing a person's working life through organised and equal negotiation is a 'grown up' manner in which to do this.

However, in relation to the current rail signallers and BA cabin crew disputes the members of each of those unions have gone to the negotiating table following legally supported secret ballots and with huge backing from their memberships.  Yet, according to electioneering politicos from both the main parties and the press, gutter and broadsheet, the unions are to be villified for doing what they are supposed to do; represent the stated views of their members and say no to something they feel is unfair. 

The irony is that history tells us that in societies where working people don't have a legal right to say no to exploitation by their employers the  result has been opression countered by revolution.  Bearing in mind that many of the potential voters and media consumers are working people who are now threatened by their employers using the recession as an excuse to impose unfair working conditions it surprises me that those workers currently in dispute are being so attacked.

There are 6 Million public sector workers in the UK who, because of a combination of election inspired penis measuring by politicos and the amount of money used to bail out incompetent and greedy bankers, are now the most vulnerable to redundancies, pay freezes, so called modernisations and cuts in pensions. These are the people who empty our bins, deliver our post, educate our children and help us when we're ill.  They do this for pay that fares badly compared to the private sector but has been traditionally balanced by job security and decent pensions.  If those latter two incentives are removed because a banker wants a bonus or a party leader wants to flex his muscles then what should those workers do?  Well, whatever Brown, Cameron, Murdoch and those of that ilk think those workers, with mortgages to pay and families to support, will do the grown up thing and use their unions to say no.

I for one would rather see my taxes being used to pay soldiers, coppers, paramedics, teachers and bin men to work rather than be used as redundancy and unemployment benefits.  Sod it, I'll be grown up and say NO!!