I admit I have never been on strike. That is very largely because I have been self employed for 30 years and the need never arose during my relatively brief employment career.
The consequence of my chosen way of working has been that throughout the vast majority of my career I have been able to chose for whom I work, when, and, within reason, at what rate. If I have wanted to withdraw my labour I have been free to do so. If I did not like something I was asked to do, I could say so, and do something about it. If I simply did not like a client I could terminate the contract and keep going with the rest of my work, and have happily done so on many occasions.
I am aware of the enormous freedom that this has given me and I am very grateful for it.
I am also aware that much of what I have done in my career has been useful to those who have been willing to pay for it, but that it has not been essential. It hasn't been, dare I say it, a career of public service in the sense that many have such a career. I'd like to think the more recent campaigning activities have made a difference, but that's not the same as being essential.
Millions of people in this country provide essential public services. Many of them are going on strike on Thursday. They do not have the choices I have had in my career on who to work for, when, and for what client. Their work is essential. The service they supply is something we all depend upon. It changes lives in many cases. That's true of those not on the front line as well as those who are: such services depend upon team work.
Those people who do this essential work have been exploited since the financial crisis. Their pay has fallen by as much as 20% in some cases, by well over 10% in almost all cases. They have had no choice in most situations of changing employer: there is only one and that employer has chosen to place the burden of a financial crisis not remotely of these people's making on those who provide our essential services.
They have endured this burden but are now saying enough is enough, and I think they are right to do so. We cannot demand more of these people: they have given their all and been abused by ministers who like to lambast them whenever they can, sack them if at all possible, threaten to outsource them with reduced pay and conditions if possible, and generally deride them on all occasions.
It is astonishing that we have people left willing to work for our public services. We should be incredibly grateful to those who do.
And because they cannot choose who to work for, freely negotiate their pay, walk away when they do not like something, or tell their clients where to go, we should most certainly support their right to strike, which is a right much smaller than that most business owners enjoy every day of the year, which is something those business owners should remember before they criticise strikers this week as many will no doubt do.
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No doubt we’ll have the usual guff about how ‘striking is undermining growth’ when the truth of the matter is that 35 years of rigged markets flat wages and asset bubbles are the real underminers. In a climate of fear: fear of losing your home;fear of ending up at a food bank; fear of not being able to heat your home; fear of benefit sanctions- solidarity is difficult as people keep their heads down.
We’ve had over 30 years of increased productivity and flat wages combined with excessive and socially destructive bank lending which has largely replaced the wage/productivity gap. So capital has done three things: kept wages stagnant, syphoned up the profits and then rented money to the populace because their wages are too low-and then the Government bales them out!
If that’s not worth striking for , I don’t know what is.
Having done some ‘extra’ work and also just received a bonus – all taxed at 40% I felt a little distraught to being only taking home £60 for every £100 earned for all my hard work. I know that most public sector and private sector employees on PAYE schemes are taxed on every penny they earn. I am not envious of my public sector peers ( we should all be forced to say public services) as I know that their pay rise has probably been negative and their treatment since 2010 is despicable.
But in my corner of the South East the 4*4s and the motors are getting larger, stylish and chic and the housing extensions to already 4 bed suburban homes are blooming everywhere. So what is my conclusion – is it that the 40% tax rate kicks in too early and this has come in without much consternation from our politicians and is it that the self employed tradesmen and smaller business owners are not paying their proportionate and fair amount. There’s annoying and contrasting picture of public services austerity and evident wealth around the M25.
Possibly the last choice we have is the right to say ‘No’. so long as we recognise that this choice will have consequences. the Miners strike is the perfect example of that. We may end up starving our children or being refused medical help by ‘the system’ but we still have a right to say ‘No’. Given what this unspeakable regime has inflicted on our communities so far, what do we have to loose?
Nothing but the right to say ‘no’ – which they do, of course, want to take from you
I don’t find it astonishing that we have people left willing to work for our public services. An environment where there is a lack of urgency, roles that aren’t needed and a general lax attitude make for an easy ride for many. Many of these people wouldn’t last in the private sector.
The last time I visited a hospital I saw little that was essential about so many staff appearing to do little.
In some respects for many public sector employees it is a glorified benefits system.
I post this as others might like to comment
My suggestion – wait until you’re in A7E at 4am and ask who is not essential
A&E saved my life last year. Some of us are grateful to them,even if you are not, Ben.
Shropshire are thinking of outsourcing cancer care and end-of-life care to the private sector. It’ll probably be the same people working but being paid less. Do you really think they will care about you or your parents more if they are being paid less by a private company like Virgin or Care UK that sends profits offshore, draining even more money out of the NHS, or what’s left of it?
Expecting better from the public sector and not being prepared to give them whatever they want doesn’t equate to a lack of gratitude.
A few have mentioned the miner’s strike and a similarly emotive example of an elderly frail relative in need of warmth during winter shouldn’t gloss over the fact that it cost more to dig the coal out of the ground than it was worth and that to keep so many miners employed was more like charity/benefits than essential public service.
There is much that is good about public services such as the NHS but there is also much that is wrong with it and I don’t accept that all those employed by the public sector are essential and doing something worthwhile and valuable.
Respectfully, what has mining to do with the NHS?
And do you know nothing about externalities in any event, which the state can take into account, with good reason?
And here we have an example of the stupidity and vindictiveness of the British right. No attempt to ask why people are going on strike, just the usual predictable insults about the public sector and those who work in it; in particular, the hoary cliche that “people only work in the public sector because they wouldn’t last in the private sector.”
This would be the wonderful, super efficient private sector full of companies like A4E, Serco and ATOS would it? The ones that replace public sector organisations in areas like the prison service and handling benefits claims, and then exhibit either breathtaking incompetence (ATOS, who have given up their contract a year early due to the mess they’ve made in handling claims for disability benefit) or downright fraud, as in the case of both Serco and A4E (see numerous back copies of Private Eye).
Or maybe we’re talking about those intellectual titans the bankers? You know Ben, people like the Boards of RBS and Lloyds who were paid 6 or 7 figure salaries (and all the rest) whose business acumen brought about the financial collapse, rhe cost of which is being picked up by ecerybody else?
Or maybe the Big 6 energy suppliers, who’ve been fined for dodgy sales techniques and incorrect billing of their customers? Maybe you mean Wonga.com, fined a couple of weeks ago for sending out letters to their debtors from non existent legal firms?
I could go with quite a few other examples, but maybe by now you get the picture? In fact I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you see how well the directors of the above mentioned companies would do working in the public sector, as, say, paramedics or policemen?
Ben – A glorified benefits system DOES exist-it’s known as banking where you direct money to the most unproductive parts of the economy, syphon off the wealth and leave the productive part of the economy (goods and services) for dead.
I would be very interested to know what actual experience you have of working in the public sector. My observation of these paragon of virtues, private sector employees, is that they are frequently useless, unreliable, do not know anything about the area they are supposed to, and generally clock off on the dot. In addition private sector business ensure they pay as little tax as possible, off shoring their profits in tax avoidable ways, pay most of said employees minimum wages and expect the taxpayer to pick up the pieces with tax credits and housing benefits. or they are senior workers who pay themselves extraordinary pay with the addition of bonuses
Of course, such anecdotal evidence and lack of understanding may be wrong.
No doubt you are wealthy enough to ensure that you can avoid most obvious public sector services, but I’m sure you also benefit from some of the less obvious ones. Lets hope you are never in need of the basic services, or if you do, lets hope they still exist.
I find it astonishing that anyone idolises the ‘private sector’.
A lot of people woring in the private sector can’t ‘make it’, that’s why we have an in work benefits system.
Many employers can’t seem to ‘make it’ in this system as they aren’t able to pay a living wage for the work they demand.
Many executives don’t seem to ‘make it’, such as the board and management of the formerly private sector banks.
In some respects for many private sector employers it is a glorified benefits system.
‘Lax’ as in the regulation of the shadow banking system?
Have respect for those who pick up bits of bodies on the road, teach disaffected teenagers, face violent men prepared to inflict injury, fight fires and rescue people, often work shifts and face the ignorance prejudice of people like you.
Ben,
It sounds like you need to put your lazy prejudices aside and actually find out what all those people who work in hospitals actually do. Why not volunteer at your local hospital (if the Tories haven’t closed it yet) and volunteer to help out? Most hospitals couldn’t function without the voluntary help given – for free – by those who care about those less fortunate than themselves. Yes, I bet you’ll find a ‘lack of urgency’ in the average A&E department, cancer ward or premature baby unit. Or maybe you’d like to work as a teacher? You know all those long holidays and clocking off at 3pm. Give it a go, I reckon YOU wouldn’t last 5 minutes.
When you’re next lying in hospital and some public sector saint is wiping your backside because you’re too sick to do it yourself just be thankful not everyone is like you and that there are still people willing to do that job.
“The last time I visited a hospital I saw little that was essential about so many staff appearing to do little.”
This is someone who has obviously never been near an A&E department in the early hours of a Saturday morning.
Either that or someone who is trying to be clever (and I do stress the “trying”).
I suspect the latter.
I’m one of those public sector workers who’ll be striking on Thursday, not because I particularly want to (I lose a day’s pay after all), but because I’ve been driven to it by this government.
It’s difficult to know which is the most infuriating; having the cost of a financial crises which I had nothing to do with being dumped on me, or having every aspect of my job as a civil servant worsened by a government who’s attitude to the public sector is one of spite and vindictiveness arising from their own ideological bigotry and arrogance.
Good luck and thanks
And yet is generally accepted that public sector workers are better off than their counterparts in the private sector, particularly when their favourable pensions kick in.
You could of course find another job, it is your right.
It is generally accepted that most benefits go to the unemployed when about 2% do
It is also generally accepted we have a progressive tax system and we don’t
It is generally accepted that you are wrong, and on this occasion that is right
My son is going on strike on Thursday, even after working out how much he will lose for a day’s pay. He’s never been on strike before, although everyone else in his family has been at some time or other. He just thinks it’s time he stood up for all those in council work who are made to feel they are worthless by this government and by everyone who reads the rightwing press.
His partner is now going to join a union so she can join him.
Good luck to all those going on strike.
When the miners were on strike in the 80s we used to collect for them in Hampshire.
At least on Thursday, the strikers will not be in fear of going to the foodbanks. If they do not stand up for themselves, who will? Certainly not the thousands who have already lost their jobs.
Withdrawing your labour is the most powerful thing a group of people can get together to do. Here in Eastern Europe that brought down governments.
A very interesting,and apt comment. Somewhat ironic too, seeing as the right always like to portray striking as essentially left wing, or “bolshie”, yet as Alex remarks, it was used against oppressive communist regimes.
Which, if they had any generosity of spirit, right wingers would acknowledge. Striking is not anti the rest of society, or self indulgent, it is an important freedom and not something people do at the drop of a hat.
And BTW Alex, thanks for your support,
It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for the case, it’s that a Strike is probably going to be counter productive. That was the main lesson of the miner’s strike.
There is a General Election next year, that’s where the action is needed.
Only a few people do not agree with the right to strike, but has any strike in recent memory actually achieved its objective (however defined)?
It is a genuine question. What did the recent tube strikes achieve? Will it make any difference to LU’s future plans?
What did the miners’ strike achieve in 1984? Well actually we know the answer to that…
What did the firemen’s strike achieve in 2002 (or was it 2003?)?
Is there any evidence that the short term loss of pay exceeds the long term benefits (if there are any)? Have any academic studies been done on this?
The LU strikes are examples where ground gas been won
You ignore all the gains made because of the implicit threat of strike action that would be list if it doc not en sometimes
As ever, you are too simplistic by far
Chris, try googling ‘South African sugar workers strike’ before you conclude that striking is pointless. To reiterate, most people strike as a last resort, not for the hell of it or because they are duped by wicked trade union ‘barons’.
You are correct in saying not all strikes succeed, but how surprising is that? In the case of the miners strike, the Thatcher government had deliberatly stockpiled coal supplies so they could starve the miners out. That, and giving the police carte blanche to use force against the miners’ pickets meant the government won.