(no subject)
Friday, November 5th, 2004 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanIt's very quiet in the office today.
We are waiting on a Ministerial decision so we can go ahead with the annual determination exercise, and despite emphasising the urgency of it we have heard nothing. Not surprising really I suppose. Given the defeat of the Assembly vote last night, I expect all our Ministers are sitting in a dark room somewhere trying to work out where to go next.
There are lots of empty seats around, too.
The union has called a strike for today in protest against all the job cuts proposed recently by the Chancellor. They have very little impact upon this department, but the union likes to show a bit of solidarity. The trouble is, and the unions never get this, every civil servant on strike is a net gain to the Treasury. So a one day strike penalises no one but the striker who loses money and has to catch up on the work anyway. Unless the strikers are in the Inland Revenue or HM Custom and Excise, departments that bring money in to the Government, no one takes the blindest notice.
And guess what? They get paid far better than the rest of us, and their jobs are not under threat.
There are better ways of organising things: Core hour working for one. Come to work core hours only, do your job and go home. Withdraw all good will and flexibility and let the system seize up solid. You get paid for it, too.
I must say though, that the pickets outside are very civilised. Urge you to join the union and wish you a nice day. Where are the braziers, the chanting mobs and ripped up paving slabs? Where are the water cannon and mounted police? Where are the TV cameras?
I was thinking about getting a donkey jacket and painting the word 'scab' across the shoulders. But no-one would notice.
We are waiting on a Ministerial decision so we can go ahead with the annual determination exercise, and despite emphasising the urgency of it we have heard nothing. Not surprising really I suppose. Given the defeat of the Assembly vote last night, I expect all our Ministers are sitting in a dark room somewhere trying to work out where to go next.
There are lots of empty seats around, too.
The union has called a strike for today in protest against all the job cuts proposed recently by the Chancellor. They have very little impact upon this department, but the union likes to show a bit of solidarity. The trouble is, and the unions never get this, every civil servant on strike is a net gain to the Treasury. So a one day strike penalises no one but the striker who loses money and has to catch up on the work anyway. Unless the strikers are in the Inland Revenue or HM Custom and Excise, departments that bring money in to the Government, no one takes the blindest notice.
And guess what? They get paid far better than the rest of us, and their jobs are not under threat.
There are better ways of organising things: Core hour working for one. Come to work core hours only, do your job and go home. Withdraw all good will and flexibility and let the system seize up solid. You get paid for it, too.
I must say though, that the pickets outside are very civilised. Urge you to join the union and wish you a nice day. Where are the braziers, the chanting mobs and ripped up paving slabs? Where are the water cannon and mounted police? Where are the TV cameras?
I was thinking about getting a donkey jacket and painting the word 'scab' across the shoulders. But no-one would notice.