Until today. Our management demanded to know who is planning to work on Wednesday, when all sane public sector employees are taking industrial action. One silly scabby sausage hit 'reply to all', so that everyone knows who doesn't care about solidarity (average pension of our support staff: £3500-4000).
So I posted this on Twitter:
Advice to scabs: if you're planning to work on #Nov30 it's best not to hit 'reply to all' when management asks who's going to scab.and received this response from @MatofKilburnia, who claims to be leftwing:
scab is a hateful word of intimidation. Very disappointed to see it being used in 2011
you are a bullyOooh! Scrap scrap scrap…
I'm not really a bully. I've resisted the temptation to publicly name and shame my 'colleague'. The bullies are the management who know perfectly well (because I've told them repeatedly) that members don't have to inform management about taking action in advance. It's an attempt to pick people off by intimidating them.
And if anyone thinks the word 'scab' is bullying, I'd direct them to Lewis Jones's Cwmardy, in which a miner who refuses to join the union is left to hold up a 3-ton coal cart himself: an excellent lesson in the shortcomings of individualism.
Anyway, must go. I've got some duffings-up to administer round the back by the bins. Give me your lunch money or you'll get some too.
5 comments:
How interesting that you show the average pension of support staff (which I agree is a paltry sum) but not the average for teachers or lecturers, which isn't I presume.
I am not a scab because I am not in the union but I will be working on Wednesday - I can't afford to lose my paltry wage as a support staff member even for a day.
Plus I don't condone bullying from EITHER side.
Fair point. I posted the average support staff pension because we're striking in support of everybody.
Average HE pensions are £11-13k per year, which isn't exactly riches, especially when you consider that the highly-paid managers' pensions skew this average. Women are paid less.
Academics tend to start contributing to pensions very late: I've only got 2 years' contributions because doing extra degrees takes a long time, and permanent jobs are hard to come by (I'm 36 and still haven't got one, despite teaching here for 12 years). So a reduction in the benefit, allied to higher contributions for more years seems deeply regressive.
So far I've foregone 3 days' pay this year, despite volunteering for all sorts of extra work, including an event next Saturday. It's worth it.
PS. That average pension is for 25+ years of service - hard to reach when pensionable jobs are being replaced with casual labour.
I support this strike (and probably any other strike you could mention) because I agree with the strikers' position. But, I don't think strikes are effective, certainly not one day strikes.
What's desperately needed is more of a media counterweight to the Sun/Mail/Express. The TUC should start/buy a newspaper and set about brainwashing the same fucking idiots who believe Diana was murdered etc. into believing that socialism is a good thing.
Artog: totally agree with every single word. The TUC and Labour used to run a newspaper: it was the Daily Herald. They sold it and it became the Sun. Then Murdoch bought it. And the rest was history.
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