I'm all in favour of collective bargaining, and can understand the principles behind the Royal Mail dispute. However, isn't striking at the height of a recession to maintain existing working terms, when countless thousands of jobless would happily accept the inferior terms on offer, bordering on the suicidal?
History, I fear, will judge the Post Office strikes as it judges all the strikes of early 1979 - as a politically suicidal action at the worst possible time, which convinced a subsequent incoming Tory government that no compromise was possible and that the nationalised industry concerned *had* to be broken up. Those involved in this strike will live to bitterly regret it.
ReplyDeleteNever mind the post (although Saturday's walk out was so successful I still managed to get an Electricity Bill). Bring back the Stephen Fry post.. I want to shovel shit on him.
ReplyDeleteI find the media reporting of the postal strikes to be both counter-productive and highly misleading. I haven't (knowingly) had a missed delivery, and our local sorting office was even open when I popped in on the off-chance to collect a parcel at a time when the whole organisation, nationwide, was supposedly on strike.
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