Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Heathrow brought to a halt by catering strike
I have been following the catering strike at Heathrow Airport with a great degree of interest. After Thatcher's decimation of the unions, we are now witnessing a renaissance of worker power. Here, we have a firm paying people shit wages, firing them in order to import cheapo Eastern European workers. Well the whole thing exploded in their face as well as a good proportion of British holidaymakers who were treated to ersatz New Orleans jazz music to while away their time in purgatory.
This brings to mind a documentary on TV about the crappy state of the postal service, the documentary tried to blame the workers for taking a cavalier attitude to their job. This was far from the case, the workers filmed with secret cameras sounded burnt-out and one got the feeling that one was doing the job of three people.
This point also brings me to mind when I was studying sociology at 'A' Level an item that I read when 40 000 feet of seaside rock had to be destroyed because the pissed off / alienated worker had set the machine to have the rock imprinted with the phrase "fuck off".
These are the results of crap wages, poor conditions and cavalier attitudes towards the workforce. This is a warning of the present and there are many warnings in history.
This brings to mind a documentary on TV about the crappy state of the postal service, the documentary tried to blame the workers for taking a cavalier attitude to their job. This was far from the case, the workers filmed with secret cameras sounded burnt-out and one got the feeling that one was doing the job of three people.
This point also brings me to mind when I was studying sociology at 'A' Level an item that I read when 40 000 feet of seaside rock had to be destroyed because the pissed off / alienated worker had set the machine to have the rock imprinted with the phrase "fuck off".
These are the results of crap wages, poor conditions and cavalier attitudes towards the workforce. This is a warning of the present and there are many warnings in history.
