Out brothers Out !

For the past two days, Council staff who belong to the Unison union have been striking in support of our pay claim.

Now I’ve never been one for unions – it probably comes from growing up through all the strikes at British Leyland in the 70’s (look where that got them) and then the miners strike in the 80’s. Living in London, unions were for people in the North who always looked grim when they were on picket duty. Hard faced men jeering at the ‘scabs’ and waving their fists at anybody who dared to cross the picket lines.

Since I’ve been in this job I think there have been three strikes and they’ve never really been that noticeable. The most you’d have is a few people milling around outside the main building handing out leaflets and holding balloons. Not very intimidating and quite a nice way to get your point of view across. This time however its been quite different – they were quite a large crowd of people outside the main building, accompanied by a rather vocal woman on a megaphone. Ok, it’s a bit of a novelty at first, but after 20 minutes of “Whaddoo we want, fair pay, whendoo we want it , NOW” I was sitting here wishing that she’d get a flat battery, or laryngitis or both. It didn’t help that yesterday was quite humid and we had to have the windows closed in order to drown her out.

This morning the pickets got really brave, making their way around the car park to come and stand outside our building – oh joy. Megaphone woman was back and in full voice, thanking us for all our support whilst stomping up and down the pavement.

Things like that don’t happen in Harrow – we should have had sweet, blue rinsed ladies in tweed two pieces handing out leaflets along with tea and a slice of cake, who would apologise to you profusely if you didn’t want to take one of the handouts.

Come the revolution…………