>Even posing the question of trade unionism as "individual choice" is the
>capitulation to the business propaganda. In civilized countries, union
>membership comes automatically with employment - but in this shit hole it is
>an "individual choice." The absurdity of this position becomes evident when
>you consider individual choices on other public goods delivered by the
>crypto-fascist federal entity and its business sponsors:
Well said. Although, sadly, I think you are somewhat old-fashioned. Even in civilised countries this attitude is taking root. I'm old-fashioned too I admit, my attitudes to scabbing and unions were formed in my youth when certain things were inculcated into me.
Things that have happened to me on the job have seeped into my unconscious. Injustices, but also how other workers have responded and adapted. I'll give a couple of examples, I recall starting one job with a crew of about a dozen other labourers, all new. The foreman came along first thing in the morning and gave us a list of jobs that had to be done and then left the site.
Just before lunch he returned and inspected our progress, he was obviously perturbed. Being all new on the job, we were all anxious, hadn't we done it right? But that wasn't it at all.
Look, he told us, you've nearly finished all those jobs I've given you. But that work should have taken you a day or two at least. At this rate you'll run out of work to do. He instructed us clearly to have our lunch and then go over the back of the hill, out of sight of the surrounding houses, and hide for the rest of the afternoon. Unless anyone else turned up to look around and then we should potter about and pretend to be working.
This sort of thing used to be, not just common, but practically universal. It was understood by all and drilled into the new chums that it was against the common interests of the workers on the job for anyone to work to anything like their full capacity. Ambitious renegades, "suck-holes" or "arse-lickers" as they called, were pressured to conform.
Usually it wasn't so explicit. the leading hand would instead ration the work. If we finished it before he gave us any more work to do we would be stuck with nothing to do for the rest of the day, bored and looking like an idiot. You got the message.
On one occasion, working in the steel mill in Whyalla, the foreman exploded when we finished a small job and sent us to hide in the filthy pits under some tracks on the assembly line. Ostensibly, our instructions were to "sweep" the area, but the whole are was littered with massive lumps of steel rubbish and under about a foot of dust and other waste. As well as being dark. Any attempt to sweep would, of course, have raised a thick toxic cloud and fatally smothered us.
We were pretty thick, but we couldn't possibly mistake the message. This was our punishment for working too hard. The Whyalla steel mill employed thousands at the time. I'd say the mill had about three times as many workers as it could possibly need and the entire workforce conspired to keep it that way. That sort of sensible solidarity seems to be dying.
Working class people understood that scabbing, generally understood as taking the job of a striker, was unthinkable. That was understood by any child, one would no more consider scabbing than one would consider raping a child, it was simply taboo, like incest.
The thing is I suppose, our attitudes are never completely rational. Some things are simply understood.
But it isn't like that anymore. Apparantly many of the younger generation these days reserve the right to decide these things on a case by case basis. Me, I hear that and I wonder if they take the same attitude to other social taboos, like child molestation. But that's just irrational of me, I admit.
My point is that, just because it is irrational, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas