The people are striking, why.

 Subject: The people are striking, why.









Our media are up in arms regarding the breadth and depths of people willing to walk out on strike this Christmas. Christmas a time of good will when I want to dust off the skis or visit aunty Doreen and uncle Bill in France, even a train trip down to Swansea is looking problematic and for god's sake don't fall ill and elect to call an ambulance to get to the hospital.

The media in the hands of the tainted mighty have laid down the gauntlet. Not against the 12, perhaps 20 years of governmental mismanagement by failing to fixing the leaking roof when the weather was dry and interest rates negligible. They were acquiescent when the municipal care-homes were sold off to private enterprise and apparently oblivious to the obvious expansion of the need for the increased provision of affordable care homes for an ageing population which was benefiting by living longer through the advanced medical treatment now available. When a Health Minister earmarks a billion or two for diagnostic equipment and and another  billion spent on research into new drugs to keep people alive, where did he imagine these people go when released from medical care and they were the lucky ones who could resume work but even they were scarred by their experience and would need medical help into the future. There was no longer the close nit family or community to return to, people next door willing to pop in and see how you were. In our totally fragmented society the social fragment is torn and not replaceable, even by Facebook

Where are the new hospitals promised and where are the nurses and doctors to staff the mythical new hospitals or even the existing ones now we have closed our doors to people from the EU who used to staff them. Where are the new trainees now that the government has reduced the assistance which it used to be offer trainees. What became of joined up thinking, replaced by silos and compartmentalised thinking with isolated agendas, it lost touch with a social agenda and the important scale of the individual need.

For years the government has shuffled off its responsibility to train our youngsters and educate them properly. There must be a good reason for families to spend £40.000 pa, to send their sons and daughters to private schools and it would appear that in their eyes,  the non private schools are inadequate.

The truth is we are a broken society nestling into a promotional leafy brochure depicting an idyllic  myth.

Workers are expected to accept a pay-packet which is the equivalent to what was in purchasing terms earned in 2010, this whilst the prices of necessities like affording the rent on a home or the price paid in transport costs to get to work  makes going to work almost unaffordable. Add in the cost of ‘child care’ as we pushed mothers out of that mothering job into the work place where only the lucky ones with a recognisable job found satisfying, not the poor sods in the temporary unregulated work in the scandalous gig economy.

That term regulated is an anathema to the well heeled Tory. It means his goal of profiteering is cosseted by hurdles designed to prevent exploitation.  Only their means to income from investment is protected, as evidenced from the refusal, at a time of the general public experiencing of severe shortages and difficulty in making ends meet, the executive bonus escape being capped as did the benefit gained from granting charitable status to private schools. So much for “Leveling Up”.

Where are the demonising headlines in the newspapers, which we see demonising the Strikers, regarding the PPE scandal, or the mis-allocation of funds in banking which seems to serve the crime industry through on and off shore money laundering.

Over the last decade the rise in earnings of the top executive has seen an increase far outstripping the rise in income of the people working for them. This Americanisation of our economy, at least in so far as the rewards and the expectancy of avoiding tax is concerned, tax that social contract between people in so far as the cost of running the nation, took hold from the days of the Reagan/Thatcher quickstep.

It has to be understood that our present economic condition was always predictable especially in a time of run away inflation. The judgement of government, (or lack of it) seems to rooted in a mindset that sitting on hands is preferable to seeking a solutions. For all the claim that the country is being held to ransom by these rebellious workers it is in fact a symptom of the malaise and only the unionised workers who have the collective power to stand together to make their modest claim ‘to wish to receive a wage in keeping pace with the cost of living’. 

The pay boards of private companies continue to reward (as do the politicians) their top people. As do the municipalities which grants the equivalent of 20%  per annum whilst holding their work force to 1 % and little is said other than a bland commitment to rein in future increases.  Its been a  ‘feeding frenzy’ at the top with the cozy compliance of government and now the the asking rate, a per inflation increase, is ridiculed.