It's OK. This isn't another spoof of Peter Hitchens and his amazing list of left wing objet d'art. This is actually about something I received in the post today.
Some of our readers may be aware that this half of Boaty & D is a fully paid up Union member. A member of PCS to be precise. A part of our subs goes on this hilarious ultra-left wing propaganda sheet called 'View', which is basically a 32 page rag dedicated to masking the blatantly obvious fact that the PCS Union are in bed with the psychotic, lunatic left wing Socialist Workers Party and other assorted Trotskyist weirdos.
About two pages are dedicated to proper employment and union related issues, whilst the rest pumps out mindless propaganda and deluded rubbish about things like anti-fascism, the threat of racism because of the recession and nostalgia for the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
Seriously, the union is so far left, they're in danger of popping out the other end and winding up fascists themselves. Which wouldn't be surprising, considering how they treat members who voice opinions that stray ever so slightly from the Serwotka Stalinist 'party' line. Someone in a meeting I was recently in was heavily slapped down by a leading rep, merely because they mentioned the potential benefits of performance related pay.
God forbid that us workers should want to work harder for extra money. Can't be having any of that capitalist treachery now, can we?
So as you can imagine, I am in the unlikely and bizarre situation of being pro-Union (in theory), an actual member of a Union (an extreme left one at that) and all the while, a card carrying member of the LPUK with right leaning tendencies.
I always did say I was idiosyncratic - though I'll write a post in the next few days about how I square my union beliefs with my libertarian values.
I'll now move onto the purpose of this article.
Pages 16 to 17 of 'View' contains a double spread entitled "Surviving the Recession", full of handy tips to help the struggling workers in these dire times.
One sub section of the piece is entitled "Is there an upside?".
"If you are in a job, have enough money to live on and your home is secure, you might be able to ride out the recession. In some cases there might even be some benefits from changing lifestyles to meet economic needs"
We are then treated to a list of ideas, including this corker:
Less Materialism - a chance for our lives to be less dominated by the passive consumption of 'things' and more by active participation with people and causes.
Well, they had to get an least one anti-capitalist jibe in the page. After all, every other page has at least three.
But what's this I spy on page 26?
WIN! WIN! Members Giveaways
Scream the headlines...
"Two £50 B&Q gift cards to be won
B&Q started more than 40 years ago as Block & Quayle and is now the biggest home improvement and garden centre retailer in the UK and Europe, and the third largest in the world."
Much respect to the fat cats!...
"Save 8% at Comet and win a Nintendo DSi"
Thunders another column...
"Comet gift vouchers and gift cards can be used to choose from an extensive range of over 7,000 products from 250 brands. PCS members can order Comet gift vouchers or gift cards with a generous 8% discount from the shopping menu online..."
Well, who'd have thought it, eh?
But we needn't rush into any hasty conclusions here, huh readers? I mean, even Lenin allowed a little bit of free trade when times got tough in the Motherland.
Maybe there's a method to the PCS's madness. We must eschew materialism and greedy, self-centred capitalist tendencies, whilst indulging occasionally in some harmless computer gaming and the odd bit of DIY.
Or, I could have all that wrong, and in actual fact, the content of 'View' is a steaming load of old horseshit.
As Fox News would say...YOU DECIDE!
5 comments:
I'm a member of UNISON and similarly would not consider myslef to be left wing. UNISON regularly send out mailshots on behalf of "partner" organisations inviting members to take out loans/insurance etc. In fact the only thing that UNISON and my employer agree on is that I need to be in more debt, UNISON via mailshots and my employer via a regular ad on my paylsip.
Quit yer whining and get a fucking shredder... ;-)
I can't see any contradiction between being a libertarian and in a union. In as far as they're voluntary organizations for the purpose of collective bargaining power, etc, they're perfectly legitimate.
On the other hand, once they begin having frantic sex with Labour in exchange for special privileges...
"If you are in a job, have enough money to live on ... " - which, if you're a civil servant and a member of PCS, you almost certainly do and, being on the public payroll, are extremely unlikely ever to lose, spare a thought for people in the private sector who do real jobs as required by market demand and who really WILL BE or ARE BEING affected by the recession.
I used to be in the Civil Service (what is now HMRC). It was awful. Save your sanity and get out.
Agree with the above commentators.
Andrew: "Save your sanity and get out"
Easier said than done, but I do hear what you're saying.
These people are living in a weird fantasy land, believe me. You ought to hear them, it's like sitting down with the Best of Militant Tendency on repeat loop. They just pump out the tired auld psycho left wing Vanessa Redgrave bullshit, and I'm left thinking 'do you inhabit the real world, or fucking what?'
They think we're massively hard done by, and two things simply must be achieved under pain of death:
1) nil redundancies or job losses, ever
2) continual rounds of healthy pay awards, year on year.
So, in other words, a situation where the State eventually becomes a Communist bastion and where every person in the land has no chance of making it in private industry because tax is at 99%.
I recently tried to carefully usher some of these people down a certain way of thinking. Namely that to expect more money from the Treasury is ridiculous, and we ought to be aiming at bringing down the gigantic (useless) senior civil servant salaries (often marked at a healthy 6 figure sum) so lower paid apparatchiks can get a fairer rate.
Well...you got to start somewhere with these swivel eyed socialists, haven't you.
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