Strikes and Unions

All out drive for 35. 

This is how I learnt about unions and I could be remembering it wrong because I was a child.

My dad worked for ‘The Post Office’ before the government broke it up and gave the profitable bit to the annoying yellow bird.

Then in the 1980s it was sold off and the owners wanted a pound of flesh from their workers. We relied on the extra money my dad got from “ ‘mergencies”, where he was called, out of his usual hours, to fix a fault in a telephone line or exchange but the new shareholders apparently couldn’t understand why someone deserved more money to be on call and have their weekend ruined. The industry was changing and shareholders thought that should mean more money for them and less for the workforce. 

This was happening in most industries in the 1980s and although workers tried to fight, most  lost. Mrs Thatcher’s government cracked down on the unions and persuaded people that they were being held to ransom. They talked of picket lines as dangerous places and sent police armed with riot shields and batons to stop their protests.

The telecoms workers won, though. I liked to think that this was solely because of my dad. He was the secretary of the local branch of the communication workers Union. This involved writing a newsletter, which I was allowed to read for mistakes before he printed it on the distinctive smelling Banda machine, with its pupae ink.

End the 9 day fortnight.

All out drive for 35.

The things I read didn’t make it seem as though it was about wanting more money. There had been some research about how people lived longer if you cut their working week to 35 hours and what child would want their father to live longer?

But thinking about it now, of course it was about money. And why shouldn’t it be? It was about making sure that the workforce wasn’t devalued. 

I’m sure they only won because a PABX exchange went down and the few engineers that were able to fix it refused, causing all credit card payments to be not accepted. 

Dad could have gone to fix it and negotiated his own contract (as he did after he retired from BT) but he was proud to have helped win. 

Just like then, we are in a period of transition and bosses are trying all sorts of tactics to pay their workforce less. British Airways staff want their pandemic pay cut back, railway staff want a pay rise over 3% with the guarantee that when the company gets rid of all the guards and ticket offices (which is what they mean by modernise working practises) then they won’t make those people compulsorily redundant but offer them training to redeploy them in another part of the business.

The news reminds us that train drivers are paid more than most people and everyone gets upset. However, train drivers are not striking because they are ALL in a different union and so they have always had negotiating power to get a good wage rise and job protection. If the railway staff (cleaners, guards, ticket sellers etc) were part of the same union then we might not be a the stage of needing a strike. The threat would be enough to make the bosses see sense. (Since I wrote this, I realised that I am wrong. Not all train drivers are innASLEF and they are striking for a wage rise in line with inflation)

It might be time we re-thought the narrative on unions. The hypocrisy of MPs telling us that we don’t need to band together to negotiate our worth is stunning when their pay has risen another £2000 to £84k because it was set by an independent body. 

The average wage in this country (mean) is about £34k and the most common wage (mode) is £24k for full time work. 

I just thought I’d write this because I’ve seen and heard a lot of twaddle lately about strikes and unions. 

Music has the power to change lives

The government plan for music education landed the morning after I had organised an instrument zoo and open rehearsal for primary school children in my local area. It was the morning of the school fete, where the choir were to sing beautifully and the orchestra were to struggle because of the wind. A Saturday. In a very busy term for music teachers. I was tired and a bit grumpy and the strap line of the report made me bristle.

I do think music has the power to change lives but it’s not the only thing. Kids can kick a football out of poverty or be good at maths, be the next David Walliums, or be an amazing scientist and develop a cure for llama pox. If music’s only function is to cure societies ills then what happens to its value when it fails to do that? The government’s ‘case studies’ had been drip-feeding into the news for days. Adults who had grown up on council estates and been part of a large orchestral project and were now studying music.

“Has music changed your life?” they were asked.

“Oh yes, absolutely. Without music I can’t imagine where I’d be.”

It’s a lot of pressure to put on one subject.

Now that I’ve read the report I’m less grumpy. There is a will (and some money) to improve music education and none of it sounds terrible to me. 

It uses phrases like ‘music should be part of a broad and balanced curriculum’ and ‘singing should be the golden thread that runs through the heart of every primary school’. The aim is to allow children of all ages backgrounds and abilities to make music together (I’m not sure where I’ve heard this before *winks sarcastically*

It will be interesting to see if it makes much difference. 

I’ve already used some of the funding to do my bit. Funding applications are tricky and time consuming and then the money comes in a week before the even you have planned, causing impossible stress. I couldn’t have worked harder to get music to change lives and I couldn’t have done that without the help from people I have built up good relationships with over many years. The funding allowed me to pay some professional musicians, get some instruments, have leaflets designed and printed and get a new laptop for our orchestra. It didn’t pay me or any of the volunteers. 

It was fabulous to see 91 people getting the chance to enjoy music; actually joining in and not just watching.

Have a look  https://www.facebook.com/218099158393691/posts/pfbid0WY3FTkERvXBan7tQZLkp26GiiTQdm9ADns7Zh8BBANg6Yq7q793NRPdcWw1oqHaDl/?d=n

But would I want to put myself through that kind of stress again? Not in a hurry, despite its obvious success. And that’s the problem. Music teachers who have put themselves out time and time again only to be sacked from a paid job visiting schools and showing instruments because the latest fad is to spend money on computer programmes are less likely to want to try again. I struggled to get teachers for my event and they would say things like, “It’s not worth it. Last time I did an open day only three people turned up.” 

New musicians just out of college can’t afford to work for nothing. If they want to pay the mortgage they might need to get a proper job.

The next lot of funding I apply for might be used just to buy some instruments. 

TEA

 Yesterday, as I was walking to school, I looked up from my book and saw a dwarf on a bike. I was reading a novel set in a Victorian freak show.

“Oh,” I said to myself, “that’s odd.”

When Roald Dhal wrote about having good thoughts that shine out of your face, making you look lovely, he might have been onto something.

It’s almost like the universe listens and gives you what you want.

My mum always warned about that. A lady in our street collected for Multiple Sclerosis every year and my mum asked her why she did it.

“Oh, no reason,” she replied, “I’ve just got some time spare and I like walking and talking to people.”

“But why this charity?” Mum persisted, “Have you got a relative?”

“No. It just seemed like a good one.”

I remember this doorstep conversation because I wrote it in one of my notebooks. It interested me in ways I didn’t understand.

Then, several years later we saw her in a motorised wheelchair. 

“MS?” my mum asked.

“Yes. It’s odd isn’t it? All those years raising…”

Her voice trailed off.

I remember being shocked. My mum didn’t seem surprised.

“That’s how it works. Nanny always thought she’d get breast cancer and then she did.”

“Maybe she knew?” I suggested

Mum didn’t look convinced. She obviously thought the woman had brought it on herself.

“Always spread your charity donations out,” she warned.

When I did counsellor training our tutor said, “Always look where someone has their tea. That’ll tell you everything you need to know about them.”

We were puzzled but didn’t say anything for a while because he called people ‘hooman beans’. Eventually we worked out that tea he was referring to wasn’t served in a China teacup but was, in fact, an acronym. Time. Energy. Attention.

 We’ve had a pandemic, so our TEA has been switched to viruses. It’s funny how Monkey Pox, Polio and Cholera have made an appearance. During lockdown people compared the situation to a war, so a war we cared about started. These two things triggered an unusual kind of inflation and people talked of a cost of living crisis. The more people thought about being poor the worse it got. Even people who have money thought about how not to spend it (sack the nanny, cut wages by 10%, make the slaves work harder for less). If we carry on like this, none of us will be able to afford tea.

It’s all quite worrying. It strikes at the heart of Britishness.

May I suggest you turn your attention to nicer things. It’s the only way out. Think only good thoughts and they will shine out of your face making you look lovely.

Oh ye of little faith (thoughts on Father’s Day)

  I can picture my grandmother. She’s standing in her kitchen wearing a floral pinny, that looks like a dress with big pockets in the front, over her clothes, which always made me think she had dressed for a day in the office. If there was ever a woman who would have appreciated being gifted a pair of expensive heels it would have been my Nanny. Not that she’d have admitted it. She would have crossed her arms and sniffed in a heavy Welsh accent. 

Anyway, I woke up with her in my head. She was standing in her kitchen with a milk jelly in the shape of a rabbit in one hand and a box of French Fancies in the other.

“All these new-fangled days. Who needs Father’s Day anyway? It’s just a gimmick, so that the card companies can make more money.”

Everything was a conspiracy to her.

Although I don’t agree with my Nan, I wonder what she would think about the significance of it now. I think it’s become so huge because it’s a reflection of how much more important Fathers have become in society.

 I wanted to say to her, “oh ye of little faith. It’s the start of a revolution, there are going to be more Dads like mine. Dads that deserve to be celebrated.”

However, with that increase in importance comes the awkwardness for those that don’t have a Father like mine was. As people post only good pictures on social media, a jealous anger rises for those whose father was difficult or absent.

I’ve reached the age when many of my friends’ dads have died and so my Facebook page has started to look like a memorial site. Once your Dad has died, Father’s Day can shine a light on that lost relationship. Again, for some, the shadow is difficult to look at. For weeks, Marks and Spencer have been sending me emails about Father’s Day and suggesting that I might want to opt out of their marketing. Somehow that feels worse. I read the email as, ‘We know that your dad is dead. We understand if you’d like everyone else’s dad o be dead too. Please let us know if you feel this way an  will stop sending emails.’ 

I want to shout at the marketing team, “Oh, ye of little faith. Of course I want people to celebrate Father’s Day. Everyone should have a lovely dad to buy liquorice all sorts for.”

My children's father should be thoroughly spoiled. The Long Suffering Husband is the best dad. He’d do anything for them and they know it. Not only that but he puts up with me and makes me laugh, which must make me easier to deal with. He is the inspiration for the title of this blog. Yesterday, when we were out for a walk, he was being simultaneously annoying and endearing. He has developed a habit of pointing to every spaniel or part spaniel and asking, “What sort of dog is that?” There are a lot of spaniels around d each time I am caught out by his question, looking and thinking I’m going to genuinely answer his question. After we walked past the owners of a particularly bouncy black spaniel the LSH said, “How do you know?” 

I hadn’t heard but apparently the man had said, “Ye of little faith.”

We laughed about it for a while and decided that it was a fair assessment of his personality. The children used to sing a song that had the lyric, “Negative, negative, negative Jeff.”

Luckily, this personality trait is the perfect balance for my lazy insistence that everything will be ok in the end, or it won’t.  I have loads of faith that life and death will just happen, which means that I’m not the parent that remembered to pack the spare clothes or the umbrella.

I hope even those of you with little faith have had a good day.

The best dads I have known

Secretly Impressed

 I’m very busy at the moment. In truth, I’m not really coping with it all.

“How long until the Summer holidays?” my daughter asked, concerned.

“Not long enough to fit everything in,” I replied 

I’ve reached the gliding around looking like nothing bothers me stage, which I know is dangerous. I’m like the calm before the storm. Watch out world, she could blow at any moment.

It’s why I haven’t written. When you are trying to keep it together it’s best not to look under that calm surface.

But.

I can’t sit by and not comment on the masterstroke of manipulation that is the deportation flights to Rwanda.

They didn’t care if anyone went on a flight to Rwanda. That wasn’t the point. In fact, no flight played right into those master manipulators hands.

Do you remember Brexit? Brexit happened because they’d managed to convince the majority of people that nothing was their fault. It was all because of immigrants and the EU. It was a get out of jail free card. What have they got to blame now? People had stopped talking about immigration and the EU can only roll their eyes in disgust about our stupidity. 

They’ve tried to blame the EU for the border on the Island of Ireland but the Irish are too savvy and aren’t prepared to be a London government’s whipping boy again. The peace agreement is too important.

Brexit mouthpiece, Farage complained recently that Brexit wouldn’t be done until all human rights were abolished. Bring back the slave trade! 

I think he gave them ideas. If the blame can’t be laid at Ireland’s or the EU’s door then it must be someone’s fault? Who can they blame? Let’s shove some brown Muslims on a flight to somewhere they don’t want to go and when they kick up a fuss we can blame them for everything.

A party? Not my fault. It was those other people.

The rhetoric has suddenly returned. ‘How can we let all these people in?’ ‘Where are we going to put them?’ ‘We’re full!’ ‘Blooming Europe! How dare they stop us getting rid of these migrants.’ 

Now the government are talking about not being part of the European Convention  for Human Rights, so Farage gets what he wants. It might be a good time to invest in leg iron manufacturers. 

I can’t help being secretly impressed. Horrified but impressed.

Or am I being paranoid; using my overthinking skills as a displacement tactic?

My son thinks not.

“To be impressed by your enemy allows you to really know them,” he says.

“Who said that?” I asked, loving the quote.

“I did,” he replied.

It’s good to know that nothing really changes.

I’m going to sneak a puppy picture in to illustrate just how impressed my dog is with my paranoid thinking skills.

Confidence

 The pressure to document a world that appears so crazy it’s stranger than fiction is huge. I feel that you, my reader, would be disappointed if I didn’t try.

Our political system is broken. To us outsiders it looks like posh idiots playing a game, although it’s actually about who decides what happens in our lives.

Over the weekend things got desperate for the Prime Minister. No longer could he pretend that everyone loved him really. The card carrying conservative royalist public booed him on the steps of St Paul’s, surprising the commentators that were reporting live and enough of his own party wrote to Sir Graham Brady to trigger a no confidence vote.

In response, the Prime Minister told the world that he had no regrets about the Downing Street parties and would do everything exactly as he did before.

Nadine Dorries had a few gins and went on the telly to attack Jeremy Hunt.

Jacob Rees Mogg appeared in his grim reaper outfit and spoke only in Latin.

Boris called people in and started offering them jobs.

MPs went on Twitter to say things like, “Although it’s a secret ballot I want you to know that I’m voting no.”

This was particularly confusing. Is a no vote in a vote of no confidence actually a yes vote? Double negatives are always tricky. 

In the end 148 of his MPs said they had no confidence in him and he said that as 211 did it was time to move on. 

The moving on suggestion hasn’t worked so far, in fact it’s beginning to be one of those phrases that has been said so often it no longer makes sense. ‘Move on’ now sounds like ‘I’m lying’

Prime Ministers rarely lose votes of no confidence. The last was Jimmy Callaghan in 1979 and he only lost by one vote. 

There are more likely to be confidence votes now, as the rules were changed to stop leadership challenges. I suspect that if it were possible and someone had come forward to suggest a new leader the result would have been worse than it was for Margret Thatcher who won 204 votes compared to John Major’s 185. She still left, thinking that 52% of her party believing in her wasn’t enough. 

Boris Johnson is happy with 53% of his party believing in him without someone else to take over.

Meanwhile, none of this has helped the general public, some of whom played loud music (Mad World) outside Downing Street last night during the 10 o clock news.

This morning the Prime Minister is claiming that this is a very good result for politics and for government and I can’t help thinking that he’s not wrong but that’s only because I think it’s time the other side had a go. 

Politics is mad. The weather is awful, so here’s a puppy to make you feel better.

Jubilee Holidays

Teachers and hospitality staff are a bit grumpy. All this talk of long weekends and extra bank holidays makes them feel cheated. Hospitality staff are expected to work harder than ever but have their shifts cancelled at the last minute as people decide to party in their own gardens instead. For teachers these ‘extra days off’ have occurred in report writing half term, which for most is a week of squeezing in writing (which always takes longer than you think it will) with dentist appointments, MOTs and catching up with friends who don’t understand that to effectively cope with 30 children at once, you need to be in bed by 9pm.

This Jubilee doesn’t seem to be the joyful event of previous celebrations. Maybe it’s because I’ve got old and grumpy or that people can remember the last one. It seems to have stirred up anti-royalist feeling. Prince Andrew has been sent to a basement to look after Covid while a song called ‘Prince Andrew is a sweaty nonce’ hits the charts. The Queen only goes to the things she fancies (who can blame her?), skipping church, so the press can focus on Harry and Will not sitting together. The Prime Minister’s wife is so reluctant to be seen with him in public that she has especially designed hats. The BBC were surprised that Boris was publicly booed (they must have missed the darts). 

I feel a little distanced from it all. I’m not a report writing teacher, I’m not into crowds or joining in with Street Parties. I can’t be an ‘abolish the royals’ grump because I like a bit of pomp and circumstance and it’s churlish to not want to celebrate someone doing the same job for 70 years, especially when that person is a smiley old lady with nice hats. 

Maybe it’s because I have been on holiday.

I can recommend a short break in Norfolk. We stayed in the gatehouse at Holkham Hall, roaming the park as though we owned it after hours, attending the private beacon lighting and being served drinks by Lord Leicester. Surrounded by nothing but trees, moles, rabbits, deer and pheasants I slept like I haven’t in years.  

I wrote ‘A very pleasant stay’ in the visitors book but my handwriting is so bad I think someone will think I’m wittier then I am because it looked like ‘pheasant’. 

The trouble with pleasant stays is that reality can feel a bit odd and when reality is bunting, fireworks and concerts it’s even odder.