Not In My Name I've never been a union man, and probably never will. My main reason for this these days is not the union's traditional political links to the Labour party, hell, under Blair they've become more right wing than the Tories, but the idea that sooner or later I might be forced into supporting something that went against my working ethics, striking. Over Christmas and New Year the miserable peasants at some of our rail companies decided to strike because they felt that the offers of at least double pay were not enough to tempt the lazy buggers into doing the jobs they signed up for. Now, some of these people were offered £100 extra to work on particular days, £12.50 an hour for an 8 hour day, that's more than I make on an average Sunday, and that's just the bonus, so at double time they're coining in £25 an hour, hey Central Trains, give me a ring, I can be grumpy to paying customers for that money. Here in the catering/hospitality industry, we don't get nights off, or weekends, or Bank Holidays, or Christmas, New Year, Easter or May Day/Workers Day, hah. Most often, we don't get any extra pay for working these times either, how can we pay extra, it's not as if we can charge the customers more money most of the time. The exceptions are times like Christmas Day / New Year's Eve when we can jack up the price somewhat, the customers though expect more for their money as well though, that's not unreasonable. I saw an interesting solution to this problem in Australia, weekend wages for hospitality workers are higher than weekday wages, but menu prices rise slightly on a weekend to compensate, great idea. It might also have the effect of getting people to dine out more mid-week when the prices are lower. Back to striking though, to me it just feels plain wrong. This is probably because my family background is self employed business owners, my parent's pub, my Grandfather running the betting shop, when you're doing the job for yourself, you don't ever withdraw your work. In some cases I can see why people strike, but most often stopping work does more damage to the case they are trying to support. Bosses - "This factory must close, it is losing money and productivity is low." Union - "Hah! We'll go on strike and halt all productivity." I bet all the guards on Central & Mainline were where they wanted to be for Christmas, and bugger all the families that spent this precious time of the year apart because a few greedy swine wanted more money for their time. Christmas a time of giving ? Now if you're a train guard apparently.