Strikebreaking
Posted: Sun 18 October, 2009 Filed under: Business, Stupidity, Thoughts 2 Comments »As I’ve said before, I don’t understand the point of strikes, as they do more to ruin the future of the business than anything else would. The current one, of course, is the upcoming Royal Mail strike which I’ve also written some thoughts about before.
It’s come out in the news today that Royal Mail plan to employ some 30,000 temps to work while the strike is going on, and thus keep the business going. And I’ve got to say, I think that’s the right message to send. The people who’ve been talking about going on strike say it’s “to keep their jobs” – when all it’s really going to do is drive more people away from using Royal Mail, and will thus screw their jobs in the long-term anyway.
In my opinion, this move by Royal Mail is a statement of “You’re not going to kill our business. We’ll keep going” and it shows that going on strike might just cost the union workers their jobs anyway.
Please bear in mind that the majority of people who work for RM are, by definition, below the 50th%ile of intelligence.
The rest, therefore, is academic.
(and yes, I have 3 good friends who work for them; two fulfil my definition; the third has 2 masters degrees, in geology and in computer science, from Oxford and from London; the same lack of common sense and understanding of real-world economics applies in all cases)
Interesting article on royal mail that I came across today: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html