Another example of sick hypocritical Britain is the reaction to the strike by London tube workers. The strikers have been accused on causing disruption, but there is no reportage of the disruption caused by employers who break contracts and lie through their teeth. When Boris Johnson stood for election as London mayor he gave guarantees that there would be no closures of ticket offices, which is the cause of today's strike. If your employer tells you a total lie, then breaks his contractual duty without discussion or negotiation and tells 940 people they are going to be sacked when he had previously assured them that their jobs were safe, what on earth are these workers to do? I implore someone who supports the condemnation of strikers to come on and tell me!! Thus, Johnson is openly advocating that he has a right to tell outrageous lies, deceive his workforce, sack them at will and his workforce has no right whatsoever to do anything about it! If that is not advocating a subtle form of slavery then someone will have to tell me what it is!
Now, all day long Johnson has been on the news fulminating about the strike ballot and how it was not representative and the Conservatives are also considering demanding that strikes be mandated by an absolute majority of a union's membership, rather than a simple majority of those who vote. There are no more draconian laws in this country than the laws governing strikes, and the tube workers fulfilled all the requirements to make the strike both legal and official. When Johnson was elected as mayor in 2012, he was elected on first preference votes under the Supplementary Vote system with 44% of first preferences. The turnout in the election was 38.1%. As a result, on first preference votes, which is the same as an election under first-past-the-post, Johnson managed to get 16.764% of the possible vote in London. How is that for democracy, he couldn't even muster 17 votes out of every 100? When second preferences were added, he managed 51.5% of the vote and that is how he was elected, but they are not new votes, they are the same people voting twice. Tube workers do not have the luxury of second preference votes, so, their strike vote was vastly more democratic than Johnsons. Since 1945, only one government has managed an absolute majority, so, by the Tories definition of democracy, no government since 1951 has been democratic, and that goes for all Thatcher's and Blair's governments, as well as the present one. Yet this loathsome hypocrite is all over the news, supported by his lackeys in the right wing press calling for strikes to be subject to even more draconian legislation. If this form of government persists and is not stopped, the strike action will be outlawed in my lifetime. Workers have only one sanction, the ability to withdraw their labour. That ability is illegal in this country, but is a civil liability, it is breach of contract. What is going to happen is that it will be criminalised.
I maintain that striking is a fundamental human right. If I cannot withdraw my labour from an employer I fundamentally disagree with, even if I am wrong in what I am arguing, then I have no control over my own freedom of thought and action, I am quite literally enslaved, and that employer has rights over my freedom to attempt to control my own destiny in the workplace that supersede my own rights. The only way I will get free is to leave my employment or be sacked. But why should I have to leave? You can argue that only if you are prepared to argue that an employer or the appointed management, must have absolute control over his/her workforce, and if you do, then you are arguing for slavery. When I was a trade union representative I actually had to fight a case for a lady who was refused to have a day off work to get married, and this was a manager who was refusing, not an actual employer! That is the mentality of modern management and employers. I actually suggested to this cretin that he may want to produce a broomstick and have the couple jump it! He, of course, hadn't a clue what I was talking about.
I realise that many of you may think that I go on about the same thing too much, but it cannot be said or reinforced enough that our fundamental human rights are being attacked, eroded and removed all the time. As I have said before, the ruling elite are determined to remove all constraints on profit making and striking is simply another constraint. It is, however, the only weapon at the disposal of working people, remove that, and they are completely powerless. Such actions, even the suggestion of such actions must be exposed and vigorously challenged as a priority, it is your freedom that is at stake. You have been warned.
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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