Canberra, November 16. No-one knew how it began. Some said the refinery operators started it. Others said the train drivers were the first. The wharfies boasted that they made the initial move, but so did the nurses. It happened so fast that no-one really knew with certainty. Like wildfire, word was passed around by email and mobile phone that the strike was on. Workers throughout the country — unionists and non-unionists alike, it made no difference - downed their tools and computers. By lunchtime the nation was at standstill. Feeling the sting of those he would throttle, the Prime Minister moved to ensure no blood would stain the wattle. By evening news time he had convinced the media union to recommend its members return to work. He announced that the notorious Workplace Relations Amendment Workchoices Bill 2005 would be withdrawn immediately the Parliament was able to sit again.
And then I woke up. Ah well, at least we can participate in the National Day of Community Protest on November 15.
I’ll be there.
Has anyone told the organisers we don’t hold with that dastardly Southern daylight saving racket up here in Queenzland? If the protests are meant to be simultaneous, it’s odd that Sydney folk and Brisbane folk are both gathering at 9am.
I already have that Tuesday off work, since Steve Earle is playing the night before I need the recovery time.
… 9am you say? Hmmm.
Shades of QLD, 1891 in that narrative CS.
I’ll be there! An hour ahead of QLD comrades.
What does it tell you that unions were not capable of making your dream a reality, Chris? Unfortunately, the faction-balkanised union movement is no longer supported by the people. The Kombet class only has itself to blame.
Who’s interested in a post on the evils of daylight saving btw? Seriously now!
does daylight saving mean more Soonshine?
I am Mark. Strong views on the question (pro -DS, though, so anti-DS forces of darkness can expect stoushing!)
Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, (1947, XIX) Sunday.
Quite.
I already have that Tuesday off work, since Steve Earle is playing the night before I need the recovery time.
If you’re not there Amanda, I’m tellin’ the Earle, and you know that will mean BIG TROUBLE!
Currency, there are lotsa reasons, but when it comes to unions, factions have nothing to do with it.
I won’t be taking the day off for a strike.
While I appluad the sentiments it would be unfair to the people I supervise and the people we serve to take the day off.
Besides, I don’t really want to feel the sting of the water cannon if I can help it.
Ok - I’ll post on it at midnight (1am for Mexicans!).
Nice dream CS, it remind me of a song I used to hear a lot as a child - “Last night I had the strangest dream I’ve ever has before. I dream the world had all agreed to put an end to war…”
Utopic or otherwise, doesn’t means its not worth a try though. I’d be at the protest were I not so far away…
Mark - re: Daylight Saving. It might be unhelpful in Brisbane, but maybe in the Southern States there are more arguments for it.
The thing about daylight saving in QLD though is that any debate will always make me think of ‘Sir’ Joh. I remember when they did introduce it for a while in QLD people put up inflatable pigs - since he claimed that pigs would fly before QLD ever got daylight saving. I always liked seeing Joh proven wrong.
I’d agree, Cristy - it’s suitable in Sydney and Melbourne and not in Brisbane - but I’ll hold my arguments back til the post!
Another song that comes to mind starts:
“If dreams are like movies then memories are films about ghosts” - trite but likable.
But Doc, I think, “…all I have to do is dream dream dream…” would be more appropriate. Does anyone really think a “National Day of Action” is any way to mobilise public support? I would have guessed it’ll generate about as much favorable feeling as a baggage handlers strike at Christmas. I mean, honestly, folks, robust cries to “man the barricades!” don’t ring very true when most of those waving placards are teachers and public servants. “Ooops - watch it there, comrade, you nearly spilled my latte”.
I miss daylight savings. (I’m pro-it, obvs, and I can’t think of any good reasons to be against it unless you’re a dairy farmer.)
Tony, Henry Lawson appeared in my dream, and said it has bugger all to do with teachers and public servants, who’ll be protected by the shield of the (state) crown. What’s at sake here, Henry assured me, is that instead of appealing to the richest and the fairest and the most secure in the country, it is the poorest and weakest and most desperate in the wide brown land who are being faux-asked to give up their way of life to offer false hope to the unemployed. Henry said the chalkies and the black collars can relax in their fat-arsed complacency, for it is the struggling blue collar man, the working woman and the young in the gun. By this time, my ADD was kicking in, but I think he finished with something like this:
By the rights that were always ours — the rights that we ne’er enjoyed,
And the gloomy cloud that lowers on the brow of the unemployed;
By the struggling mothers and wives — by girls in the streets of sin —
We swear to strike when the time arrives, for our kind and our kith and kin!
Now, repeat after me … By the rights …
cs, that vision of working class struggle is long past its use-by date.
Remember The Ballad of 1891:
“But for every one they sentence, a thousand won’t forget
When they jail a man for striking, it’s a rich man’s country yet!’”
Yeah, right.
Tks Rob, you’ve caused me to remember something else I’m sure henry said:
By our burning hate for men who rob us of ours by might,
And drive to the slum and den, the poor from the sun and light,
By the hell-born greed that drives our sons o’er the world to roam,
We swear to strike when the time arrives, and strike for our friends and home.