Strike Out

It's strike season again at The Firm.

Usually, around the time pay rises get negotiated - and refused - people get itchy feet, and after a few days of bubbling tension, the unions call us out on strike.

But the situation is even more fraught and bitter this year - people are (rightly) upset about a lot of issues that seem boringly yet soul-destroyingly common: outsourcing to low-cost countries, harrassment, pressure to perform with no financial reward, the domination of Profits with a capital P over anything vaguely people-oriented.

We have been asked to strike tomorrow, all day. This means losing a full day's pay, of course.
And a full day's pay is a considerable amount of money when you only work three days a week.
Which is a somewhat cowardly way of explaing that I have decided not to strike.
I'm not comfortable with this decision, which is basically a selfish one, but then, there are always so many different elements to be tipped into the balance and weighed up, and this time, I suppose that short-term self-interest won through.

But, at the risk of sounding rather hypocritical, I do support the French striking mentality, which is such a source of mockery to outsiders.
I even supported the anti-privatisation rail strikers two weeks ago, stoically nodding my agreement even as a couple of them flung themselves onto the track at Toulouse station and forced me to live through a version of every parent's nightmare: being stuck on a crowded, un-moving train for three hours with two small kids.

I think it's good to protest. I think it's essential not to take everything lying down: it probably makes no difference at all to the final outcome, but the alternative is surely worse.
Complete submission with not even a whimper of complaint.

I suppose if I was a little braver, I would stick my neck out a little more.
But today, the need to pay for the house, the food, the holidays, the footballs, etc. seems more important than fighting the good fight against Capitalism.

But I'm still very grateful to those who will put themselves on the front line tomorrow.

PS If you have the troubling sense that this post is full of contradictions: this is not because you have mis-read something. It is indeed - unashamedly, humanly - packed with them.
Such is my state of mind. Such is life.