One look at the government offices on a ‘working’ day would reveal the extent to which the country is in the grip of a labour terrorism that is taking a heavy toll of efficiency and productivity and eating into the nation’s very roots. Here the rule of the proletariat is very much in evidence in all its shameful exhibition of callous laziness and utter disregard for any norms of accountability or work culture. The union leaders, who stalk the government offices as if they own the place, are the personification of all that is evil in the labour movement of today.
Who is to blame for this sickening spread of rot that is gnawing at the very foundations of society? Well, both the self serving Pied Pipers and the mindless, meek but greedy rats that follow them. How many union leaders tell their staff to increase their efficiency or advise them on the virtues of toil and hard work? Labour is a holy word and is sacred; work is god, yet how many of the labour leaders pay obeisance to that god? Rather most of them do not appreciate hardwork and efficiency, and worse still, they discourage employees from working. And those who dare to defy them face a miserable plight with intimidation and fatwas of social ostracisation dogging them day in day out.
Why not the staff themselves break loose from the clutches of these leaders? Do they really believe that they are messiahs of deliverance from the oppression of the government? To be sure, many think so, partly out of ignorance and more out of fear, for what is at play is a mafia like setup that offers no respite to the hapless employees.
From the moment of delivery of the appointment letter, which is made out as if it is the union which has secured him the job, throughout the employment, and till retirement, the shadow of unionism looms over a worker, telling him to shirk and strike work, urging him to be inefficient, but never once bothering to educate him on what his duties are. If this seems unbelievable, all one has to do is to take a stroll up and down all the floors of what is still the tallest building in the city!
Why should anyone sympathise with the government staff? What is it that they complain about? Money? They are easily a well paid lot in the entire nation in their class, which is in fact grossly disproportionate to their efficiency and merit. They were well aware what their salaries would be even before they entered government service. Rather, the idea of more pay for less work is most certainly the prime reason for many of them to plump for a government job.
Then is it job security? Could there be a more secure job than government employment? Even a bankrupt government cannot send them home. It is estimated that by 2010 the entire government revenue would be enough just to pay the pensions of the retired government employees! So not only the present but even the future generations of tax payers would be paying through their nose for the maintenance of a breed who only either shirked or struck work during their working days. What more security do they need?
Is it inflation? But then, the current runaway inflation is burning a hole in the pockets of entire middle class India. The Central staff are not the only ones suffering. Rather, in the prevailing situation of less jobs, lesser pay and a much, much higher premium on efficiency in the private sector, it is the Central staff and the public sector employees who are the most insulated from the vagaries of economic chaos.
Why not they compare themselves with the next door Daridra Narayana, who might have a better qualification and a better talent, but his only sin being not to be blessed with a government job? When the government pot itself is empty, how can the ladle scoop out doles of payhikes and perquisites? Are they not struck by remorse for upping their demands when the whole country is bleeding profusely? Yet successive governments and pay commissions have succumbed to their endless demands, pampering them with unwarranted and undeserved benefits which bear no relation to their efficiency or the government’s affordability.
Yet they crib. They put us through untold and unjustified hardship, just because they imagine they are paid less than some grade in some obscure department. They pick on some anomaly that might have inadvertently crept in which is easily possible. After all, the pay for government staff is fixed from a socialistic point of view and not purely on scientific basis linked to market or productivity.
Yet they pick holes in what is essentially a charitable handout and demand parity. Why should there not be anomalies? Who told them that the work of a railway clerk is the same as of a postal clerk? Every department has its own unique organisation and hierarchy which is in turn dictated by the nature of business that department is in. Who is the equivalent of a station master in the postal services?
Or for that matter, can there be exact parallels for every job in one department in another? If every Kuppan in a department expects to be equated to a Suppan in another department, that are in no way comparable, does it not fly in the face of equity and commonsense? Rather, the only option the Kuppan has is to quit his present job and try getting into that better paying job. All these hype about anomalies are purely illusory and only let loose a spiral that has no upper limit.
Why don’t the Central staff, at least once, look beyond their union leaders and their rantings, and do some introspection? Why not they try and make a realistic estimate of their own real worth? Instead of harping for hikes, why not they find out what work they are doing for the salary they are already earning?
Are they ready to forego the daily wages for the periods of strike, for after all there must be a cost for striking such rich deals as they are most likely to clinch? Instead would they compensate the society for the financial and psychological turmoil that has been inflicted owing to the Central staff’s intransigence on their own welfare? Will the postal staff and the insurance staff relish if the bankmen strike work and paralyse the operation of their accounts?
Or are the bankmen happy that their own wards’ admission to colleges is in jeopardy owing to the non receipt of intimation cards or non availability of postal orders because of the postal strike? When every part is at war with the other besides crippling itself, where is the question of the body and soul surviving? Do not the striking workers, present and prospective, realise that their actions are not only self defeating but would also erode whatever sympathy they have among the public?
This is because the discerning citizen of today, who is struggling to survive and come up amidst the din and frenzy of competition and jealousy, knows only too well that the average government employee is indeed a blessed soul. He knows that they enjoy better pay, better security and are better equipped to tackle inflation than him.
He is aware that despite being getting paid by him, if the government staff should perpetrate such an outrage and upset his daily routines, they ought to be shown their place and not be pampered any more. Sympathy? Forsooth!
And they have the temerity to claim that if the public are put to hardship it is the government that has to be blamed. Surely. When has the unions ever owned responsibility for anything at all?
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