Like onions our unions too have this habit of wrenching tears from the eyes of those who deal with them, particularly when they are cut up. But unlike onions which are eminently palatable to the consumers at large despite being tear-jerkers, the unions and the stuff they dish out day in and day out only end up provoking in the strike-fatigued people of this ill-fated land, a feeling of collective nausea as symptomised by the aforementioned tears.
And to be sure, much to our horror, the unions have promised us more of the stuff with the attendant tears; what with the strike showing no signs of abating and instead displaying all indications of getting enlarged into a tyranny of the proletariat till the State and all its people truly wither away, bankrupt to the bones. Tomorrow is the D-Day for this November Revolution whilst all the workers – and their families too- of the transport world nay the entire workers ‘ world, if the unions ‘ claims are to be believed, will hit the streets to make their ‘ perfectly reasonable, hugely democratic and absolutely uncompromisable ‘ bid for bonus, their birthright.
And if the strike does materialise to its promised potential, the people who pay these transport workers only to get run over by them, both literally and metaphorically, have the option of venturing out only at their own risk. Instead they can choose to stay back home for an extended weekend and while away their time peeling onions.
How legitimate is the transport workers ‘ claim for bonus? Is it such a basic right as say salary, which they collect come what may, at the stroke of the last hour of the month, irrespective of their output or productivity but solely on the strength of their signature on the attendance registers which too has been implanted only at their convenience?
Again in what way are the unions justified in carrying the issue this far, to the extent of putting the entire population of the State to such untold misery just to advance their self-serving ends? Is the payment or non-payment of bonus to them such a vital national issue, that not a soul in the land should eat, sleep or move around unless it is settled? What if every individual, whatever his vocation, were to disrupt public life and normal activity in the pursuit of his personal goals even if it was rightful?
There are enough grouses and grievances floating around in this land that warrant that the entire populace goes on perpetual strike till eternity. The government staff in general and the striking transport workers in particular should actually consider themselves lucky as they are the most insulated from the vagaries of the economy.
In a milieu where job security and assured pay are a pipe dream for the teeming millions of the land, this motley mob have everything that one can wish for. Yet they remain insatiable to the core with their criminal greed knowing no bounds. Pray, do they ever bother to reflect what they have done to become entitled to such royal treatment? Aah, if you ask them that, then their consciences too would go on strike.
But then you need two hands to clap. The government staff, crazed by avarice, offer the ideal foil for the out of work captains of unions and between them they strike up a rhythm that rises in perfect sync to such a crescendo that in the din every voice of reason as also the anguished cries of those affected gets totally lost, before one can realise what is happening.
Never ones to miss an opportunity to pick and prey on labour unrest, these hawks lose no time to hijack the issue to such heights that even if the workers wished to relent out of fear of losing their plush comforts, they cannot. These self-appointed brokers then flit between the Secretariat and the Proletariat for negotiations, really an euphemism for blackmail, bask shamelessly in their hour of glory – infamy, rather – and then claim success, whatever the outcome of the talks.
If the government relents, as it has always happened, these union leaders become champions and go on to chart a prosperous political path. If the government remains tough, then they climb on an ideological pedestal and continue their harangue, hunger strikes and such other very democratic display of dissent, no matter if it impinges on the more legitimate democratic right of the taxpayer to get value for his money.
It suits the union leaders well too, for they are always in the limelight and in any case, those who suffer, apart from the general public, are only the greedy but gullible government staff who are really the ones on the line of fire. Also most such champions are actually not workers themselves and so have nothing to lose, not even their chains.
Karl Marx must be turning in his grave, that is, if he is still lingering there, at the sight of his ideological progeny converting his simple dream of the rule of the proletariat into a draconian dictatorship of ditto!