Onions and Unions have this common habit of bringing tears to one’s eyes when cut up. But while in the case of onions the tears are worth the trouble, the latter can never justify the hardship that they routinely pose to the citizenry. But having said that we must also admit that these days, thankfully, the nuisance value of the unions is progressively declining. The strike by the transport workers a couple of days back is a telling example of that. It is a happy pointer to the growing irrelevance of this scourge called unionism. That’s all that is left of Marx’s Left.
None can grudge the sweat and blood spilt by the toiling class to earn even a single meal. Nor can any one deny their right to organise themselves to get a fair deal or for better working conditions. But the moot point is that can those who are hitting the streets with strike calls with alarming frequency truly be called the toiling class? Nothing can be more perverse than that. Who are the habitual strikers of the modern world? Bankmen. Government employees. PSU employees. Postal staff. And of course, Transport staff. If these are deemed the working class ordained by Karl Marx, then someone down the generations has obviously tampered with the original manuscript.
For, Marx’s comrades really had nothing to lose but their chains. But the current strikers have everything to gain by scooting work for a day and shouting slogans, as they invariably emerge richer after every such outing. In the past, feudal lords and industry captains made slaves out of farmers and labourers who were paid measly wages after endless hours of work in exacting working conditions. Unionism was meant to fight this kind of exploitation. Can these ‘provocations’ apply to the current crop of strikers? If anything they are the best positioned amongst all the classes of masses who inhabit this purportedly socialist society. Neither are their pay packets measly, nor are the working conditions stifling to warrant frequent strolls down the streets. And they possess something that the rest of the countrymen can’t dream of: Job security and through that, life security. And for all this, their accountability levels are abominable. For them to strike seeking even more does smack of greed of the insatiable kind. From losing chains to windfall gains, indeed, Marx’s children have come a long way.
Instead, there is a kind of inverted exploitation. It is the ‘employers’ of these ‘public servants’ who are the worst hit. The tax-payers who foot their burgeoning salary bills are never in the reckoning when giving strike calls. After all, they hold the reins of virtually all the essential services and when they strike, the rest of the country sighs: Oh no not again! And after having screwed up the routines of the commoner, the strikers also have the temerity to claim success. Indeed, their success is directly proportional to the agony caused to public and damage to public property. How sadistic! Marx may get a ‘red’ face at this if alive.
And to the next vital question that flows from the above. May be some good dialectics by our very enlightned comrades can throw up an answer. Who are the enemies of this ‘particular breed of working class’? Frankly, nobody. And that precisely is the unionist rope trick. Tilting at windmills. By projecting the abstract State as an oppressor, the captains of labour had over the decades, very successfully built a whole movement and, of course, a good career for themselves. And while the impotent State, run by self-serving, vote-bank conscious politicians could be depended upon to bend to their threats, union leaders have for their part made the most of it, becoming a sort of dadas by themselves with a mob at their disposal to rise to their bidding. In some public sector undertakings, there are life-time labour leaders who do not quit office even after retiring from service! Marx was right ..No, Left for sure, but I meant right ie., correct. The State was indeed withering away.
The reality is that these leaders never had any collective bargaining powers under law as they used to parade before their unsuspecting followers, but who dared call their bluff? PSU and Government staff were easy to organise, easy to mobilise and easy to tempt too, with carrots. They offered a wholesale plum catch for the leaders to swell their memberships. Really, by true definition, these groups constituted the bourgeoise that Marxism’s torch bearers were ordained to fight. But ironically, it is only those who cannot be even remotely, deemed proletariat who formed the cadre of the comrades. That is Marx, turned on his head.
And enter, politics. Politicos and unions breed, butter and back-scratch each other. Every party has its own affiliated union. Today, unionism is a facade, a tradeable one at that. As the political-ins and political-outs slug it out, unionism is just another weapon in their sordid battles. We had a glimpse of it during the latest transport strike. With the transport staff divided down the middle on political lines, the response to the government’s announcements also followed suit. One section celebrated while others protested. And, neither made any impact. No marks here for Marx’s pampered progeny.
The SC has put them in place. The people are sick of them. Aah, we must now be actually encouraging the strikers. The more they shirk, the more they will shrink. Till they join Marx.
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