So you sneer and castigate the unemployed. They’re scroungers, you say. They should get off their arses and work, you insist.
So they do. They find jobs and some of them become, ooh let’s say, tube workers.
Then you bitch and whine that they’re earning more than you. That nurses should earn more. That firefighters should earn more. That you should earn more.
Yes, nurses, firefighters, cleaners, dinner ladies, carers should definitely earn more more than they do. But you? You in the private sector, constantly bitching about how bad you’ve got it while shitting all over anyone who dares to protect their job and wage?
Well, here’s the news for today, pal. Tube workers earn what they earn because they don’t spend their time whining about the unemployed and bitching about the poor.
They earn more than you (although not the ridiculously inflated sums the Tory press would have you swallow) because they stick together, organise collectively, support their trade union and fight to defend their jobs, terms and conditions.
In short, they have what you don’t because they have the spine and the guts to fight for it and to defend it.
You want to earn a reasonable living? You want what RMT members have? Then support them. Support all workers defending their jobs and pay because that benefits all of us, you included.
And then maybe you could grow a pair and fight for what you think you’re worth.
God forbid, you should ever find yourself deep underground, buried under twisted metal and dust-covered rubble, cowering in mortal fear of another bomb, that you should be pulled to safety by a “greedy” “militant” RMT worker, “holding the capital to ransom” because that would be just too ironic, wouldn’t it?
Now piss off. You make me sick to the pit of my guts.
Harry Paterson 