On the subject of industrial action

Some things:

1. a lockout is not a strike
   
2. work-to-rule is not a strike
   
3. if your employees working to the rules of your organisation would result in a lower output than you have contracted yourself to provide then your rules are stupid
   
4. do not expect sympathy from me when you brag about a 20% annual return on investment and yet aren't willing to give your workers a 10% payrise over three years without fucking them over in other ways
   
5. do not expect sympathy from me when you are getting $160,000 in ratepayer subsidy daily to run your transport system (which cannot be run to the rules of your organisation)

Some other things:

1. private provision of essential national systems is really stupid and doesn't work
   
2. this is because the government cannot let those systems fail
   
3. at the same time, a government buyout of the system is expensive
   
4. private service providers are not stupid, and know that the system cannot fail
   
5. private service providers are profit-driven
   
6. this provides an incentive for them to run those systems at a level just above that which would force the government to buyout the system in order to keep it running
   
7. this is one of the reasons why, for example, the rail system, the public transport systems, and the telecommunications infrastructure in this country are so faily
   
8. (I admit there are exceptions)

Some other other things:

1. if you are more concerned about how much you personally pay for a service than you are about the ability of the people who provide that service to earn a decent wage, then you deserve that they show you exactly the same amount of concern: that is, not a bit of it
   
2. there are many people who are not paid decent wages
   
3. this fact is not a sign that the people who earn slightly more than those people (a) should earn less or (b) do not deserve a payrise
   
4. this is, instead, a sign that the people who are not paid decent wages should be paid more
   
5. all this applies to working conditions as well
   
6. no seriously, we in offices rely on low-paid people in service industries far more than they rely on us
   
7. no seriously, we in offices are probably entirely irrelevant to the continual operation of the community
   
8. we should maybe stop bitching then and be grateful that we do not have to work on public holidays or deal with our shitty, entitled asses