Strikes and News -
While in Johannesburg on my extended trip, I am fortunate enough to be exposed to the news on a regular basis. This is made possible by the Johannesburg traffic that means at least an hour into work in the morning and a similar time back home in the evening.
One thing that has caught my ear is the Security Guard Strike and today’s COSATU general stay away. A few things do amaze me.
Before I continue, I will lay my colours firmly on the wall as not been supporters of Unions when they get involved in politics. (which they always do – read into that what you will).
COSATU called for a national stay away today to “force” the government to take action on “unemployment and poverty”. Their National Spokesman appears on a talk show to justify his actions. I curse when I cannot get through, as no-one seems to want to ask the right questions or take the lad on when statements he makes leave him open for perfectly justifiable ridicule.
The best one tonight was “COSATU Supports Democracy but its basis is on the grounds of communistic ideals” Now communism and democracy are strange bed fellows. I needed to ask the spokesman all about a body that presses the ruling party for worker protection, higher wages and better working conditions, but refuse to accept that by obtaining these goals companies are loath to employ additional workers due to how difficult it is to downsize when the going gets tough.
I smile when I think that under a COSATU based government – oh wait they are part of the tri partite alliance with the ANC – employers will be forced to employ people to ensure full employment.
Return on investment? Oh that does not fall in with our ideals so we will ignore investors to achieve our lofty goal. What we can also do is fix our exchange rate (a la Zimbabwe) and ensure that there is no black market by bringing back the death sentence and executing people (a la China). That would resolve all our ugly ills.
The same alliance that introduced SETA’s that took money from business and applied it in training people. What they have trained is a whole load of office staff that is required to run the SETA’s. South Africa is bemoaning that artisans are in short supply. Maybe they need to realise that in the old days to become an artisan you signed a apprenticeship for x amount of years at a piss poor salary and trained under old timers who were happy to teach you all they knew. (After spending the first year carrying their tool box, getting them coffee and having practical jokes played on you).
Now you have learnerships which require the same artisan that trained 30 appies in his life time to attend the SETA and train to train people. Of course while he is training to train people, his job cannot be done through the shortage of people on the ground and you happily burden a person who is a tradesman due to the fact he hates paperwork with a whole load of paperwork.
What I am getting at in my long winded diatribe is that I have a problem with people who cannot see the big picture. Who live only to justify their existence. To people who are hell bent to, instead of uplifting people, achieve “upliftment” by bringing others down.
Education is a perfect example. We are faced with our education system being reduced to worthless pieces of paper due to the standards been reduced and effectively not having a concrete system of measurement. All in the name of upliftment.
Take our security strike. Non striking guards are thrown off trains. SATAWU – the union on strike – state glibly that the union is not involved. They happily expect Joe public to say “yup – cannot be due to the strike, must be some other reason why these people are been tossed off trains”. Have a march in Cape Town. Marchers trash the place and cause all sorts of damage. Unions response. “agent provocateurs are responsible” The best response I heard from one Union Spokesman was “the police did not do enough to prevent the damage” followed closely by “the police unjustifiably opened fire on our members injuring them”
Union Officials have to believe that we are bloody stupid! The have to. Why would they say such things if they do not believe that they are going to be believed.
By the same token, Pick and Pay had “industrial action” whereby their union members rocked up at work in pyjamas and happily took their time to serve customers and embarked on a go slow. Pick and Pays reaction – after going to court and having the action declared illegal – took 12 of their employees who had won a trip to Disneyland for been outstanding employees off the plane and refusing to allow them to go on the trip.
Way to Go! The lad who made that decision at Pick and Pay wins the prize for Tony’s Asshole of the Month. If he is on the negotiating team at Pick and Pay, there is now no surprise that industrial action is taking place and settlements are hard to come by.
So yeah – we have some really interesting people in positions of authority. Maybe the skills shortage is worse then we realise which allows people who have very little clue to rise to these positions of authority. And believe it or not – all the spokesman I have mentioned – with the exception of the faceless Pick and Pay arsehole – are white males. Endangered Species no longer!
One thing that has caught my ear is the Security Guard Strike and today’s COSATU general stay away. A few things do amaze me.
Before I continue, I will lay my colours firmly on the wall as not been supporters of Unions when they get involved in politics. (which they always do – read into that what you will).
COSATU called for a national stay away today to “force” the government to take action on “unemployment and poverty”. Their National Spokesman appears on a talk show to justify his actions. I curse when I cannot get through, as no-one seems to want to ask the right questions or take the lad on when statements he makes leave him open for perfectly justifiable ridicule.
The best one tonight was “COSATU Supports Democracy but its basis is on the grounds of communistic ideals” Now communism and democracy are strange bed fellows. I needed to ask the spokesman all about a body that presses the ruling party for worker protection, higher wages and better working conditions, but refuse to accept that by obtaining these goals companies are loath to employ additional workers due to how difficult it is to downsize when the going gets tough.
I smile when I think that under a COSATU based government – oh wait they are part of the tri partite alliance with the ANC – employers will be forced to employ people to ensure full employment.
Return on investment? Oh that does not fall in with our ideals so we will ignore investors to achieve our lofty goal. What we can also do is fix our exchange rate (a la Zimbabwe) and ensure that there is no black market by bringing back the death sentence and executing people (a la China). That would resolve all our ugly ills.
The same alliance that introduced SETA’s that took money from business and applied it in training people. What they have trained is a whole load of office staff that is required to run the SETA’s. South Africa is bemoaning that artisans are in short supply. Maybe they need to realise that in the old days to become an artisan you signed a apprenticeship for x amount of years at a piss poor salary and trained under old timers who were happy to teach you all they knew. (After spending the first year carrying their tool box, getting them coffee and having practical jokes played on you).
Now you have learnerships which require the same artisan that trained 30 appies in his life time to attend the SETA and train to train people. Of course while he is training to train people, his job cannot be done through the shortage of people on the ground and you happily burden a person who is a tradesman due to the fact he hates paperwork with a whole load of paperwork.
What I am getting at in my long winded diatribe is that I have a problem with people who cannot see the big picture. Who live only to justify their existence. To people who are hell bent to, instead of uplifting people, achieve “upliftment” by bringing others down.
Education is a perfect example. We are faced with our education system being reduced to worthless pieces of paper due to the standards been reduced and effectively not having a concrete system of measurement. All in the name of upliftment.
Take our security strike. Non striking guards are thrown off trains. SATAWU – the union on strike – state glibly that the union is not involved. They happily expect Joe public to say “yup – cannot be due to the strike, must be some other reason why these people are been tossed off trains”. Have a march in Cape Town. Marchers trash the place and cause all sorts of damage. Unions response. “agent provocateurs are responsible” The best response I heard from one Union Spokesman was “the police did not do enough to prevent the damage” followed closely by “the police unjustifiably opened fire on our members injuring them”
Union Officials have to believe that we are bloody stupid! The have to. Why would they say such things if they do not believe that they are going to be believed.
By the same token, Pick and Pay had “industrial action” whereby their union members rocked up at work in pyjamas and happily took their time to serve customers and embarked on a go slow. Pick and Pays reaction – after going to court and having the action declared illegal – took 12 of their employees who had won a trip to Disneyland for been outstanding employees off the plane and refusing to allow them to go on the trip.
Way to Go! The lad who made that decision at Pick and Pay wins the prize for Tony’s Asshole of the Month. If he is on the negotiating team at Pick and Pay, there is now no surprise that industrial action is taking place and settlements are hard to come by.
So yeah – we have some really interesting people in positions of authority. Maybe the skills shortage is worse then we realise which allows people who have very little clue to rise to these positions of authority. And believe it or not – all the spokesman I have mentioned – with the exception of the faceless Pick and Pay arsehole – are white males. Endangered Species no longer!
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