So Mike Lynch is (according to Twitter) schooling campaigners and spokespeople this week. Showing them how it is done. He is winning support from people you’d never expect to back a Union.
Maybe this is another tipping point, another moment to think.
We wanted change from the lockdown. We felt like this could be a moment when we make changes for good. We saw that work can be different, it doesn’t have to be done the way we all thought it had to. We discovered new things about ourselves - for better, for worse. We discovered we have choice.
But then we are now experiencing bosses want things ‘back to normal’. They didn’t embrace the change as much as we did. They are even worse than before. They appear to have learned nothing.
But people are saying no.
There is currently 3.8% unemployment in the UK right now (about 2.5 million people). There is currently estimated 1.2 million job vacancies in the UK right now.
This is what choice looks like. Not of the ‘go and get a job’ variety. Because jobs are more complicated than numbers. But more ‘go and stand up for your rights, demand decent pay and conditions’.
With choice comes consequence.
It is your right, it is also your responsibility.
There is no easy way out of this. Because people have had enough. And there was a chance to make it better. And it’s only half been taken.
As someone said on Insta…
We know how much senior management get paid, how the wealthier part of society live, what’s on the other side. We saw it play out on their Instagram. Lovely fun in their gardens, walks in their maintained parks, yoga in their huge living rooms. We all watched from our cramped 7th floor flat in the estate where it was dangerous to go out for a walk. Do they really think we aren’t going to have something to say about it?
(This is not a pro or anti union post - this is a exploration of choice).
So. Again. Interesting times ahead. Which will challenge us to go deeper again. To rethink. To not just go back to how it was, or expect things as the were. But to understand that things have changed.
Heavy for a Friday night! But it’s certainly had me rethinking today!
Don’t worry Love Island is on at 9pm!