www.iaindale.com/posts/why-for-the-...ht-go-on-strikeThis is absolutely amazing in so many ways. It is really very hard for me to know how to react.
The author is former tory MP and he is a barrister. He is extremely unhappy and he is thinking about going on strike. Well I can't blame him. His profession is suffering from the same nonsense as the rest of us: and I am unhappy too. Seems he has to fill in a lot of pointless paperwork to get his pay: well that is worse than my job: I just have to fill in a lot of pointless paperwork to ostensibly do my job.
Apparently he is being told that the targets are being met: so that is just like the rest of us too. But he seems to think that is something worthy of mention when it affects him. Well we are all purblind in that way and so it is no surprise that he fails to see that this one-size approach does not work anywhere at all.
He presents his profession as the defenders of the weak and powerless: well....that certainly should be a part of their role. I am not as convinced has he is that they actually do much of that: but let it stand
On the whole I believe his case and I am sympathetic to his problems: even though the fees such people command make it hard to accept that things are as bad for them as he says.
www.guardian.co.uk/money/2002/feb/03/wageslaves.careersQUOTE
Research from BDO Stoy Hayward suggests lower income levels than the public expect: below £400,000 for many senior barristers, and less than £40,000 for those just starting out.
And that was in 2002...
I do not apreciate his nasty little swipe at the doctors, who have their own problems arising from this same public policy approach. But solidarity is alien to this mindset. It is amusing that he now characterises his professional body as a rather useless trade union, though. Did he not notice that all trades unions are a bit useless now? It is a consequence of that same anti union legislation....
Where I have a problem is in the fact that he was and is a tory. Tories do not support the right to strike. They passed laws to make them very difficult and those laws were retained by all subsequent governments. So it is nothing short of hypocrisy to now take that course when the prescriptions you imposed on everyone else come home to roost.
I am always amazed when the rich and powerful appear to be surprised when faced with what their own policies mean in practice: and respond in exactly the same way as those of us who do not have rolls royce minds. Did they honestly think that the attack on the poor was going to remain just that: did they not understand that the erosion of rights creeps inexorably upwards and would eventually reach their part of the beach? If that is the quality of mind which passes for intelligent and which lays claim to a role in defending my rights I will take a shop steward instead, thanks very much.
Course if he was prepared to be an employee like sensible people this would not arise: but barristers are self employed. That means they do not pay as much tax as employees of course: but that can't matter to him because he is not getting any money, he tells us. So that is one possible solution. If he was not a hypocrite he would be looking at that option instead of at a strike. But he isn't
