Thursday, October 20, 2005

600 jobs? I'm so glad we have a worker friendly government

So you're a Labour government, you've just got back into power on the back of union movement organising. You hear that the airline you own is going to slash 600 jobs and what do you do?

Nothing, of course.

At least the company made their priorities clear; they told the shareholders then they told the workers.

I was struck by the ludicrousness by the phrase '600 jobs lost'. People write in the passive sense when they want to hide who is actually taking action. In this case it should be 600 jobs lost by Rob Fyfe (or 600 jobs lost by capitalism working in the way capitalism works). But that reveals the ridiculousness of the verb, I lose my keys, I lose my wallet, I lose my cell phone, I lose my jacket, I lose vital bits of paper, sometimes (due to everything else) I come close to losing my mind. You can't lose a job, you're not going to find it under that pile of work you haven't finished yet, or down the side in the car. Again it disguises the activity going on, the active choice that has to be made before anyone can be declared redundant to requirements.

That's a silly thing to concern myself about when you think what those 600 people are going through right now.

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