On striking
Oct. 14th, 2004 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
green_dreamsIt probably says very little good about me that a situation can be making me miserable and tense and stressed and sick as all hell and I *still* won't do a damn thing to resolve it without a kick in the ass. I've progressed to the point where I can actually request a kick in the ass from a friend, but it's still a pretty pathetic state.
So.
Tomorrow morning--having arranged for two phone wake-up-type-things--I am going down to the picket line, I am going to find either the shop steward or the strike manager, and I am going to by-god find out (1) exactly whether or not I'm supposed to be on strike, (2) what exactly (minus rhetoric, cold facts and figures please) is being struck for, and (3) what I'm supposed to be doing. If the answer to (2) is morally unacceptable, I will cross the damn line, but since I really don't foresee a rider in there along the lines of "anyone who gets benefits we are striking for must sacrifice a small puppy on the dark of each moon!", I am doubting I'm going to find much of anything in there morally unacceptable.
(Obligatory sidenote: PSAC really needs to clean up its website. I'd need a pickaxe to extract useful information, and an obsessive bloodhound to find it.
Someone asked me if striking would bring me any tangible benefit. It won't; I'm gone at the end of the month, long before increases will have any noticeable benefit beyond a cup of high-class coffee (and possibly before they even resolve the strike). Oddly enough, this makes me feel distinctly better.
I have also considered the downsides. They are no pay (unless I make the hours on the picket line), further pain from Pay and Benefits[1], and the possibility of no longer being a favoured and beloved employee and not getting any further extensions.
These are nothing I am not willing to live with.
I feel considerably less stressed now, and leave you with this haiku:
Footsteps turn outside
on the pavement. Signs are waved.
Inside, emptiness.
========
[1] Hi, we'll overpay you by two weeks. Now we'll not pay you for the month of September. Now we'll reclaim some of the cash we overpaid you, but by issuing a cheque for full-time work, when you're only working part-time. Now we'll pay you for September. Now we'll take the cash you owe us because we paid you full-time off your next paycheque, so you can next expect renumeration in early November, after you've stopped working.
I can get this level of fiscal stability from a freaking yo-yo...
So.
Tomorrow morning--having arranged for two phone wake-up-type-things--I am going down to the picket line, I am going to find either the shop steward or the strike manager, and I am going to by-god find out (1) exactly whether or not I'm supposed to be on strike, (2) what exactly (minus rhetoric, cold facts and figures please) is being struck for, and (3) what I'm supposed to be doing. If the answer to (2) is morally unacceptable, I will cross the damn line, but since I really don't foresee a rider in there along the lines of "anyone who gets benefits we are striking for must sacrifice a small puppy on the dark of each moon!", I am doubting I'm going to find much of anything in there morally unacceptable.
(Obligatory sidenote: PSAC really needs to clean up its website. I'd need a pickaxe to extract useful information, and an obsessive bloodhound to find it.
Someone asked me if striking would bring me any tangible benefit. It won't; I'm gone at the end of the month, long before increases will have any noticeable benefit beyond a cup of high-class coffee (and possibly before they even resolve the strike). Oddly enough, this makes me feel distinctly better.
I have also considered the downsides. They are no pay (unless I make the hours on the picket line), further pain from Pay and Benefits[1], and the possibility of no longer being a favoured and beloved employee and not getting any further extensions.
These are nothing I am not willing to live with.
I feel considerably less stressed now, and leave you with this haiku:
on the pavement. Signs are waved.
Inside, emptiness.
========
[1] Hi, we'll overpay you by two weeks. Now we'll not pay you for the month of September. Now we'll reclaim some of the cash we overpaid you, but by issuing a cheque for full-time work, when you're only working part-time. Now we'll pay you for September. Now we'll take the cash you owe us because we paid you full-time off your next paycheque, so you can next expect renumeration in early November, after you've stopped working.
I can get this level of fiscal stability from a freaking yo-yo...
