The Angry Exile: United we fail

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Tuesday 27 July 2010

United we fail - UPDATED

Unite, are they completely batshit insane or what? I ask only because I thought trade unions were supposed to look out for their members interests and from where I'm sitting it seems like Unite is determined to cost some of their members their jobs by destroying the company that employs them. Not content with costing British Airways, which was already losing money hand over fist anyway, even more money by going on strike they're now demanding that strikers are given cheap flights. It is, according to Unite, yet another 'human right'.

Unite said on Monday that it planned a legal challenge over the decision by BA chief executive Willie Walsh to strip striking crew of their travel privileges – allowing them flights anywhere on the BA network for just a tenth of the usual fare.
"After careful consideration, Unite believes that management's action breaches European human rights legislation," said the union, claiming 6,000 crew were affected.

If that's true, and to be honest I wouldn't bet against it, it just proves how fucking mad the whole rights industry, which is what it's become, has got. For Christ's sake, they're on fucking strike. That's perfectly fine - stupid, perhaps, but fine - so what the fuck do they expect to happen? I'm all for the right to strike, which really is a human right. When you boil it down it's nothing more or less than the right to withdraw your labour, and if that doesn't qualify as a human right I don't know why. But I'm also for the right of employers to react in the way that's in their interests. That's a human right too, and it ought to be anything up to and including finding someone else to do the work that the strikers won't. The law currently protects strikers from that, which seems to give them rather more in the way of rights than their employer and its shareholders, and yet even that's not enough for the cabin crew. They want their cheap jollies protected too.

BA hit back saying: "Staff travel is a non-contractual perk. Cabin crew knew if they took part in strike action they would lose their travel perks. We will defend our position vigorously."

A perk, got it? It's not a fucking right and it's not like losing salary or bonuses that you're contractually entitled to, it's just a fucking perk. To put this into perspective it's no different to all the companies that I've worked for that bought tea and coffee for the staff - it was never in the contracts that tea and coffee would be provided, it was just something they did as a little extra. Everyone would have moaned if they'd been told that for whatever reason they'd have to start buying their own but it wasn't a fucking right that we'd suddenly be deprived of any more than telling even the most over compensated employees that are still taking industrial action over needed economies that they're no longer entitled to a perk that more supportive employees can still enjoy. Tough shit, folks. If you don't like it go work for someone else, or start your own airline and see how long you can make it survive running things your way.

Now I do realise that part of the argument is that BA want to move the goalposts and effectively renegotiate the contracts with the cabin crew, or some of them at least. I can understand that this is a bit shit of them and that the people affected are going to be upset by this. But if what I've read is accurate those people are the most generously remunerated in their industry and the company they work for is losing money. Do they have a right to slay the goose because it can no longer lay golden eggs and they're not satisfied with having to adjust to silver eggs instead?

Declaration of interest: I have flown twice with BA and both times I hated the experience. The flights were both late, one went to the wrong airport leaving me a very long coach trip to where I'd parked, the staff seemed completely unable to give the remotest shit and everything seemed too much trouble, and basically everything seemed to be designed to feel as if we passengers were getting in the way. The attitude seemed to be that they'd be able to run a really good airline if they didn't have to deal with any customers and I'm glad my employer at the time had paid because I'd have been fucking livid if it had been my own money. On top of all that they stabbed a knife into the heart of the Concorde, the only thing that could possibly have persuaded me to part with my own money to fly with them. But most of all it was the cabin crew, the very fuckers who are now on strike, that pissed me off.

Actually on reflection, screw it. Why not give them their cheap flights? Why not let them strike on full pay too? If they want to take their shithouse airline and fuck it into an early grave along with their own jobs, more fucking power to them. Good luck getting Sir Richard to hire you, you worthless bunch of fuckmonkeys.

UPDATE - Over at Julia's Chalcedon makes an excellent point in the comments:

It can't be a human right otherwise it would apply to us all...

Quite. If BA's lawyers can't make that simple argument stick in court there's something very wrong with the law as written.

5 comments:

ChrisM said...: If it is a human right does this mean that all those deprived of holidays by striking staff can sue the union?; 29 July 2010 at 00:44
Angry Exile said...: I like the way you're thinking.; 29 July 2010 at 00:59
Surreptitious Evil said...: BA is, at least recently, a private company. It is not legislation, a public authority or capable of "judicial acts".

As such, I rather wonder what section of HRA Unite intend to use to sue under. I appreciate that Protocol 1, Article 1 could be claimed (I happen to think that access to cheap flights isn't 'property' under the meaning of the Act but ...) but you still need to be the government or acting on their behalf to be capable of breaching somebody's Human Rights.; 29 July 2010 at 15:50
Surreptitious Evil said...: Oh, sorry. This means we can't sue the union back, though. Not under HRA, anyway.; 29 July 2010 at 15:50
selsey.steve said...: Reagan was right to fire ALL of the striking air traffic controllers who refused to obey his order to return to work on 5th August 1981, all 11,345 of the recalcitrand buggers.
Broke the strike, broke PATCO (declared to be operating as a labour union) and taught everyone involved a serious lesson.

"Perhaps the most important, and then highly controversial, domestic initiative was the firing of the air traffic controllers in August 1981. The President invoked the law that striking government employees forfeit their jobs, an action that unsettled those who cynically believed no President would ever uphold that law. President Reagan prevailed, as you know, but far more importantly his action gave weight to the legal right of private employers, previously not fully exercised, to use their own discretion to both hire and discharge workers."

BA should just fire all the strikers and offer jobs back only to those willing to re-negotiate their contracts. If the 'workers' are really, really nice about it, they MAY get their travel perks back.
End of.; 5 August 2010 at 06:12