Connex: Heating Up Anti-Union Lies
It’s a bit surreal looking at the news pages lately. It seems the city is in chaos, and indeed it is. I’ve avoided leaving the house today because it’s too hot. It’s been hot all week, temperatures I thought I’d escaped moving from Sydney but alas not so.
The heat has meant our already incompetent rail system has been even worse this week. Hundreds of trains have been cancelled every day, peaking last night when the power blacked out and shut down the whole system.
This is where privatisation gets you. Basic services are run to make a profit, safety and standards are cut back in order to squeeze more and more profit out of it and the rich bosses at the top couldn’t care less about the sweating workers waiting hours for a train.
Logically, the solution would be to invest in more trains, more staff to repair the trains, but their response has been to blame the union! Somehow it is a crime for unionized workers to refuse to drive unsafe trains. The workers were right to stand their ground, to do otherwise would mean Connex wouldn’t think twice about sending out unsafe trains in the future.
And as the recession hits further, these already underfunded services will be cut further to free up funds to give welfare to the rich.
The only good thing I’ve gotten out of the heat was inspiration for a scene in my “zombie/fascist” story, though the heat makes me too lazy to write it.
