Confirming Stereotypes About Public Sector Workers…

Up to 3.8 million public sector workers will lose the right to have their trade union subscriptions automatically deducted from their pay cheques after the government announced plans to end the “outdated practice”.

*nonplussed face* This is some sort of ‘right’..?

Unions say this will lead to a loss in funds by making subscription payments more complicated.

Really? How come? They can still set up a direct debit, like everyone else who belongs to a union, can’t they?

It’s almost as if you think your members are dumb sheep, who if they can’t tick a box on their entry form to have their employer deduct it at source will be totally unable to pa…

Oh. I see.

The Conservative party tried to end check-off in Whitehall departments in the last government, but this was blocked in part by the Liberal Democrats. Under a compromise the change could only be introduced with the agreement of the relevant cabinet minister and after consultation with their coalition couterpart. This gave Lib Dems an absolute veto in the departments they controlled. The change was introduced in the Home Office, HMRC and Ministry of Defence.

And…those departments are still standing, aren’t they? There’s not a smoking heap of rubble at 100PS or Marsham Street, with shell-shocked public sector workers standing, clothes in rags, muttering ‘I don’t understand..’, is there?

So no problem, right?

. In one of the biggest changes the business secretary, Sajid Javid, said that unions would be obliged to ask their members every five years whether they wish to pay the political levy. The Labour party, which benefits from a sizeable chunk of the annual £25m political fund raised by the levy, believes that the Tories are embarking on an assault on their funding arrangements.

Hoorah! This, at last, is what we elect a Tory government to do! More please, faster!