Irresponsible, Selfish People

"BLACKOUTS swept Victoria last night as union members walked off the job at power stations." - Herald Sun, 3rd November 2000.

Last night, I was sitting at a friend's house. Chatting, talking away, the usual Thursday night thing. The video was going, recording a show. The door was open to let in some cool air to take away the stuffiness of the room. Nothing unusual for a spring day.

Suddenly, without warning, the power went out.

We all went to the balcony to see if we could see what happened. Funny, there wasn't a storm last night. Nor was there a car sitting against an electricity pole. In fact, from what we could see, it was only that one block of houses without electricity - every other house across the road, and down past the railway line had lights.

There was nothing for us to do, except get out some candles and continue on with our evening. The lights will come back on, eventually, of course!

By the time we headed home, the lights still hadn't gone back on.

I got home, and went to bed, thinking no more about it - it was probably a possum getting fried.

This morning, though, I heard the story on the radio.

It was not a possum, nor a car crash, nor anything of the sort! It was the fact that some people at the power station decided that they'd go on strike.

On top of that, it was not even authorised action by the trade union movement!

And no-one was notified, until way too late.

I wonder if the strikers will pay for all the damage that they did?

Not only would people have lost work on the computers, but petrol stations lost electricity and the ability to pump the petrol, cinemas have to be shut down because they are now not allowed to show movies, supermarkets could not use registers, and that's just the start. Houses and businesses were even without alarms! The scum of Victoria then decided to take the opportunity to loot these businesses!!

Somehow, I doubt that the strikers will pay for the damage. Why? They don't give a toss about the people of Victoria. They only care about themselves.

Why do they do these things? I didn't do anything to be treated in such a fashion.

We, the people of Victoria, can now not use dish washers, washing machines, more than two lights in one household and other major appliances. We're on power restrictions because of the selfish strikers.

Even pulling power from New South Wales and South Australia did not cover the Victorian need for power.

We Victorians are in the dark, in more ways than one, over this whole issue.

Not many people are supporting the movements of this union, at all. Even the people who usually support the various union strikes are opposed to this one.

One thing I can never figure out about unions - why, when some of them strike, do they aim at doing as much damage to the people as possible (as with this issue)?

They should be striking in such a fashion as to only hurt those who are hurting them, instead of everybody! This is just a completely selfish thing to do. I am disgusted by the unions who do this.

If they're angry at the government, pull the plug on the Parliament! They shouldn't aim at all Victorians - I'm not the government - I can't do anything about it. In fact, all that will happen, is that I will get angry at the union.

I guess the logic is to piss off the people, so we will make the government do something.

But I'm obtuse - due to the childishness of these actions against the people, I say 'Don't give them what they want! Don't support the selfishness of these people.'

If they appealed to us first, then that would have been another story. If they had of put their case in the newspapers and on radio, people would actually support them in their actions.

But when people are left in the dark, people are not in the least bit supportive.

Unionism used to be a great thing. It stopped the abuse of children, forced down into mines. It stopped people from being under paid, from being ripped off. That's all good, all laudable.

But unions today seem to have too much power, and they seem to strike at the drop of a hat. It's no longer a way of protecting people, it's pure and utter selfishness.

A Supreme Court injunction ordered the workers back on the job. Hopefully they will see the selfishness of their actions, and realise that the lack of support of the Victorian people was their own fault.

Hopefully they will stay at their jobs and we will get power up and running as it should.

One is allowed to dream.

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© Caroline Seawright 2000