Customs officers plan to walk off the job just one day before the Olympics. Moreover, they won't work any overtime throughout the games.
I suppose it is yet another example of the moral degeneration of Britain. It really has become an island of vipers. Bankers can run up huge losses on failed bet, and then present the bill to the taxpayers. Market interest rates are manipulated, and the regulators and BoE claim they knew nothing. Journalists tap phones of crime victims and Policemen take cash for inquiries. MPS fiddle their expenses. Celebs avoid taxes while lecturing the rest of us on paying more.Security firms are paid huge management fees for incompetence. So why can't a customs officer squeeze a few bob into his pocket by making life difficult for a traveler?
The answer should be "because it is wrong". But if we do not require a minimum standard of decency from a banker, a journalist, a politician, or a policeman, then why should we expect it from customs officers.
In the end, we get the country we deserve.
6 comments:
Your conclusion is absolutely right.
How can I (as an active union representative - Aslef) exhort my colleagues to show restraint ?
There is a difference between too big to fail bankers who extort billions, and ordinary working people when wages are decreasing in real terms and they are struggling to live/pay rocketing rent/feed their families.
We have spent 40+ years teaching children that there are no moral absolutes, that everything is relative. What else do you expect would be the case?
Re you and the other posted comments - you are not wrong, there is much to complain about in those other instances. But two wrongs don't make a right. As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong) the strikers are upset over their pension arrangements. If that is so, and given these are public sector pensions, they are effectively saying that all the rest of us must pay up so that their schemes remain as promised or planned. Bankers et al definitely deserve the condemnation but still given we are where we are, these strikes are promoting a "me first" viewpoint as well.
Oh come off it. Unions have misbehaved since time out of mind, whether bankers are Mr Mainwarings or Bob Diamonds.
Misbehaving is what unions are for.
Given the iron grip and resolve of our Government, who always stand firm in the face of all resistance to policy measures, it is obvious the customs officers are no way going to win.
Given the history of VAT on pasties, charitable status of donations, fuel duties, etc etc - would you figure that as a trade union your chances of getting the result you want were likely to be helped or hindered by taking "action" at the time of your strongest bargaining position?
Of course a right wing freedom loving libertarian government thinking out of the box might ask why we need to check everyones passport - if we were in Schengen for instance our own people could come and go to the EU countries they usually visit in summer without passport control. But hey, that might require some real free thinking and we maybe could do that with even less customs officers.
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