Socialist Workers – an Oxymoron

I’ve always considered the term “socialist worker” to be an oxymoron. After all, these parasites have plenty of time to attend demonstrations and poke their noses into to other peoples’ disputes rather than actually, you know, work.

I recall the signaller striker of 1994. I was an active member of the RMT at the time and attended the pickets during the strikes. Despite the media coverage attempting to politicise the dispute, it was nothing to do with Railtrack’s privatisation, but was prompted by significant changes to our working conditions. In general, the deal Railtrack was offering was a good one, but there were some worries about job losses and a shift to longer hours working two signalling panels during the night hours instead of one. In retrospect, it was all a waste of effort and these days I take a different view of striking, but that’s another matter. There we were on the picket line – signallers in dispute with Railtrack – and along come the Socialist Workers to take part, offering “solidarity”. Frankly, the last thing we needed was the Socialist Workers’ solidarity. They were about as welcome as  a plague of boils.

I was reminded of this yesterday when the plague descended on the ACAS talks between BA and Unite. The images of this bunch of scum-bags was all too familiar. They have nothing to do with either protagonist in this dispute, but they felt it was perfectly fine to trespass on private property and disrupt the discussions, reducing the likelihood of a resolution before next week’s planned stoppages. Like some science fiction entity that feeds on negative energy, this cancer swoops like a flock of voracious vultures on unrelated disputes in order to disrupt and harass. Just look at the body language of these people and you will see what I mean. They are rent-a-mob scum. Clearly Tony Woodley didn’t feel that their solidarity was of any use to him and his cause.

Mr Woodley angrily remonstrated with the protesters telling them to “shut up”.

Mr Woodley was too polite, methinks…

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Update: The Quiet Man also comments.