And once again the new is full of the news that local council workers are going out on strike. It's getting like France in this country, every time someone decides they aren't happy then they go on bloody strike. Unison, one of the biggest unions is currently advising pretty much all of it's members to strike, regardless of what they actually do and it's getting boring now. The local council lot are going on strike because they aren't happy with the 2.5% pay rise that they were offered, they want 6%. Don't we all. Their complaint is that fuel and food costs have gone up so much that they are feeling the pinch. Really? Who'd have thought? Because the rest of us are still filling our swimming pools with champagne and sleeping on mattresses made from bundles of fifty pound notes. It's the first time reality has impinged on local council workers in about a century and they aren't taking it well. Despite their good salaries, their ridiculously generous terms and conditions, extra bank holiday, gold plated, non-contributory pension and decent maternity arrangements they still believe that they should be cushioned from the realities of a world wide food crisis with tax payer's funds. And since food prices and fuel are so expensive this should apparently be done by pushing up everyone else's council tax so that they can be better off. Let's just say I am not supporting the strike.
Another problem with this strike is that the binmen have walked out. This normally wouldn't be a problem but I accidentally left some chicken breasts in the boot of my car. I only remembered they were there when they started to smell so, since I was at my mum and dad's house, I slung them in their bin, which was empty. It's still empty, apart from my chicken breasts (which since I slung them on Sunday will have matured nicely by now) and will continue to be empty until they return from Perpignon next Tuesday. Long enough for the chicken breasts to have develeloped the kind of odour that could knock out a horse at 20 paces but not long enough for the next week's bin collection to have happened. They're going to kill me. Sodding binmen.
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Vicola's Blog 
Are there any binwomen?
I've never seen any. I've never even seen any slighty effeminate binmen.
Same thing over here. I guess equal opportunity stops somewhere around the rubbish heap.
It's ok though, I've found a solution to the chicken problem. I'm going to put some bags of rubbish on top of the fragrantly festering bag of poultry and claim that the neighbours put rubbish in the bin because the binmen were on strike and they knew that my folks were away. That way the neighbours will get the blame for the fact that the bin smells like Satan's jockstrap, not me.
[esto es genial]
Jesus, if Bury council's levels of service fall any lower they'll cease to function entirely. They have serious money problems and so they've pared down services as far as possible, all respite care is now gone, day centres are few and far between and schools have been closed. I don't understand the pay scales in councils, they baffle me. A friend's dad was a local councillor, not even a full time post, and he pulled in 16k a year from it. So how can they pay a full time worker less than that? And the execs earn a ruddy fortune. They could save a lot of money by ditching the pointless shitty roles that councils are so enamoured of. I don't really see why Bury needs a 'Gay, Lesbian, Bi Sexual and Transgender Inclusion Officer' and I really don't see why if they have to hav eone they need to be on 30k a year. Looking through the Manchester Evening New's job section at the pointless local authority jobs is always good for a giggle. What annoyed me about the strike is that the main point seemed to be that their pay rises have left them worse off in real terms because of rises in the cost of living. Welcome to the world. It's happening to all of us, my pay rises are frankly risable and I'm definately worse off. The assumption that the private sector is paying sky high wages and offering huge rises is, in the main, incorrect. The other thing that ground my gears was this call for council tax to be raised to cushion local council workers from the high price rises, i.e. let's make all the other people a little bit less well off at a difficult time so that we don't feel the pinch. What they are calling for is not entirely unreasonable, I do see that, but the attitude irritated me.