Strikes, Global Richlist and BACK FROM CHRISTMAS

Heey!

I took a break from blogging during Christmas and all of January, appearantly. Not too many awful events took place, and consequently, I wasn't upset enough to post anything.

Now, on the other hand, the famous straw broke the camel's back and I really have to comment on ongoing strikes, as I've written about them before.
1) University Staff demands higher wages, a UK wide action, but I feel the local consequences in Glasgow. 2) Tube strikes in London due to cuts, resulting in -950 or so jobs.

The Strikes are somewhat different
The Purpose of the Uni strike is to increase wage ("normal Union demands"), while the London strike is to save the jobs of the union members. Also, the way in which they pursue these targets are different. London strike took a more "regular" approach, by laying down work for a day, resulting in massive delays and bothering a few million people in London. The staff at University of Glasgow, on the other hand, has come up with the somewhat weird idea of 2-hour-long strikes, meaning that classes/lecture are off for 2 hours, but will then be resumed.

So, value free from my point of view, if you ARE going to strike, you kinda want it to be felt by recipients but preferably by your employer. And preferably as much as possible. In this sense, the London strike is excellent. Costumers upset, loss of income, disrupting on a large scale. Puts pressure on decision-makers. On the staff at Glasgow Uni? Not so much. Loss of income for uni? No. Costumers upset? Not really, most part of revenue is already distributed to the Uni. Disrupting? Not really, mostly somewhat annoying.

That is, at face value, the Glasgow strike doesn't even make sense; it doesn't achieve its ends, whereas the London one does.

On the Issue of salaries
This doesn't really apply to the London strikes, because they're concerned with job cuts - not pay cuts! There we might consider if extra Tube costs for millions of people are worth the jobs of 950 workers. Hardly.
But generally, Unions are concerned with wages, and that's what I'm adressing now.

I don't know what the Uni staff generally makes, and I suppose there's a distribution between café workers and professors. But, even disregarding that, I'm pretty sure they're payed above the UK minimum wage. Considering the Minimum Wage then means my calculations are on the LOWER EDGE. Currently the minimum wage is £6,31 for regular workers, resulting in an annual net payroll of about £11 700, according to this. Let's put that into Global Rich List and we find that amounts to world top 6% income-earners.

Hang on, let me get this straight. People, making more money net of taxes, than 94% of the world's population, are striking in demand for higher salaries. Really?

Someone's got to be joking. Quit fooling around, get back to work (or leave, if you don't like it). Don't be ridiculous, annoying the rest of us.