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Speaker 2: As we come margin Martin and the Beauty of the
Speaker 2: Day a million dark in kegeens one thousand mil last
Speaker 2: grade are branden by the beauty. His sun Sun discloses
Speaker 2: on the papers red and roses, Red and roses.
Speaker 3: You know, I was friendly with the fellow Tempts and things,
Speaker 3: so we just kind of would chat about this, that
Speaker 3: and the other, and so kind of started asking questions
Speaker 3: about our working conditions and pay and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And it turned out that even though we were all tempts,
Speaker 3: all in the same kind of job, doing the same
Speaker 3: level of work, kind of admin clerical work. Basically, we
Speaker 3: were all getting completely different race of pay. So we
Speaker 3: kind of thought, well, obviously, why don't we try and
Speaker 3: do something about this. So we all got together and said, well,
Speaker 3: whoever gets the most pay, let's say, well, let's talk
Speaker 3: to our agencies and accounts and be like, we should
Speaker 3: all be paid this because we were all doing the
Speaker 3: same work, so we should get the paid the same thing.
Speaker 3: So we did that, got back to our agencies and
Speaker 3: that was successful. So it was a really small thing,
Speaker 3: but it was great for us because out of the
Speaker 3: five or six of us, all of except one got
Speaker 3: to decent pay rise out of it. So it was
Speaker 3: like a good start. And then beyond that, while I
Speaker 3: was there, there was a big national public sector strike
Speaker 3: about pens and cuts. This was in two thousand and six,
Speaker 3: and so, like as I said, I couldn't do much
Speaker 3: to support the strike generally other than you know, I
Speaker 3: was saying, I wasn't going to go in. But although
Speaker 3: my manager, who was permanent, I was talking to her
Speaker 3: before the strike and she was a Unison member as well,
Speaker 3: But as we were talking about it, she was saying, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm allowed to strike because I'm a manager,
Speaker 3: So I had to be like, I mean a I mean, okay,
Speaker 3: you're normally a manager, but you only manage me.
Speaker 1: You know, let's let's not get too big for your boots, mate, Exactly.
Speaker 3: It's like you're not the queen or something like maybe
Speaker 3: the queen, maybe she's not supposed to go on strike.
Speaker 3: But also even if you are a manager, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: what do you think this is? Like, yeah, you can
Speaker 3: go on strike, that's fine. And so again, like I
Speaker 3: tried to talk to my fellow tempts about it, because
Speaker 3: when the talk of the strike started, the building I
Speaker 3: was in wasn't a particularly the union wasn't strong in
Speaker 3: that building, as you can probably get, you know, from
Speaker 3: the manager not knowing that they could, and the only
Speaker 3: union rep there not really being interested in building a
Speaker 3: union at work, but being more interested in building a
Speaker 3: left wing political party outside of work, you can say.
Speaker 3: So the other temps kind of were talking about the
Speaker 3: strike in a bit like you know, I think you've
Speaker 3: spoken about them before about media images of what unions
Speaker 3: are like, thinking it would be kind of like images
Speaker 3: of the nineteen seventies, these people trying to stop you
Speaker 3: at the picket line and shout mean things at you
Speaker 3: as you go in. So they were kind of talking
Speaker 3: about how they wouldn't care about a picket line. They
Speaker 3: would come, you know, they would defy it, as if
Speaker 3: that was like the rebellious thing to do would be
Speaker 3: to defy a picket line. So you know, I'd to
Speaker 3: talk to him about that and be like like really no,
Speaker 3: like you know, I mean, also, all of the tempts
Speaker 3: wanted permanent jobs in this place. They all wanted because
Speaker 3: you know, we were doing the same work as permanent
Speaker 3: people on less than half the money, with no holiday pay,
Speaker 3: no sick pay, no pension or any of that. So
Speaker 3: it's like, we all want one of these jobs in
Speaker 3: the future. So if their pension is better, that means
Speaker 3: that our pension will be better when we get one.
Speaker 3: So we should try and help them improve their conditions.
Speaker 3: And also like, if you actually want to be like
Speaker 3: rebellious and define anyone, then you should be defined the
Speaker 3: government and the employers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you should be defy your employer and defy
Speaker 1: the government rather than your workmate.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean on the day when when the
Speaker 3: strike actually happened, I didn't go I went to join
Speaker 3: picket lines, but not at my building because I was
Speaker 3: a temp and I I lost a temptal previously for
Speaker 3: not crossing a picket line, so I went to a
Speaker 3: different building. So on the day, I don't actually know
Speaker 3: what happened with the other temps that went in, and
Speaker 3: also is quite a long time ago, but I would
Speaker 3: be hopeful that some of them maybe didn't.
Speaker 1: Go or either that or they're all like, I know
Speaker 1: you're ship about John. I'm not going to let him
Speaker 1: bully me into not crossing the picket line, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like you.
Speaker 3: Know, it's so it's not the most inspiring ending. Maybe
Speaker 3: it would be better to make something up and be like, yes,
Speaker 3: and they flipped a police car outside the office and
Speaker 3: set it on fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then and then they carried me on their
Speaker 1: shoulders and they went yes, John, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like it was like that scene in June with Timothy Shabladoo.
Speaker 1: Also, sorry, just I wouldn't because I didn't know there
Speaker 1: was the other story that you you just you mentioned
Speaker 1: that I didn't actually ever know about. But are you
Speaker 1: telling me that at a previous job that you had,
Speaker 1: there was a strike and you were a temp and
Speaker 1: you didn't cross the picket line, and you just stood
Speaker 1: outside the workplace, like you know, on the picket line
Speaker 1: with the with the workers there. And then whatppened Like
Speaker 1: your employer just stuck their head out the window and
Speaker 1: was like that's John, I'm getting rid of that guy.
Speaker 3: I mean basically, yeah, I was working at I was
Speaker 3: working as a temp at this Yeah, I was working
Speaker 3: as a temp in London at another office, and the
Speaker 3: union there started a wave of rolling strikes for like
Speaker 3: more maternity pay and like half day strikes once a week,
Speaker 3: and I kind of told my colleagues and my team
Speaker 3: that like I wouldn't sort of cross a picket line,
Speaker 3: and they were kind of like, I mean, yeah, like
Speaker 3: maybe you should do so you don't get fired. But
Speaker 3: I did. But I went and I joined the picket line.
Speaker 3: And then and then I got fired, although like weirdly,
Speaker 3: like there was so basically like my immediate team and
Speaker 3: the manager my I had kind of two supervisors. They
Speaker 3: then went and complained to their like head of department
Speaker 3: and said because they were both joining the strike, and
Speaker 3: they went and complained, and so then they got me
Speaker 3: like reinstated for like three days or something. And then
Speaker 3: like at the end of the week, They're like, okay,
Speaker 3: and now your contractors come to an end, you know,
Speaker 3: So it seemed like you're not being fired for not
Speaker 3: crossing a picket line this time, just your contract to
Speaker 3: come to an end. But it's like, I mean, I
Speaker 3: hadn't been told my contract was coming to an end,
Speaker 3: so I basically think they fired me again, like they
Speaker 3: just waited. But you know, I mean it was only
Speaker 3: a temp job.
Speaker 1: Like, so you were fired twice for not crossing a
Speaker 1: picket line.
Speaker 3: Exactly, I'm going.
Speaker 1: To rehire him, just like can fire him again, that
Speaker 1: red son of a bitch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you can't get rid of me firing
Speaker 3: me just on, yeah.
Speaker 1: Exactly, fire me one me, no, no, the other way around, fire.
Speaker 3: Me twice, yeah okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so like at some point you were taken
Speaker 1: on permanently and so yeah, so what what was that like?
Speaker 1: And how did that?
Speaker 3: It was amazing? I got I got hired, and I'm like, right,
Speaker 3: I'm getting ill. All the illnesses I've been putting off
Speaker 3: for like seven six, seven, eight years or whatever, I'm
Speaker 3: having all those illnesses now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Licking door knobs for the Italian listeners. I'd open
Speaker 3: the window a crack when I'm in the car, you know,
Speaker 3: put the air conditioning on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh man, that's the niche joke.
Speaker 3: I'm sure how many Italian listeners we had. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: too niche.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So how how did that try to change
Speaker 1: your organizing and how did your organizing then sort of
Speaker 1: fit into the dynamics the demographics of your new workplace.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the place I was working, Yeah, basically it
Speaker 3: was a team of about eighty people. I was like
Speaker 3: the youngest person in the office on my first day
Speaker 3: when I arrived, Like because the office, the team, they
Speaker 3: work with young people, they work with clients. And I
Speaker 3: got there and then people spoke to me afterwards and
Speaker 3: they said when I arrived, they thought I was one
Speaker 3: of the clients, Like they thought I was one of
Speaker 3: the young people who maysaged to turn my life around
Speaker 3: kind of thing, you know. So also, you know, I
Speaker 3: was the youngest in the office. Also I looked like
Speaker 3: I was twelve, So I did not start organizing immediately.
Speaker 3: And also I was on probation for the first like
Speaker 3: six months, so I kind of kept my head down
Speaker 3: and made sure that I did my job what especially
Speaker 3: as like I'm like not very good at being punctual.
Speaker 3: Like I was about forty five minutes late on my
Speaker 3: first day and pretty much after that, I was pretty
Speaker 3: much never on time a single day for the whole
Speaker 3: rest of my career. I'm not a morning person.
Speaker 1: I feel like you are exactly the kind of like
Speaker 1: the kind of figure that the right wing press talks
Speaker 1: about when they talk about public sector workers turning up late,
Speaker 1: you know, protected by union barons. Who are you know
Speaker 1: you can't sack them because yeah, they're protected by the union.
Speaker 1: But so you spent the first six months trying to
Speaker 1: grow facial hair so that your your your workmates wouldn't
Speaker 1: think that you were a young person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a young sort of client. And so I did.
Speaker 3: I joined the union. Well, I was already in the
Speaker 3: union as a temp, but as a as an employee
Speaker 3: at least got time off to go to union meetings.
Speaker 3: I mean there was only like big branch meetings, so
Speaker 3: I think it was only like one or two a year,
Speaker 3: But that was exciting to go to an actual kind
Speaker 3: of like union meeting with a bunch of other workers there.
Speaker 3: It was really exciting. The first time that I went.
Speaker 1: Was it because I remember the first maybe also my
Speaker 1: first union branch meeting that I went to, and I
Speaker 1: remember similar to a feeling of being like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is going to be really exciting, but my union branch
Speaker 1: was a little bit an emic and there wasn't all
Speaker 1: that much happening there. And also that feeling of so
Speaker 1: much of the branch activity not having to do with
Speaker 1: the workplace, you know, that was what I really kind
Speaker 1: of what really hit me, and it took me a
Speaker 1: long time to kind of to get my head around it,
Speaker 1: even at first that like, you know, I was going
Speaker 1: to like branch meetings, you know, because I was I
Speaker 1: was the shop steward at my workplace. But there was
Speaker 1: just this disconnect from between what was going on in
Speaker 1: my workplace and what was going on in my branch.
Speaker 1: And I remember kind of being like, you know, am
Speaker 1: I just getting an afternoon off work here? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? That was, yeah, but your your branch
Speaker 1: meetings were different.
Speaker 3: Well, it was an AGM, so it was like an
Speaker 3: all members meeting, right, and there were some local issue
Speaker 3: at the time, and there was like a national pay thing,
Speaker 3: so there were like one hundred odd people there. That
Speaker 3: was just kind of exciting to see, you know, because
Speaker 3: before I'd only ever known like one other union person
Speaker 3: in the building, and yeah, and here.
Speaker 1: There was I tried to get to hand out leaflets.
Speaker 3: Exactly and sell papers, so and here there was like
Speaker 3: one hundred and the talk was about stuff at work primarily,
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was quite like exciting. I mean. Also
Speaker 3: another thing is having this like a job was a
Speaker 3: very big thing for me personally because I had been
Speaker 3: tendinged for so long with no sick pay and stuff,
Speaker 3: and one of my temp jobs, I got injured and
Speaker 3: had to go to the hospital and was off work
Speaker 3: for like months with no sick pay, and it was
Speaker 3: really bad. So I really wanted to make sure I
Speaker 3: didn't lose the job. So I was, I mean, other
Speaker 3: than being timely, which is like, you know, I'll I'll
Speaker 3: do anything for love, but I won't do that kind
Speaker 3: of kind of thing, you know. You know, I was
Speaker 3: being like good other than that, And then after a while,
Speaker 3: basically my strategy was, well, I'll do this, I'll be
Speaker 3: late all the time, but then if it ever comes up,
Speaker 3: I'll just be like, oh I thought I was on
Speaker 3: flexible stars. You know. That was my sort of strategyfe crime. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I wanted to be very careful not to lose it.
Speaker 3: And also, yeah, like I said, I was the youngest
Speaker 3: person there, you know, young white bloke, and most of
Speaker 3: the people in my team were It was mostly women,
Speaker 3: mostly middle age, mostly parents, and about fifty percent people
Speaker 3: have mostly most of the people of color being black.
Speaker 3: So I wasn't like representative of the team as a whole.
Speaker 3: They were all a lot older than me and more
Speaker 3: experienced and had more responsibility in life and that kind
Speaker 3: of thing. So, you know, it's not the kind of
Speaker 3: place where you can go in and then just start
Speaker 3: telling people what to do and be like, you know,
Speaker 3: like quote, well I don't like about some left you know,
Speaker 3: is when they talk about organizing people, you know, going
Speaker 3: and organized, like you're kind of lining up your sort
Speaker 3: of soldiers and telling them what to do whatever. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got to pay your dues. So yeah, I was
Speaker 3: just sort of putting my head down, do my job,
Speaker 3: basically learning as much as you can, getting to know
Speaker 3: everyone and just talking and listening more, just listening to people,
Speaker 3: you know, understanding the connections between different people, Understanding like
Speaker 3: where power lies in the organization, and outside the connections
Speaker 3: between the team and other areas what managers to people like,
Speaker 3: what managers to people not like who are kind of
Speaker 3: influential employees and who are people that keep themselves themselves
Speaker 3: and also go in team meetings see like which people
Speaker 3: are like ask challenging questions in team meetings and things
Speaker 3: like that, and just kind of making notes and just
Speaker 3: hearing things about gripes and what are the kind of
Speaker 3: things people are complaining about. And at the same time,
Speaker 3: as a worker, trying to make yourself indispensable, like doing
Speaker 3: stuff to help out your colleagues so that you know,
Speaker 3: you become popular in the office, but also kind of
Speaker 3: trying to get as much knowledge as you can to
Speaker 3: make yourself kind of indispensable, which is good for any
Speaker 3: worker anyway, because that's kind of what you want to
Speaker 3: not get canned, is to make yourself indispensable and try
Speaker 3: and monopolize all kinds of information. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: what I was doing. And the team I was in
Speaker 3: was quite it was quite a horrible atmosphere a lot
Speaker 3: of the time because the head of our department was
Speaker 3: a real bully. She was horrible and nobody liked her.
Speaker 3: Like as an example of how she was, like once
Speaker 3: she wanted to have a go at me for something
Speaker 3: which was nothing to do with me, but she literally
Speaker 3: stood next to me, stamped her feet and screamed, you know,
Speaker 3: that kind of childish behavior. And also people in the
Speaker 3: team would just like disappear, so that people we work
Speaker 3: with for a long time and then they would just
Speaker 3: never be seen again because they'd been basically suspended secretly
Speaker 3: and then fired kind of in secrets. So there was
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff people were unhappy with. And then
Speaker 3: I think it was probably after like a year and
Speaker 3: a half of being there that there was like a
Speaker 3: really key sort of incident in the team that everyone
Speaker 3: was totally up in arms about, and that's when it
Speaker 3: sort of changed things. So basically, the person I worked
Speaker 3: with most closely was a woman who had been there,
Speaker 3: like she'd been in the department ever since it was founded.
Speaker 3: She'd been there over thirty years, and she was kind
Speaker 3: of like she was an admin clerical worker like me.
Speaker 3: She kind of did my onboarding, and she was really
Speaker 3: well respected and liked by everyone in the team. She
Speaker 3: was kind of like the Muma of the office, is
Speaker 3: how people thought of her and how she thought of herself,
Speaker 3: and one day the department head had her demoted from
Speaker 3: her general job as a kind of office manager, you know, administrator,
Speaker 3: to be her PA, which was a lower ranked job
Speaker 3: in the council. Jobs have a job ranking system, so
Speaker 3: it was a lower ranked job. And she even like
Speaker 3: made this announcement in a team meeting because I think
Speaker 3: at the same time also, you know, someone was fired,
Speaker 3: someone someone was left, so she even made this announcement
Speaker 3: being like, well, bad news, like this person has left,
Speaker 3: this person has gone, because I don't say that this
Speaker 3: person who left, but in positive news for the team,
Speaker 3: I've got a PA. And which is just so tone
Speaker 3: deaf because the woman this happened to like getting demotive
Speaker 3: because I tried to, you know, talk to her about
Speaker 3: opposing it because in a legal and contractual sense, it's
Speaker 3: not something they could actually do. And after it became
Speaker 3: a union rep. You know, this happened to various people,
Speaker 3: and I was able to stop it immediately just by
Speaker 3: writing an email because they can't actually do that. But
Speaker 3: she was not a member of Unison. She was a
Speaker 3: member of the GMB, which in some places in the
Speaker 3: UK is a good union, especially amongst manual grades. But
Speaker 3: the way the GMB functioned in my counsel was it
Speaker 3: was mostly a union for people to join who wanted
Speaker 3: individual protection to work, but didn't want to have to
Speaker 3: take part in Unison stride because Unison regularly took strikes
Speaker 3: for things like pay and against pension cuts, whereas GMB didn't.
Speaker 3: So it was a way they could feel like they
Speaker 3: got individual protection without having to take pine strikes. And
Speaker 3: that was the union she was part of, and they
Speaker 3: didn't do anything to give her any individual protection. And
Speaker 3: it was just so sad because she was just like
Speaker 3: she'd but she didn't even want to fight it because
Speaker 3: she just felt so totally demoralized by it. She was
Speaker 3: totally like broken by the whole that she was just
Speaker 3: devastated really, and everyone was really upset, and especially with
Speaker 3: this other person who'd been fired at the same time.
Speaker 3: There was so much and I kind of at this point,
Speaker 3: you know, it had been there a year and a half,
Speaker 3: so I started to kind of be vocal about this
Speaker 3: sort of thing and ask, like ask really annoying difficult
Speaker 3: questions to cause problems for management, just because I don't
Speaker 3: know if you know this about me, but I'm kind
Speaker 3: of her dick.
Speaker 1: Yeah I've noticed yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time. And I just quite liked
Speaker 3: just being dick, and so that's what I was kind
Speaker 3: of doing to management, but also in a way that
Speaker 3: they can't really get mad by just yeah, asking kind
Speaker 3: of difficult questions that will cause them problems.
Speaker 1: Do you think you could give me an example of
Speaker 1: one of these dickish questions that you used to ask.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, okay, sure. He Like one example was our
Speaker 3: like our department head. Someone asked her in this team meeting,
Speaker 3: why is this person no longer with this you know,
Speaker 3: who'd basically been fired, And she said, well, it's not
Speaker 3: appropriate to comment on staffing matters and team meetings. So
Speaker 3: I just put my hand up and then I was like, so,
Speaker 3: if you said it's not appropriate to talk about staffing
Speaker 3: matters in team meetings, then why was the whole section
Speaker 3: before this you talking about staffing matters when you were
Speaker 3: talking about this new member that's coming in and this
Speaker 3: person who's leaving, you know, a different member of staff.
Speaker 3: So you know that ditch question.
Speaker 1: But I can imagine that she would have she would
Speaker 1: have been sitting there fuming at you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It was obviously, you know, it's awsome. I mean,
Speaker 3: it was also a dickish question because you can't give
Speaker 3: confidential staff information in a meeting, you know, but everyone
Speaker 3: based only yeah that's what she said. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: people sort of snickered. And then you know, some people
Speaker 3: came and spoke to me afterwards, and that was a
Speaker 3: good opportunity to have some conversations and meet people who
Speaker 3: also have issues with management and like challenging them. So
Speaker 3: a couple of people came to me after it and
Speaker 3: they were like, well, why don't you become like a
Speaker 3: union rep for the team? And one of the people
Speaker 3: that came to me was like a mid fifties black
Speaker 3: woman who was one of the people that came, and
Speaker 3: I kind of said, well, I knew that you could
Speaker 3: become a shop steward on a job share basis, So
Speaker 3: I kind of say, well, it's too much for me
Speaker 3: to do on my own, and I don't feel that
Speaker 3: i'm like representative enough of the team and I haven't
Speaker 3: been here long enough. But you know, if you want
Speaker 3: to do it on a job share, I'll do it
Speaker 3: on a job share basis with you. And that was
Speaker 3: actually a really great thing to do. And she agreed,
Speaker 3: and then we signed up and went from there basically.
Speaker 2: As we come Martin, Martin and the Beauty of the day.
Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of this episode. Preview
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