The Royal Wedding was bad for productivity. A public holiday was declared and, would you Adam and Eve it, the public only went and took a day's holiday. Who do they think they are?
The little people used to do something like that on Sundays. Every bleedin' week! So the law was changed to prevent them. They still do it every 25th December. Every bleedin' year! When is the law going to be changed to prevent that, too?
The Conservative Party tried, the last time that they were in. Well, they are in again now, and almost all of those Old Tories who co-operated with the unions back in the day have since been pensioned off or joined the choir invisible. So come on, Dave. What are you waiting for? Where do you think this is, Germany?
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A lot of people in the private sector got a day off in lieu later on instead of the day itself.
ReplyDeletePeople working in schools got a day off in lieu not just despite, but precisely because of, the fact that the wedding had taken place during the half-term holiday.
ReplyDeleteWhereas at the dear old University of Durham, which does not recognise Bank Holidays either for academic staff or for students, it was business as usual.
The Tories tried to ban Christmas, did they?
ReplyDeleteOnly by one vote did the Major Government fail to make 25th December just another shopping day, effectively compelling shop assistants, delivery drivers and so on to work on it, just as Thatcher had already effectively compelled them to work on Sundays.
ReplyDeleteMajor was only proposing to let shops open on Christmas Day, not abolish the holiday. He was responding to a multicultural society.
ReplyDeleteI am no fan of multiculturalism, either. But even turning Sunday into just another shopping day, never mind trying to do that to Christmas Day, would be inconceivable even in very multicultural parts of Europe.
ReplyDeleteAs would public holidays on which the public have to work, something also unthinkable in the United States. But then, no other country has public holidays for nothing, pointless celebrations of the mere fact that the banks are on holiday.
When the public holidays celebrate great historical events, or Patron Saints, or whatever, then of course no one would dream of working on them or trying to make anyone else do so. And no one whinges that they are "bad for productivity".
In any case, they are not. There are, and there have always been, lots of public holidays for proper things in very productive Germany.
I never said that Major's legislation would have abolished the public holiday. Allowing the shops to open means allowing them to require, even if not officially, their workers to come in. What Thatcher had done to Sundays, Major wanted to do to Christmas.
But USDAW, joined by just enough traditional Tories, managed to stop him. There are now far fewer trade union-based Labour MPs, and hardly any traditional Tories in the Commons.
All those productivity figures can only be understood by reversing them. The numbers look big until you realise that by definition they refer to only one day of the year. Even if they refer to two weeks of the year, that is still not very much.
And productivity to what end, if no one is ever allowed to take the time to enjoy its fruits?