Striking back

These are times of industrial strife. Another 'winter of discontent' may be on its way '“ bins uncollected, dead bodies unburied, schools closed and army ambulances on the street. It might be braziers on the picket lines and banners waved aloft. Get out your donkey jackets '“ it's the 1970s all over again.

As a self-employed person it is harder for me to get enthusiastic about industrial unrest. Not for me the option of downing tools and convening a meeting with myself around the briefs and Archbolds while I look on anxiously from my swivel chair. Not for me the ordering of beer and sandwiches as I negotiate late into the night with myself. Not for me the business of briefing and counter-briefing in the press and media.

Obviously I have been in long discussions with myself about my pension provision, the length of my working week, holiday and sick pay and health and safety considerations. And I am finding myself very difficult to deal with; there is a fundamental failure by me to understand my position. I am failing to understand the real impact that I am having on my pension by insisting that I pay more into it in order to fund my old age, when in fact I should be providing a better pension to myself without increasing my contributions or indeed working longer. I have to accept that I shall have to work longer but I am unable to accept such an unreasonable demand. I went into this job on the express understanding with myself that I would allow myself ten weeks holiday a year '“ but now I find that I am making myself take far less than that, in flat contradiction to my own position, and I am not happy with myself, and neither is myself happy with me. I may have to strike '“ which is a tragedy, and a failure to negotiate. I am currently urging myself to return to the negotiating table to discuss with myself the options available to me '“ but, I must say, recent remarks I have made about myself in the media have not helped and I have lost trust in myself to deliver on behalf of myself.

So, being self-employed makes times like these a little strange. We can't go about waving banners and tooting horns from open top buses. Everyone on the news who does so looks quite cheerful about it '“ but then they are with their friends and colleagues. Solidarity is a wonderful thing '“ we don't have that as a bunch of self-employed types.

We do have though great and sterling work done on our behalves by such people as the Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Council. What a task it is for these colleagues of ours. Time was no doubt when being chairman of the Bar, although time consuming and hard work, was still nonetheless a great honour, a pleasant and stimulating and very busy year '“ but still a step on the way to the jolly old red dressing gown and a knighthood on the High Court bench. Now it is a route to overwork and a daily nightmare. Now the chairs of the Bar Associations and others, silks and juniors, are fighting for the Bar's very survival '“ all without the option of us going on strike. That is something we can't do. So we rely on argument, persuasion, rigorous analysis and genuine concern that something so precious as a decent justice system is about to be dismantled, lost and gone forever.

Run for your money

The shame of it all is that governments don't see that not everything can be run as a business that produces profit and loss. In the end, if the remuneration is so low, then able people won't do the work not because they want to be millionaires, but because they cannot afford to live. They are not replaceable by hard-working East Europeans or screwed-down workers. They will go and do something else instead '“ perhaps become bankers and then make lots of money and truly have the nation's best interests at heart. Shame if all those bright young things who make justice the best it can be in a difficult world just decide to go and make oodles of cash and regard society as something to make a rapacious profit out of without any scruples, rather than something that is precious and has a good, independent and pretty efficient justice system as one of its brightest lode stars.

So it goes on. When money is king and king alone, look what happens '“ the misery inflicted by an element of the press that is out of control, the misery inflicted by a poorly regulated and greedy financial sector, the loss of any sense of right and wrong when it comes to parliamentary expenses. Money is the root of all evil '“ it makes some newspapers monsters, some banks irresponsible and some parliamentarians dishonest. Money cannot be the only way to value everything '“ perhaps part of the attraction of Strictly Come Dancing is that, at face value anyway, nobody is competing for money and fame '“ they are famous already and they don't get a winner's cheque at the end. At least there is something for children that does not have money as the motivator.

Anyway, as I argue with myself about how much of a lunch break I should have, at least I know that the Bar is fighting back as hard as it can, thanks to all those who give up their time and effort. In the meantime, I am making myself a final offer '“ and if I don't accept it then I am going to move myself to Hong Kong, or Frankfurt or Abu Dhabi. See how much I like that then, hey? Don't say I didn't warn myself...

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