A Strike on an Olympian Proportion

Yesterday in an interview with ‘The Guardian’ Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, discussed the possibility of Strike action during the London Olympics. (Original Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/28/olympics-london-union-strike-threat) Today I discussed with a fellow student the possibility of strike action. He argued that strikes during the Olympics would make the UK look stupid and that the government should introduce laws to stop strike action during the Olympics. This reactionary view is probably one the government will follow if strike action becomes a reality, but at the moment these are hypothetical strikes, yet they raise two important questions; will the Olympics make the UK look like a glittering beacon of western civilisation? and Does the government have the right to limit civil liberties so that it is not embarrassed?

I remember in Year Five coming back from lunch to be told by my teacher that London had won the 2012 Olympic Games. I did not care then, and I don’t now. As the years went on more and more money was pulled from normally government funded areas to fund the Olympic Games. I am not a sporty person but am fond of the arts, so as I grew up I found more and more arts based ventures closing in order to fund one sporting event. The 2008 economic crisis only made billions of pounds spent on the Olympic Games more outrageous; Gordon Brown only seemed to use taxpayer’s money to bail out the banks and fund the Olympics. When the Games take place in the summer I do not believe they will show off the culture of Britain but rather how out of touch the UK governments have been with the public in the last decade. London may come off as a centre of sport and culture but, contrary to what many MP’S believe, London is not the entirety of the UK.

As a left-winger I love a good strike. Nothing hits harder than ‘downing tools’ and refusing to work. However I am not ignorant to the negative effects strikes have on the striker; the loss of pay being the major one. However I think striking during the Olympics would show the world that the UK economy, and the government, is not working. Strike action would break the charade of an economy in recovery and show the world our ruined economy, ravaged by bail outs and budget cuts. The government may seek to limit any humiliation by forcing laws through to stop any strike action. This would be unacceptable. The government never has the right to limit our rights; if people want to strike, they have the right to strike. If the government was allowed to stop any strikes it would be allowed to go down a slippery slope of limiting civil liberties. The government is meant to be the voice of the people, not the enemy of the people. If unions want to strike, they will strike and I for one hope they do.