Life on Mars

Back in the 1970’s – when I was at Grammar School – one of our British Prime Ministers tiring of a strike by the coal miners called a General Election to ask the question “Who runs the country?”.

As one commentator has said the reason he was voted out was the electorate took the view that if you don’t know then we’d better let someone else have a go.

Back in those pre- Mrs Thatcher days industrial strife was a regular event – and there was even a song by The Strawbs whose chorus line ran “You don’t get me, I’m part of the union”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOCWUgwiWs

As the character Sam Tyler says in the BBC series “Life on Mars” (a series about a policeman who has an accident and finds himself back in 1973) it’s like “another planet”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifeonmars/

It felt a bit like that here this week as we attempted to organise a business trip to Mumbai.

One of the main airlines operating internal flights in India is a company called Jet Airways. On Wednesday about half their pilots “called in sick”. The cause of this is – as far as I can make out from local newspapers – that two pilots decided to form a union and were sacked by the company owner for “indiscipline”. As a consequence other pilots are staying home in sympathy – and after five days it’s still not resolved. All the usual actors – Government, other unions and the like are involved and in the meantime other airlines reap the benefits and hike their prices – causing Government (yet again) and other agencies (who clearly are ignorant of the basic economic laws of supply and demand) to protest and threaten further actions.

It appears to have now been resolved but whether we ever make it to Mumbai remains to be seen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8252965.stm

Back in my youth I remember going through the Dorset village of Tolpuddle and being told by my father all about the “Tolpuddle Martyrs” – farm laborers in England back in the 1800’s who were deported to Australia for having the temerity to form a union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolpuddle_martyrs

And even Norman Tebitt – loathed by “the left” and hero of the Thatcherite right – was at one time an official in the British Air Line Pilots Association in the UK!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Tebbit