Rodney on union power

Rodney Hide writes:

There was a time, not so long ago, when the unions could grind the country to a halt and drop a government to its knees. Not now. Their latest industrial action is to tweet a boycott of My Food Bag.

That you didn’t know demonstrates their puniness. That you don’t care, their patheticness.

And why My Food Bag? Well, it’s complicated.

My Food Bag gets its peas from Talley’s. And Talley’s own Affco. And Affco is in dispute with the Meatworkers’ Union.

So the Public Service Association that represents government workers wants you to ditch My Food Bag, so pressuring them to ditch Talley’s peas, so making Affco play nice with the Meatworkers’. That’s quite a few steps.

Yep they wanted all the incredibly happy customers of My Food Bag to stop using them, because they didn’t like one of their suppliers.

But still the boycott fizzled.

We live in a truly marvellous world. We can order our dinners nicely packaged and delivered to our door with all the ingredients and recipes.

We can do so from our phones in our pocket.

Our holidays are no longer destroyed by the Cook Strait ferry workers. Farmers are no longer held to ransom by union goons. We are more productive and more prosperous.

And just to remind us how marvellous things are the PSA demonstrates union puniness and patheticness by failing to tweet up a storm against My Food Bag.

There is a reason union membership continues to decline – they are too focused on wider politics, and not enough on getting a better deal for their members.

UPDATE: The PSA media adviser says the Hide column is wrong as there was no PSA boycott against My Food Bag – just a tweet from her in a personal capacity. I’m also informed PSA membership is not declining.

She also says that My Food Bag has taken action by widening the audit of suppliers such as Talleys.