Lyr Add: Helping Not Oppressing

Subject: Lyr Add: Helping Not Oppressing
From: GUEST,Rick Pollay
Date: 19 Dec 22 - 05:10 PM

A comment on the National Health Service (NHS) strike by nurses and paramedics in Dev 2022 after three years of Covid crunch and declining real wages. Written and sung to the tune of Good King Wenceslas on YouTube by the Marsh Family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOHEF5CjS1E

Helping Not Oppressing aka "Good King Wenceslas" (12/15/22)

Striking when there’s snow about in the festive season.
Tends to put some noses out. Need a damn good reason.
Might be some mad union fight - selfish, grasping, cruel.
Not a bloody train in sight. Have they seen And oh the cost of fuel?!

Withered wages, on their knees. All the nurses snapping.
Paramedics ill at ease. Can’t pay bills with clapping.
Twelve years of austerity. Backlog like a mountain.
Fighting for a better deal. Why pretend it’s us or them?

NHS is yours and mine. Think we might consider,
How those on the picket lines help it to deliver.
Buses, borders, airports, trains walking out together.
Transport sector’s labor pains worse than winter weather.

Strike on strike the workers vow anger growing stronger.
Failing to resolve things now means they’ll go on longer.
Stark the choices that they face shredded public sector.
Colleagues leaving, contracts changed, fleeced by their directors.

In disasters, what you want is fair negotiation.
Not gas-lighting governments “fixing” legislation.
Therefore, Christmas strikes endure (even though distressing)
That what unions gather for: Helping not oppressing!