Tuesday 7 September 2021

Breckland Wheelie Bin Woes

Social media can be very depressing at times, it gives you an insight in to people's thoughts and frankly it can be an ugly image sometimes.
Take yesterday's online story on the EDP website for example about Breckland's wheelie bin collection staff who have a rather difficult job collecting the bins in all weathers, have seen staffing numbers cut massively over the years, and their pay cut over lately. They're fighting to get a better deal from their employer, and frankly, I think most people would be doing the same if in their shoes.
Whilst there is obvious support for them, a lot of the comments on the online thread were very negative and very selfish. "Im not getting a pay rise, why should they" type attitude. Well maybe they deserve a pay rise, and so do you? That's part of the problem these days, people attack those around them rather than looking at the bigger picture. They think if I can't have something better, no one else can and you have a negative spiral.
Similar scenario with the Afghan refugees - "we should help our own before we help others" - maybe we should be helping both? And don't tell me we can't afford it - if we can afford to bomb these countries then we can afford to look after the refugees we help create. The housing crisis in this country is the result of decades long cuts to social and affordable housing, the continuation of right to buy and non-ringfenced reinvestment into the housing stock and greedy landlords profiteering by charging rents disproportionate to pay.
People were querying how a pay rise for bin staff could be afforded? "Council Tax increases!" oh no. Not a single comment highlighted that last year Serco made a profit of more than £125million, the top two bosses at Serco got £7.4million EACH in pay & bonuses last year and the company has been give the £37billion for the test and trace scheme.
Rather than attacking the people on the front line, asking for a fair wage for a hard days work, I know where I think the focus should be.
Now I've got that off my chest I'll get on with my days work. #FridayThought






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