Solidarity to the striking scaffies.
With the storm of inflation coming, the refuse workers striking across Scotland are quite rightly out for an uplift in wages that might see them through a challenging winter.
But they are also fighting to lessen the gap between the highest and lowest paid.
This is something I’m very keen on.
Pay disparity within organisations has long been far too high.
There’s been plenty of times in life when, sat in an office on a meagre wage, I’ve been regaled with tales fae the boss about their weekend away with the kids in Cornwall or whatever.
And I’ve quietly reflected on how I stayed in at the weekend cause the bus fare and the pint cost made a evening with mates too dear.
I support the striking workers – I know what their lives are like
“Working poor” has long been a distinct class of people.
To be honest, I didn’t massively mind it.
My work took up maybe 60% of my time but realistically it took up 2% of my mental space.
Working in building sites, cafes, supermarkets, I could generally learn the job in a morning, and get into the boring routine of it by the afternoon.
This left me acres of time to daydream.
In my free time I entered short story competitions, played sport, spent time wi pals and regularly visited grandparents and all that sort of good stuff.
I passed my work days thinking about these other, rich activities.
Money absolutely isnae everything.
The freedom to explore your own creativity, to volunteer in your community, to undertake upaid but rewarding care responsibilities; all these things are worthwhile things that the working poor get to enjoy that careerists perhaps miss out on.
Gig economy robs folk of their free time
I now know that people who work full time but don’t earn much are having to take on extra work to pay the bills though.
The number of folk forced into this position will likely massively increase before we’re through this winter.
Sociologists have been telling us for years that our shift to globalised markets has resulted in the emergence of a class of people called the Precariat.
With the gig economy employers lurking like trapdoor spiders to snatch and exploit any workers needing a few extra sheets a week, I think we’ll see an uptick in full time workers getting DPD shifts, cycling or driving Deliveroo and JustEat deliveries, paid care work and the rest.
I’m not criticising anyone who does that in the short haul.
But as a society we cannot have it.
We cannae afford to live without what the working poor provide outside of their shift hours.
Take Gordon Duncan, for example.
Bin men by day – legends in their own free time
He was a bin man by profession, based out of Pitlochry.
His steady, reliable and fairly paid work with the local authority allowed him time and energy outside of work to become the most influential bagpiper of his generation.
FEATURE: Legacy of Pitlochry ‘musical visionary’ Gordon Duncan, who played AC/DC’s Thunderstruck on bagpipes https://t.co/VncBq7qoYC pic.twitter.com/YgDD03XvcK
— The Courier (@thecourieruk) March 28, 2020
He was famed for expanding the boundaries of his art and invigorating the scene so much that his influence is still felt in modern piping today.
As I described earlier on in my own daydreaming through shifts, Gordon’s mind was not always fully required for the task at hand.
He “was known to scribble a new tune on the back of a cigarette packet.”
An acclaimed play about Gordon’s short life, Thunderstruck is touring Scotland right now.
And it’s impossible to talk about bagpiping scaffies in Dundee without thinking of the Dundee Poet himself Gary Robertson.
How much has Gary offered to the culture scene in this city, through his band The Cundeez, his play The Scaffies, his poems and his wide championing of Dundee Scots Language?
Without wishing to get Gary in bather, I bet a lot of these projects take up a lot of mental space while he’s doing his hard physical work every day.
Support the striking workers – they support our communities in all kinds of ways
The point is this: I have pals in low paid jobs who have to cram in DPD shifts around their full time job.
That’s not right.
It soaks up their creativity and turns them from rounded people, balancing work and meaningful life, into drones.
Canada has had high inflation for a while and it’s seeing exactly these patterns. We can’t allow it to go on.
Scotland is a culturally rich country.
We have so many singers, musicians, storytellers, people ready to act up on stage or in the street.
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Dundee and Angus and wider Tayside are full of caring communities with volunteering and groups acting out of love all over the place.
These undertakings, artistic and charitable, absolutely depend on people who work full time having the liberty to get out and contribute in their free time or explore their creativity.
The higher a stress we’re under with bills, and the less certain our future, the less free our imaginations will be to daydream and scheme.
The higher a stress we’re under to find more money, from somewhere – anywhere – the less likely it is that we’ll have the time and energy in our free time to help out in our communities.
When wages for lower paid workers stagnate or go backwards in real terms, we all suffer, directly or indirectly.
So solidarity to the striking scaffies, and anyone else preparing to strike for liveable wages.
We need your work, and we need your free time too.
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