HRpedia: 'Sickout'
When all-out strikes are banned, how can workers protest? With widespread use of sickies, that's howSickout, n.
The recent tube strikes in London really got several backs up. All over the metropolis, people were massively inconvenienced: some important people were demeaned into taking an omnibus, whilst others had a full twenty minutes added to the drive back to their homes in the G ‘n T belt.
Once again, the press buzzed with rumours that angry ministers were tempted to introduce new, draconian laws prohibiting all-out strikes in key transport services. Should such legislation ever be passed, it would make strikes such as these largely impossible – but not quite.
Because as the US shows us, there is a way around such prohibitions. It’s called a ‘sickout’, defined as a ‘a period of unwarranted sick leave taken as a form of group industrial action.’ Generally, it occurs where, for legal reasons, less snide forms of actions are frowned upon.
Entertainingly, according to Wikipedia, when the police in the US are on ‘sickout’, it can also be known as the ‘blue flu’.
So in a future world where industrial action is banned and TfL are trying to cut even more jobs, expect Bob Crow to declare a ‘blocked tubes’ initiative in which 80,000 RMT members call up their bosses in unison at 8.30 in the morning, each claiming that they can’t come to work today because ‘something has got up their nose, and is leaving a bad taste in their mouth.’
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