An Englishman Talks About the US Government Shutdown

by Neil Bamforth

Now I know that the USA and the United Kingdom are different places. For all we have so many shared values and so forth, there are times when we think you guys are completely nuts and, I assume, visa versa. This government shut down is a case in point. Trump is sulking over his wall and he shuts the government down. Well, something like that anyway.

It couldn’t happen here in Blighty. For one thing we haven’t got a President, thank you for small mercies. We have a Prime Minister but they can’t shut the government down. I’m not sure anybody can shut the government down, other than the government itself.

I’m certainly no expert in these matters so, if I’m wrong and the British government could be shut down then what the hell?

What is really really bugging me though is the consequences of Trump shutting down your government on all the employees who, apparently, don’t get paid.

Frankly America, this is ridiculous. Your ‘system’ in this case is out to dinner, lunch and supper at the same time.

Now, if somebody withdraws their labor because of an industrial dispute, they can’t expect to get paid until they return to work, with or without the dispute being settled. That’s fair enough. The employee has withdrawn their labor so they aren’t doing their job so they don’t get paid.

In this instance the employees have not withdrawn their labor they’ve been stopped from working. So, the employer stops them working through no fault of their own AND doesn’t keep paying them? Absolutely and unequivocally nuts.

Now I have no idea what the ‘work ethic’ of American government employees may be, but I do know precisely what would happen over here if such a scenario was possible and happened.

We would return to work when the government put its ‘open’ sign back up and do, pretty much, nothing at all. We would ‘work to rule’. This means everything would take forever. We would do as little work as it was humanly possible to do while appearing to be busy.

We wouldn’t give two hoots about the work anymore. We wouldn’t care if it was or wasn’t done. You haven’t paid us for a few weeks so we’re doing nothing for a while and getting paid.

That is, quite rightly in my view, the attitude Brits would show. You’ve quite wrongly not paid us so we aren’t going to work hard for you.

Is that the attitude these government employees will have, as and when they return to work? I am curious.

Trump’s attitude is like so many of the bad managers I encountered over here as a union representative. There were any number of excellent managers too I hasten to add, but the bad ones were the ones I often had to deal with.

On one occasion a ‘bad’ manager adversely affected my pay packet. Long story so just take my word for it.

The response? I bided my time.

An entire shift was held up from arriving by a motorway accident and we were all asked to remain on shift until they could get there. Probably in a couple of hours. I said “No”.

My contract said I finished at 7 a.m. so I did. The union members supported me, as they were aware of my dispute, and also left.

The result was that tons of air cargo missed its allotted flights. Qantas, Egypt Air, Air Algerie, Finnair, Austrian Air and many more airlines went absolutely mad at the company management.

All because they had failed to pay me and dragged their heals sorting it out.

The lesson here for employers? Treat us fairly and we give you a good job and, if the occasion arises, we go beyond and help.

Treat us badly and, when the opportunity arise and we can, we screw you with impunity.

So, will government employees, when they can actually get back to work and being paid, be grateful or, will they go back and do as little as they can possibly get away with for a while at least?

I know which I would do. What will be the response of these employees after being treated so badly?

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