One day strikes

Wars are not won by skirmishes; they are won by prolonged campaigns. People do not always get it right. Napoleon didn’t and neither did Hitler but both of them recognised the value of strategy. I have studied Hannibal a lot; he won several battles but I never figured out what his overall objective was. It may have been the conquest of Rome but if that’s the case, why bugger off after Cannae?

So what’s the point of a one-day strike? Yes, they grab the headlines but what else? If it’s a private company, there is a day’s loss of output and the public at large don’t give a toss. If it’s a public service organisation, then you will usually piss off the majority of customers (consumers). The consumers have lives too and they are not always happy with them so why should they have any sympathy with these arseholes who have just, albeit temporarily, made their lives worse.

If you are going to fight, make it a war. You won’t always win; the miners didn’t. Like it or not, wars capture imaginations – positive or negative. One day strikes capture nothing.