This is not what solidarity looks like

I was disgusted by this article in the Sunday Star Times:

OPPOSITION IS mounting against junior doctors, with some top officials saying they are too eager to strike and their union's figurehead, Deborah Powell, wields unreasonable power over health services.

Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly has questioned the Resident Doctors' Association, saying it has a narrow power base under Powell, who focused on industrial negotiations and failed to work with the rest of the health sector, which could avert strike action.

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists has made similar comments:

Senior doctors are also angry, saying the RDA's strike action "is doing little to defend the important principle of the right to strike"

The right to strike isn't a principle that you defend by voluntarily limiting the way you strike. The only way to defend the right to strike is to go on strike.

Helen Kelly, and the senior doctors, are weakening the union movement's ability to strike, because they're implying the strike shouldn't be supported because of the how the leadership operates, the bargaining tactics, or that the union isn't doing enough to work with employers to improve productivity. These are all arguments that employers, the government and media have, and will, use against striking workers, even those who belong to the CTU. It's not that long ago that the Slum Post implied that the Progressive Lockout was part of Laila's grand plan to run for CTU President.*

When it comes down to it you're either the sort of person who would wear a NUM sticker and secondary picket, or the sort of person who would argue about the ballot procedures use (That's a reference to the British Miners strike of 1984/5 for more information see here for a start). The new president of the CTU is clearly the latter. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised.

* It really wasn't, for so many reasons.