Down with this sort of thing

There is a picket outside the Art School every day just now.

I saw an interesting article recently talking about an ageing union membership, causing a focus primarily on issues affecting older staff - pensions mostly, like in this case - and this making younger people likely to see unions as irrelevant to them.

I’m a little conflicted. Firstly, I am an older person myself (no, really - I can see how my Peter Pan looks might fool you, but I am). Secondly, I kind of think slashing the previously agreed pension deal for poorly paid staff, in order to free up cash to give the vice chancellor another huge pay rise. Thirdly, a union is kind of obliged to represent the interests of its actual members, not people who have chosen not to join.

All the same, it doesn’t encourage people to join if you only ever seem to campaign against stuff that doesn’t impact them.