It was only a small piece in the local daily newspaper but the effect that it would have was to be far reaching.
"Stenford Arena Security to be Privatised" whimpered the headline. Beneath it read "The security department at the council owned Stenford Arena, the town’s largest conference and music venue, may be run by a private security firm in the near future. The council say that they may be able to make savings of up to ten thousand pounds a year. The jobs of approximately eight security officers are at risk."
It was just two days before the publication of this tiny article that the union shop steward had been seated opposite the General Manager and had asked, very directly, about the rumours concerning the externalisation of the department, that had been circulating around the Arena for the last few weeks.
"There are always rumours going around this building. It’s true that we are always looking at ways to cut costs in every department, but it really is no more than that. I never listen to rumours. The number of affairs that I am supposed to have had..."
The shop steward interrupted, "but I have to listen to them. It’s the only way I have of knowing what’s going on."
The threatened staff had been relieved, but only slightly so, for there was no trust in local bureaucracy these days. The announcement in the press had put paid to any tiny fragment of trust that remained. The General Manager had gone to ground. A staff meeting had been arranged for two weeks time. The senior staff continued to pass their working hours playing games on the office computers, which the Council Taxpayers had so generously provided. The shop steward could find no one with whom he could discuss the problem. The union was far too busy dealing with the broader picture, national politics and the biannual Christmas party. The authority’s executive officials were either enjoying time off in lieu of days which they had not been required to work anyway or were writing endless, meaningless mission statements which no one would read and even fewer would understand.
The affected workers embarked quite separately on their courses of counselling, paid for, of course by the caring council at a cost of several times more than the potential savings of the cause of their worker’s distress and depression. The elected Members carried on in glorious ignorance and the Council Taxpayers responded appropriately by falling into ever increasing arrears.
Life rolled on as if nothing had happened. And indeed nothing had happened.
The shop steward finally tracked the General Manager down to a hidden office in an adjacent twelve pin bowling alley where he had been listening to a fifteen second continuous loop tape of Status Quo for ten days. Without taking off the in-ear ear plugs, which he had placed deep into his nostrils, or indeed even removing his head from the bucket of sand in which it had been immersed for most of his life, he kept repeating, "there are no jobs for life anymore". He repeated it so many times that the shop steward had imagined that it was the lyric from one of Quo’s greatest hits. Playing games with the calculator implanted in his head he worked out that the webbed feet of the General Manager, which was all that he could now see above the sand, had listened to that snatch of music some 57,600 times and were still not bored with it. The shop stewards wrestled vainly with the idea that this was, in some bizarre way, relevant to the situation.
The day of the meeting arrived with a fanfare of apathy. The Personnel Officer did not attend because he was off on personal business. The General Manager was also unable to make an appearance because he was on the sea front having the sand in his bucket changed. The Director’s Assistant would have turned up had he not gone to the wrong council building, at the wrong time, in another town. But at least he had made the effort. Likewise the full time union official would have come but he had not been invited for fear of him discovering something which he should know.
Approximately eight security officers made an appearance although several of them were late. A large number of other staff were also there, mainly because they had clocked or signed on - according to their grade - and were therefore being paid overtime at various premium rates for being at a meeting which was of no interest whatsoever to them.
A number of diversions such as Ludo and I Spy With My Little Eye were spontaneously created so that no one felt that it had been a complete waste of time.
A great deal of information passed between them but none of it concerning the forthcoming proposed redundancies. A chair was appointed and the meeting proper began with the first question, "does anyone have any questions?"
Some wag shouted out, "does anyone have any answers?"
Another asked more seriously, " I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten what this meeting is about. Can anyone tell me?"
The chair was forced to concur that no one could remember and that perhaps they should, after just one more game of Ludo, wind up the meeting and go home.
The Director’s Assistant meanwhile delivered a stunning speech to a group of Environmental Health Officers an the sad need to make cutbacks on the number of Seafront Officers employed by the authority. He sincerely hoped that this could take place by natural wastage rather than by compulsory redundancy, The cost of which would place an impossible burden on the Council Taxpayers.
The Environmental Health Officers considered this for several days before coming to the conclusion that cut backs would not be desirable or indeed possible as the town was sixty miles inland and therefore had neither coastline nor seafront.. They decided that before they asked their union to make the strongest representations to Members on this matter that they had better check to see just how many Seafront Officers were employed.
The General Manager had to have another two weeks off on the dual grounds of ill health and not having used up his full quota of sick leave for the year. The salt water had finally got to his bucket which was rusting badly.
As the date for the proposed privatisation neared, somebody, the management were not sure who or why, made the decision to take on an extra security officer.
Almost everyone was happy. The Director’s Assistant because his empire was continuing to expand. The General Manager and his team - and the ailing bucket - because the forthcoming redundancies would now result in even greater savings. The shop steward because he would now have one more member to pay union dues. And the security officers because the available work would now be divided into nine instead of eight. The Personnel Officer did not mind one way or the other because he was unaware of the situation, having not been consulted.
The new security officer quickly settled into the routine of the department, watching cable television, struggling for hour upon end with the twenty minute crossword in the local newspaper and worrying about his impending redundancy.
His new colleagues enjoyed strutting around in their new bespoke uniforms, none of which quite fitted as the Council’s tailoring department had, in a bid to make additional savings on the essential car user’s allowance, measured the security staff at the Town Hall, rather than those at the Arena who would be wearing the uniforms.
The shop steward spent many happy hours negotiating with the Chief Executive’s Service’s Offices’ Allocation Officer on the possibility of being relocated in another civil building so that he might have some respite from the never ending flood of questions from his members about the proposed redundancies.
He now had so much time off in lieu due to him in consideration of his trade union activities connected with the redundancies that it was fully eighteen months before he took up occupation of his new office. The authority was forced to employ a new member of staff on a series of fixed term temporary contracts - guaranteed until a year after his projected retirement date - to cover the job that the shop steward would have done had he not been permanently engaged on union business.
The bucket of sand, which was now becoming more influential in the day to day running of the Arena than the General Manager had ever been, announced that a decision had finally been made to make preliminary inquiries into the feasibility of producing a feasibility study of the feasibility of outsourcing the security department.
The Union Branch Office made the strongest representations to anyone who would listen about the lack of correct procedural methods, consultation and notice given in consideration of this sudden burst of decision making.
Nearly two years had passed since the original newspaper article and the shop steward felt that it was now imperative that he seek an appointment with the General Manager, and the bucket of sand, for an update on the situation concerning the redundancies. After consulting their diaries they realised that they would not be able to get together until after the next biannual Christmas Party due to an abundance of annual leave, unused sick leave quota and the need to take their Christmas shopping days off.
The party duly came and went and they both of them realised that the arranged meeting would have to be postponed as the General Manager was on a hangover leave and the shop steward was attending a counselling session to assist with the trauma of giving up smoking, which he never had. He would have put off his counselling but he had no wish to prejudice the Council’s avowed equal opportunities policy, which he fully supported.
The meeting was re-arranged and the General Manager had to confess that he had no more information concerning the starting date for the first of the feasibility studies as the preliminary inquiries had as yet not been commenced. It was agreed that the stress counselling sessions for the threatened nine security officers should be increased to one a day each and that this would necessitate the employing of another two security officers to cover for the time off in lieu.
The two new members of staff were employed, one of whom, in keeping with the Council’s equal opportunity policy, at least looked as though he came from another planet. It was agreed by all that the colour of the present uniform would suit the peculiar hue of the new employee’s skin and therefore the Council’s tailoring service were called in and thirty-three new bespoke uniforms that did not quite fit but were a more suitable colour were ordered.
Another meeting was arranged between the shop steward and the General Manager, care being taken to ensure that it did not coincide with the next biannual Christmas Party.
The new security officers settled into life as local government employees and were admitted to the stress counselling scheme to ease the mental strain inevitably associated with the risk of future redundancy.
There were soon so many taxis, paid for by the Council, running the security officers to and from their counselling sessions that the authority was forced to issue several new Hackney Carriage licenses in addition to establishing an in house Stress Management Department for the exclusive use of local government personnel.
The Director’s Assistant telephoned the shop steward to inform him that he would, sadly, not be able to attend the next meeting to discuss the possiblere dundancies because he had recently been appointed to the Mission Statement Writing Team, which was now taking up most of his waking hours. The shop steward considered asking if there was a possibility of him getting involved, under the guise of correct procedural consultation with the work force, but decided that he was too busy with the redundancy problem.
He arrived for the redundancy update meeting carrying a copy of the local newspaper. Bursting into the General Manager’s office he was surprised to find it more or less empty. He had not been informed that due to the increase in the number of staff employed at the Stenford Arena the post of General Manager had been re-evaluated and upgraded. The General Manager had accepted early retirement and a golden handshake and had been replaced by a bright red fire extinguisher.
Taking the newspaper from under his arm the shop steward looked the fire extinguisher straight in the release pin and said, "Is there any truth in this?" pointing at the headline, "Possibility of redundancies at the Stenford Arena."