After the recent strike, planned by British Airways cabin crew, was deemed ‘illegal’ by the High Court, the Unite Joint General Secretary Derek Simpson remarked “we'll see at the end of the day who wins this, we will see at the end of the day proper democracy, proper justice”. But what exactly did this central term ‘proper democracy, proper justice’ mean? BA described the “old-style trade union militancy” as far from welcomed by its customers, an estimated one million of whom were likely to have their travel plans disrupted. The idea that the proposed strike served the aims of democracy and justice seems at odds with the fact that the face of those most directly affected soon emerged as customers, and their families. Those who had saved for years to take the dream holiday, those traveling abroad for medical treatment, or even those who were simply visiting family over the festive period. It wasn’t justice for these patrons, nor for the wider company whose ability to pay salaries at all depends on continuing to provide the service they offer. Granted, enticing people to strike, more often than not, takes a real level of dissatisfaction, but my question isn’t the validity of their action, rather the overwhelming reaction of the public against them.

One affected customer stated “I don't blame BA for trying to stay in the game against the likes of Virgin. I do blame the vicious cynicism of the cabin crew.” It seems the public, at least in Britain, have lost their patience with strikes and their proponents. Gone are the days when collective sentiments went in favor of those fighting their injustices, or perhaps it’s just that the battlefield has changed. The recent tube strikes, far from rallying anti-governmental, anti-institutional sentiment infuriated the general public. The overriding sentiment seemed to be that the rights of those who used the services were being severely impinged, no different from the sense of being personally besieged following the repercussions of the postal strike. Thomas Jefferson, reflecting on the tax that led to the Boston Tea Party, and resultantly the American Revolution, stated, “so inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants”. That was an age when the sole understanding of injustice went deeper than a longer holiday or greater job security. In the wake of the economic meltdown the predominant feeling is to be lucky you have a job and to just get on with it.

From a business perspective companies and individuals are under more pressure than ever to stay ahead of the ever-amassing competition and to keep up with consistent technological advancements whilst staying afloat in a turbulent economic world. This means implementing change on what seems to be a near daily basis. As ArLyne Diamond discusses, “adapting to new demands is an important mechanism for both personal and organizational survival. Individuals and groups that do it well seem to be more successful than those that resist and accept the inevitable slowly. But change is so difficult and is almost always resisted”. Most of those in the workforce accept, if not with an always fully welcoming attitude but at least a passive acknowledgment of inevitability, that change is part of what it means to live in the modern climate. The change felt by those in the unions who seek to highlight their plight fail to realize that what they put on banners, most people in modern times accept by adjusting their work levels or heading to the job centre. Arguably everyone is facing the sort of insecurity and financial cutbacks that the minority voice, and the not un-expected response, is a hostile reception for not only complaining about it, but also making the lives of everyone else that little increment more difficult.

 However, modern sentiments towards striking cannot simply be chalked up to recent economic circumstances. Trade unions have been steadily declining in most industrialized Western societies since the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the USA the national average union membership is 12.1%, while in the UK it stands at around 30%.  The reasons behind this are inevitably diverse, including the altered nature of the workforce and economic system, but it makes you wonder whether there is a declining sense of what a good picket line can achieve in modern Britain. Protests are no longer a rare event. When typing ‘protest London’ into Google my computer retrieved 20,600,000 entries on the subject. The advent of celebrity involvement in public outcry for change altered the landscape of protest; unfortunately often their individual efforts sustain a following only for as long as they continue to front the cause. This does not mean that something palpable and positive is not occurring; rather it demonstrates a changed mindset, one in which people want to help but feel overwhelmed by those asking it from them. Since 1980 BBC Children in Need has raised over £500 million, with the most recent event having raised £20,309,747 by the end of the broadcast. It seems evident then that the British public still cares about injustice and actively engages in attempting to alter it. The outcry following the violent clampdown by the Iranian government on those protesting the results of the election is another clear sign, one of many experienced on a daily basis, that ‘what is right’ remains an ultimately fundamental cornerstone of modern Western thought.

Michael Sandel, in his lecture to the LSE, discussed the ‘populist outrage’ felt regarding bailouts in recent times and interpreted it as a return to an almost Aristotelian sense of justice as in accordance with one’s virtues. Strikes in modern Britain, quite simply, make people mad. But it is not a matter of apathy to injustice or selfishness that those affected do not want their lives made harder. It is a matter of getting to the core of what the big issues of today are. For many it seems entirely logical to realize that everyone struggles with similar issues at work because all companies have, at heart, similar basic needs which are being increasingly challenged. The problems our world is facing go beyond pay disputes, and the perspective that affords has helped shift public consciousness, to some extent, into a different way of looking at the problems we face.  Strikes are committed to real and impacting change, but the public very often has bigger concerns. The Boston Tea Party was about freedom, can the modernization of the post office be said to hold itself on par.