Al Tokalot – FATCATT Column
Al is the general Secretary of FATCATT, the biggest construction union in the building employers’ pockets. He’s got plenty of company in there but FATCATT boast of being the biggest. We invite him and he writes as a guest [not fifth!] columnist for the paper and he say’s he’s only too glad to do so. So it’s over to AL….
Hello Everybody AL here,
Once more I take this opportunity to write for such a fine, honest, hard hitting rank and file workers’ paper which champions the workers’ cause and tells it like it really is on site and in the unions. This also helps me to sleep with a clear conscience for at least the night of the day I write the Column. You’ll know what I mean when you look at the truly terrible three year and other dirty deals I’m up to my neck in and if you’ve read FATCATT’s official paper, which is bloody awful.
Obviously as a fulltime union official, and the General Secretary to boot, I can’t say or write what I like about the bosses. This as I cannot afford to upset the people I spend so much of my working life meeting and socialising with. After all, where would I go, who would I talk to if I didn’t have them? And how do site workers and other union members think those three-year pay and working conditions deals union officials agree to with employers come about? I’ll have you readers know fulltime officials sweat blood [while site workers spill theirs - that’s my conscience again!] as well as go through mountains of food and drink, play quite a lot of golf, and one even went up in a helicopter, all paid for by the employers, to bring you the benefits we do. Yes things like…there I go again, I always have a memory lapse when I try to list the benefits we bring site workers.
Writing of lapses, I should’ve been a bit more careful when I blamed striking site workers and what I call bogus self employed workers [word bogus to create confusion, clever eh?], many of who are migrant workers as I wrote, for the chaotic state of the construction industry in an interview I did for the Guardian newspaper in June. I don’t often let my official mask slip as badly as that! I can only offer the excuse of too much claret and I thought I was representing the bosses at the time. Well, I spend so much time with them I don’t know my bosses arse from my bosses elbow. Who is it I’m supposed to represent again? Please write and tell me at FATCATT House in London.
However I can assure you dear readers that interview was not how I really feel about or see things in the industry. This is what this great paper allows me to do. Speak my mind.
Since the Guardian article I ‘ve done quite a few interviews in which I’ve really told the bosses off and slapped them really hard on the wrists for the increase in the killing and maiming of site workers last year. And just to emphasis how angry I was I told them in private they’ll need to find new eating and drinking and golfing partners if things don’t improve soon. They looked positively terrified. Of course I never mentioned site workers getting organised and ELECTING site stewards and, God the TUC and CBI forbid, actually striking to stop the killing and maiming. And throw away all those extremely inspiring and profitable years for the bosses of a New Labour Government, BLIAR, Brown, Iraq, public sector job and pay cuts etc and all? Not on your life! Mind you, I get the impression the building employers think I’m a bit of a paper tiger. Do you?
As ever, writing this and telling the truth, which is always so draining, has truly exhausted me. I now need to put down my mighty pen [Only those in control think it is mightier than the sword but don’t tell anyone], wipe my weary brow and go for a well earned sleep on the one night my conscience lets me. Till next time my dear readers.
I remain yours,
The employers,
I mean the workers,
AI.
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