Wolf in Wolf's clothing

Membership or otherwise (by the staff) of a Trade Union has never been an issue at the Wayside Tavern. Mine Host knows some staff have been union members, and some due to bitter experience are violently opposed to trade unions.

Disclosure: Mine Host is a sponsor of a Trade Union, his biggest customer, after collective federal & state government departments, has been the Trade Union Movement. His father held a Union Ticket most of his working life. Mine Host, courtesy of from whom he is descended, is Labor Royalty.

An employer in the town is the subject of a complex industrial proceeding, in which union involvement is quite heavy.

The union officer involved in the matter is an in-house guest booked for a long stay. He has become a familiar figure around the place, eating most meals in house & having constant dealings with most of the staff.

Currently most, if not all, staff are not in a union. Thus the extended stay of a union Industrial Officer is a golden opportunity for the union movement.

The union official is an abrasive, demanding, sour tempered swine. He is rude to the staff, possibly the worst behaved customer we have ever had. No matter the effort put in by the staff he is never anything but displeased & scathing. He is constantly scathing of the staff on a personal level, seeking to demean them at almost every opportunity.

Were Mine Host or his staff to treat their customers the way this man treats the ordinary worker, we wouldn't have any customers by the end of the week.

Easy to see why these swine seek to have union membership mandated by law. Were membership numbers reliant upon service & courtesy toward members the union movement would deservedly be finished.

Ladies in Uniform

A regular meeting between the town's Liquor Licencees and Police.
An aside: Boy do you get some red hot quotes from the coppers in these meetings - out of the mouths of babes etc. It is amazing how middle aged men (Sgts) can be so clueless about how the world works. This is of course the inevitable outcome of for most serving officers the Police being their first job, having been sworn in as teenagers.
The recent acceptance of mature aged recruits (i.e. late 20's, possibly 30's) will eventually result in an infusion of Police Sergeants with a less isolated worldview.

This can only be a good thing.

Simultaneous to acceptance of "mature" recruits has been "equal opportunity" recruiting, a fancy way of saying that previous physical requirements have been scrapped.

This was confirmed (unintentionally) by the Sergeant at the meeting. When asked why Police walk-through a licenced premises at 9pm on a Tuesday (when the place is empty) instead of midnight Friday? (when a patrolling Blue Shirt will have a positive impact upon public behaviour)

"They prefer to not patrol pubs at that time, as they get cat-called & ice is thrown at them from the crowd, who's going to want to put up with that?" - He expected us to agree, being too clueless to understand the grim reality of working life for those who don't wear that protective blue shirt.

At this point in the meeting the town's publicans, rarely able to agree upon anything, & who can't stand the sight of each other, never mind actually.. (ugh) ... talk to each other, stared at each other gape jawed. Their opinion of the police (based upon the reality of actual police competence, performance, consistency and morality) vacillates from suspicion to open contempt, however this was breaking new ground.

Mine Host has known plenty of police whom nobody would have been game to cat-call or throw ice at (no matter how dark or how crowded a pub was). It would seem those days (and men) are no more.