workers.”
“Tosh,” said Comrade Wyner. “Absolute tosh.”
“I want to be made redundant,” said one of the Adrians.
“And so do I,” said the other.
“Me, too,” said an elderly man, who was wearing a bow tie, even though he wasn’t an architect.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Neville,” said the intense young woman to the old man. “What would you do if you took a redundancy?”
“I’d retire, as it so happens.”
“But you never do, do you?” the cross-eyed man scoffed. “Every time you complete the paperwork, you chicken out.”
“Order! Order!” said Burgoyne, before other redundancy enthusiasts could reveal their plans.
“What about solidarity with your comrades?” the woman with the huge nose said to the elderly man with the bow tie (who still wasn’t an architect).
“Bugger my so-called comrades,” he responded, “figuratively speaking. I’m prepared to go and I’d be a significant saving.”
“What about the working conditions and workloads of those you leave behind?” said the man with the lisp.
“I won’t give a stuff about them, sitting poolside in some tropical paradise with a gin and tonic in hand.”
Uproar followed. Burgoyne yet again called for order and, spying Morton with his hand up, invited him to address the meeting. “The chair recognises Comrade Morton.”
“Thank you, comrade chair. It seems to me that if Angry Eric is talking to the secretary, we should wait to be informed about the outcome of those discussions, before doing anything precipitate, while reserving our right to take industrial action if those outcomes aren’t to our liking.”
Murmurs of agreement could be heard on all sides.
“And, perhaps,” Morton continued, “we could start considering the concessions – modest, insubstantial things – that we might offer up if management has to appear to gain something in order to back down.”
Further murmurs of agreement could be heard.
“But without stepping back from possible industrial action, later,” said Burgoyne.
“Of course, comrade chair,” said Morton.
“And not rejecting the possibility of a redundancy or two,” said the more entrepreneurial of the two Adrians.
“These are but early days in the struggle,” said Morton. “Anything is yet possible.”
Morton was invited by Escher Burgoyne to formulate a motion embodying his various suggestions. With an amendment appointing Alan as the person to whom suggestions of modest concessions should be sent by the close of business, the resultant proposal was duly put and passed.
“With such unity of purpose, comrades, it can only be a matter of time before the flag of the proletariat flies over the citadel,” said Burgoyne, “and the entire apparatus is in our hands.”
“Cobblers!” exclaimed Comrade Wyner.
“How about concluding with a rousing rendition of the Internationale?” asked Burgoyne.
Comrade Wyner blasphemed loudly and others seemed to accept that this was, in fact, a signal that the meeting was over, even if it hadn’t been formally closed. Some participants rose from their seats, some stretched and looked around, while others began chatting with their neighbours.
“Just a couple of stanzas?” Burgoyne pleaded. “We wouldn’t have to sing all six.”
Without any acknowledgement of the damned of the earth, the prisoners of starvation or the enslaved masses, the departing union members streamed past Alan on their way back to work.
“I could help you out with some “Silent Night” or a bit of “Jingle Bells”, said a triple-chinned woman from the Coordination Unit, who Alan had long suspected of gross intellectual impairment.
“Thank you all the same, comrade,” said Burgoyne, “but I declare this meeting closed.”
Thus it was that the assembly came to an end without the usual debate as to whether work-based child care should take precedence over breastfeeding leave in the next log of claims (the original reason for the Cooper/Wheelwright feud), without deliberations on action to be taken against Azure Faraday (in her capacity as clerical union recusant) and without even the habitual dispatch of fraternal greetings to other oppressed workers (mostly in foreign climes). Alan, though generally supportive of custom and of established ways of doing things, was not disappointed by this turn of events.
Chapter 5
He briefly conferred with Escher Burgoyne about the task his comrades had allocated to him, then left the tea room, feeling both trusted and important. However, when – two steps along the corridor, heading in the direction of his own bay – he heard his name called twice in a low voice from the direction of a large pot plant, the resurgent sense of purpose he experienced was immediately quashed. A blackened eye peered at him through a gap in the foliage.
“Quick,” whispered Quentin Quist, “before I’m spotted, tell me what was decided.”
Alan didn’t want to be sighted by passers-by talking to a shrub and he certainly didn’t want to be observed revealing the outcomes of a union meeting to a member of the Industrial Relations Section … but he couldn’t really pretend not to have heard Quist, having made eye contact through the leaves.
“The rabble,” Quist said, “are they going to strike?”
“I can’t reveal anything about the resolutions of the membership,” said Alan. “You know that.”
“But you still want to be working here when the struggle is done, don’t you?” said Quist.
“Of course,” said Alan, looking anxiously around.
“Then meet me in the toilies in five minutes.”
“I can’t,” said Alan. He’d not previously been party to lavatory assignations of any sort and, now that he was ostensibly a bachelor, believed it especially undesirable to be meeting other men in such places.
“The ones closest to Committee Support,” said Quist.
“But I’m not permitted to talk about union business.”
“It’s your career,” said Quist, “not that it ever amounted to much.”
The gap in the greenery closed and Quist disappeared from view.
Alan wondered what it was about his character that prompted union members to entrust him with important work, yet caused Quentin Quist to think him capable of a double-agent’s duplicity.
His instinct was to return to his work station and commence a substantial task – something that would distract him from all
