These ancient warriors, passed over by time, economics, and reality:
The train platform was jam packed at Warschauerstrasse in eastern Berlin on Wednesday morning. Hundreds of disgruntled commuters stood shivering in the cold as snow swirled down out of the frigid gray skies. Their mood didn't improve when the train showed up -- the doors opened to reveal a hopelessly overcrowded car with hardly a speck of space available for new passengers.
It was a scene which played out across the German capital as the large service workers union Ver.di went out on strike to leverage a 12 percent pay hike for public service workers in Berlin, meaning that all subways, busses and trams remained in the garages on Wednesday. Only the trains operated by the Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national rail company, ran on schedule.
Elsewhere in Germany, the same union staged warning strikes at three of the country's biggest airports, resulting in hundreds of cancelled flights and thousands of stranded passengers. On the national level, Ver.di is demanding an 8 percent pay raise for Germany's 1.3 million public sector workers.
Strikes by public sector employees are always quite puzzling. The public sector unions perpetually claim to be treated poorly and bemoan their toiling conditions under the "bosses" (ie. government). Yet the very same collectivist groups are always clamouring for more intervention by their very same "bosses" (ie. government) into every nook and every cranny of every other individual's life ('free' healthcare, schooling restrictions, booze bans, smoking bans, hyper taxation, 'eco' restrictions).
Mate if the government is treating you like shite, why are you doing your level best to introduce them ever more deeper into my life?
Ahhhh, misery does indeed love company.
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