Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Strike!

Thanks everyone for all the encouragement and good words re: the Exercise and Diet Plan. Things are going well. Started exercise class (aerobics & step) 3 times a week, and am plucking up the courage to wake up extra early 3 mornings a week to go walking.

As some of you may be aware, Grenada is nary 2 days shy of a full-blown general strike, being called to protest the Reconstruction Levy. The Levy (it’s a levy, not income tax. Income tax requires pesky things like proper paperwork, deductions, credits, etc) is 5% of your earnings over $1,000 per month. People making over $5,000/month already pay a form of income tax, so their Levy percentage is 2%. Well, the Trades Union Council has taken great issue with this Levy, particularly in light of the massive increase in the cost of living since the Gas Price Increase of October ’05.

Long story short, the government refuses to budge, the unions refuse to budge. The Chamber of Commerce, Conference of Churches, and the Employers’ Federation are all trying to mediate the situation. Not a day goes by that there isn’t some breathless announcement on the radio that “An agreement has been reached!”, “The agreement has been refused!”, “The government insists…”, “The unions insist….” blah blah blah.

On Friday there is a national day of protest called by the unions. Of course, day of protest = STRIKE, so that will prove to be hilarious [/tongue in cheek]. The bus associations are expected to strike in support as well so…. good times!

Oh, would I be on strike too? Nope. Not unionised, so no chance of that. Besides I’m traditionally not terribly pro-union anyway. My take on the Levy is this: Sure I want to pay my share towards the rebuilding of the country. But I have serious concerns about giving any more of my hard-earned money to this government (Yeah, I’m not an NNP/Mitchell supporter as you can guess) and I’m not alone in this concern. Read Lloyd Noel's weekly column here as he discusses the situation.

However, to allay the fears of those out of the country, we are not on the brink of another coup. Please! Enough with that bit of rumour-mongering! My mother-in-law called from St. Lucia the other day in a fit of panic as the talk over there was ::drum roll:: another revo in Grenada. I swear Mr YY and I had a fit of laughter that lasted 3 hours or so. No fear of any armed uprising in Grenada any time soon. The old revolutionaries are all middle-aged and more worried about mortgages, nice cars and the shareholders meetings than about socialism, and the only thing the young generation would revolt for is if Cablevision stopped carrying BET. Hah!

Will post a report on Friday! You can keep up to date with The Happenings
here.

Posted byYY at 4:07 pm View blog reactions