Civil Industrial Action

Today at uni there was civil industrial action taking place by uni staff or library staff, not sure which, whereby they were trying to stop students entering the central library by forming a big line of people accross the entrance to the library (which was supposedly called the "pivot line"). They held signs in the air demanding higher pay and one of them was saying through a speakerphone:

"We ask that you do not cross the pivot line. This is industrial action by university staff. We are doing this to disrupt the actions of [our employer?] and to catch their attention which involves blocking use of the library. This is for higher pay, but also, we believe we are doing this , in the long run, for the benefit of students and their education as well. We ask that you respect this and do not cross the pivot line."

As other students ignored the protesters and crossed the pivot line, they would say:

"again, we ask that you do not cross the pivot line."

They claimed it was also for the benefit of students' education, but I had assignments and other work I had to do whereby it would be bad for my "education" if I could not enter the library.

However even though the protesters were trying to make people not go into the library, they did say that they could not stop you if you tried... and I spoke to one of them to try show respect for what they were doing and had a small conversation with him... but even though I felt a little guilty about going crossing the pivot line and into the library, I still went.

Heh, and as I crossed the pivot line, I noticed that the protesters did not politely make a little space for me to walk through so I had to give a little push to get through which I thought was slightly amusing.

When I got inside the library, there was a suprisingly normal number of students inside, almost as if there was no protest going on at all!