Solidarity with PCS members in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) staging walkouts in opposition to privatisation and draconian sickness management today (http://union-news.co.uk/2011/12/a-date-with-data-%e2%80%93-tax-officials-strike-today/).
Tax collectors may not be the most popular public servants, but their work is vital to providing the resources on which all our services ultimately depend. While ordinary staff struggle to keep the show on the road after tens of thousands of job losses in recent years (http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/news_centre/index.cfm/id/9EC48325-6B49-4545-A96B97C09980A23B), their boss - notorious for losing us billions in deals with corporations trying to avoid tax (http://m.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/dec/06/hmrc-tax-deal-vodafone?cat=money&type=article) - is retiring on a pension many times larger than they can look forward to (http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/09/revenue-chief-retires-goldman-sachs?cat=politics&type=article).
It seems somehow fitting that someone who came to public attention by proving that there really is one law for the rich and one law for the rest should himself benefit from that same phenomenon.
In the mean time though, ordinary employees working in HMRC have to stand up for themselves and all trade unionists should wish them well.
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