Hospital Porters' Guild

 

Guilds are something of an archaic concept these days; in fact they have declined in most countries of the world during the last couple of hundred years. Guilds existed from the earliest periods of history right up to the 19th century. They are sometimes confused with a trade union; the two are very different, however a guild often served the purpose trades union are for in the modern world. A guild was an association of tradesmen which regulated the practice of their work, provided support and was a depository of knowledge and training. Guilds have influenced society in ways most people don't realize. A lot of towns have a public building known as a "guildhall", a meeting place for guilds. There is the City and Guilds, an institute for vocational education. The guilds founded public houses, which is why to this day they still have names like "The Bricklayers' Arms" or "The Carpenters' Arms". It could be even our very personal names were generated by the guilds. Common surnames in the English-speaking world are very often the word for a job: Smith, Gardner, Cook, Baker, etc. It may be that generally in the future, for reasons I detail in the other HPANWO media, we may have return to the days of the guilds. I think the first step would be to form a hospital porters' guild. There has never been one of those before. Even though some people are named "Porter" it must refer to a different kind of porter from the civilian world. A HP's guild would be of enormous benefit to our service. It would archive the endless tricks of the trade that are currently being destroyed through casualization and the haemorrhage of experienced personnel. It would replace the current corrupt and useless trade union movement. In Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, the author describes a foundry with its own internal company workers society. This group is frowned upon by the established steelworkers unions. No doubt a hospital porters' guild would be hated in the same way by UNISON. But what good have UNISON ever been? They threw us under the bus in the Great JR Hospital Porters Strike of 2015, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/08/jr-porters-strike-update-2.html; and all they do now is whinge about white heterosexual males and about how EEEEEEEvil we all are. To hell with them! I know a lot of people, even the six month wonders inside the HPing world, might wonder why we need a professional organization at all. I've answered that many times; too many to provide a link. Some of you may ask me why I don't go out and start a HP's guild then. I've done that. Really, the HPWA itself and The Gas Spanner HPANWO Radio show are an embryonic HP's guild. All we need now is our own pub, The Hospital Porters' Arms... Mine's a pint!