Message from a mad cow

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BY MAD COW

Imagine for a moment being a cow with many years of loyal service, owned by a tough but fair owner. Then the farmer unfortunately passes away. The ownership of the farm is then passed over to the son who looks at the farm and says, "We don't really need all of these cows, we can buy our milk and butter elsewhere and concentrate on our main crops."

So the farmer's son sends the cows to market. The cows are quickly sold to the highest bidder. The cows start to worry and lose condition. Will the new master keep all of them? Will he keep the young cows and sell the old ones to the slaughterhouse? Will he look after the remainder when the droughts or floods come or put them down with not as much as a last satisfying feed?

These cows are the maintenance people at Geelong's Godfrey Hirst carpet factory, which was sold without their say or a feed or the slightest fragment of human compassion, only the cold corporate logic of treating people not as human beings but as cattle — commodities to sold to the highest bidder.

So to all the other cattle out there in green paddocks be warned, owners pass away, kindly farm managers get side shifted to safe farms, new owners may not treat their new acquisitions as they are accustomed too. Don't fall into the trap of a farm name change for so called "taxation purposes only".

And to all those other farmers out there, harmless as we may look, the humble cow can only be valuable to its master, if it is kept in good condition. If a disease were to infect the herd, the value of your bovine stock would unfortunately plummet.

[Mad Cow, alias Chris "Tubby" Lawless, is an Australian Manufacturing Workers Union member who was on strike for eight weeks at the Godfrey Hirst carpet factory in South Geelong until the workers won their demands last week.]

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