Now, America doesn’t do trade unions a whole lot. Despite a militant and often bloody labour tradition stretching back 200 years, trade union membership in the United States is now under 15% of the total workforce, and militancy in the workplace is rare. However, when it does do unions, it manages to get them SO FUCKING RIGHT.

Covering a Lady GaGa song perhaps isn’t the most original idea in the world. It’s been done by everyone from American GIs in Afghanistan to erm, some topless guy jumping about his room on chatroulette. But how about charging into the hotel you work in, THEN performing the song with rewritten lyrics that highlight the poor pay and conditions being served to you by your employer? SSY thinks the labour movement in the UK could learn much from our forward-thinking American friends. No doubt the BA dispute would have been solved months ago, if only Unite union leaders Derek Simpson and Len McLuskey had taken it upon themselves to star in a reworked version of Busted’s ‘Air Hostess’. And indeed, we’re sure that the posties would have their battle ages ago if CWU leader Billy Hayes had thought about doing a hilarious youtube spoof of the Postman Pat theme song. Until then, we’ll just have to make do with watching the awe-inspiring attempts of our comrades across the Atlantic. Workers’ rights are hot!

UPDATE: in the interests of balance, here’s a nice bit of union-busting from Wal-Mart:

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