Rodney Hide: How unions took on My Food Bag and lost

Picketers at Affco in 2012. Photo / Christine Cornege

There was a time, not so long ago, when the unions could grind the country to a halt and drop a government to its knees. Not now. Their latest industrial action is to tweet a boycott of My Food Bag.

That you didn't know demonstrates their puniness. That you don't care, their patheticness.

And why My Food Bag? Well, it's complicated.

My Food Bag gets its peas from Talley's. And Talley's own Affco. And Affco is in dispute with the Meatworkers' Union.

So the Public Service Association that represents government workers wants you to ditch My Food Bag, so pressuring them to ditch Talley's peas, so making Affco play nice with the Meatworkers'. That's quite a few steps.

Once upon a time there would be a picket. There would be punch-ups. The safety of anyone crossing the picket could not be guaranteed. The police would keep their distance. The Government would get involved.

That was true industrial muscle. That would lead the news. Union bosses had power backed by thugs who didn't hesitate to use violence.

And now? It's the cardigan-wearing public servants trying to stir up trouble on behalf of their meatworker mates. And they are doing so through their media adviser lobbing tweets into cyberspace. It's an extraordinary fall from power.

My Food Bag makes the softest of targets because its customers are tech savvy and online. The company is new. And it's easy for customers to drop. They are a soft target compared to supermarkets.

But still the boycott fizzled.

We live in a truly marvellous world. We can order our dinners nicely packaged and delivered to our door with all the ingredients and recipes.

We can do so from our phones in our pocket.

Our holidays are no longer destroyed by the Cook Strait ferry workers. Farmers are no longer held to ransom by union goons. We are more productive and more prosperous.

And just to remind us how marvellous things are the PSA demonstrates union puniness and patheticness by failing to tweet up a storm against My Food Bag.