Children around the world – or at least the nice ones – can breathe easier today as North Pole Holdings PLC announced that it had reached a first collective agreement with Local 211 of the Elves’ International Union and thereby averted a work stoppage a scant three days before Christmas, with production incomplete and the sleigh unloaded. The elves had set a strike deadline of midnight on December 21. An important factor in producing a resolution of the labour dispute was a sympathy picket set up by the International Federation of Gnome Mining Operatives, which prevented deliveries by union sleigh-drivers. The gnomes were also threatening to stop work on all contracts to supply lumps of coal to North Pole Holdings for distribution to naughty children.
”We are gratified that we have been able to reach agreement on all the issues on the negotiating table,” said North Pole Holdings CEO Santa Claus. “This will enable us to comply with all our advertising agreements, which generally require that gifts be delivered in specified countries on specific days.” In Canada North Pole Holdings makes deliveries on Christmas Eve to francophone families and overnight on Christmas Eve and in the early hours of Christmas Day to anglophone families. Deliveries have already been made in some countries.
Several issues had been defying resolution, the chief among them the outsourcing of work to Indonesia. The elves argued that it was inappropriate of North Pole Holdings to make children work on presents for children, that the Indonesian children lacked elfin skills necessary to the production of quality output, and that Muslim children were being required to produce gifts for Christian children. The agreement initialled today applies stringent standards to outsourcing, including strict religious qualifications for new workers, and the provision of missionary in-service training for current workers. Elves no longer required in production will be transferred to shipping or offered generous severance packages. ”Globalization is a fact of life,” said elf negotiator Twinklefeet Q. Dimplewimple. “Elves’ International does not want to stand in the way of progress, but only to ensure that workers benefit from globalization, too.”
North Pole also agreed to reduce the rent elves pay for their accommodation. The union had argued that the elves deserved a share of the subsidy that North Pole Holdings obtains by having its dormitories in the Nunavut section of the North Pole. The Canadian government, in order to bolster its claim to the North Pole, a claim which is generally unrecognized internationally, provides a substantial grant for housing under its regional development program.
”We had hoped to get some improvements in the dormitories,” said Dimplewimple. “I mean, it’s 2006, we’re miles from anywhere, and all we get is basic cable. And it’s Canadian cable! You try being entertained by Intelligence.” However, the union reasoned that a reduction in accommodation charges would allow individual elves to upgrade their cable if they chose, while allowing other individuals to implement other changes which they might find more effective in improving their quality of life. “Increasing elfin choice is all good,” said Dimplewimple.
North Pole Holdings also agreed to act on the elves’ demand for democratization of gift distribution. The elves had threatened to file a complaint with Canadian regulatory authorities about what they claimed was North Pole’s misleading advertising. “The employer warrants in its advertising that nice children will receive presents and naughty children will not," said the elves' lawyer, Sparkle B. Buttercup. "In practice, though, it’s well-off children who receive presents and poor ones who don’t.” As a first step North Pole has agreed that in the short term it will increase the proportion of well-off children who receive lumps of coal (from zero). In the long term, however, it plans to re-craft its advertising to emphasize the correlation between household income and niceness. “This is in keeping with general societal trends,” said Claus. “We do not believe that North Pole Holdings should impose its values on societies which demonize poor people and idolize the wealthy. I know I’m a Christian saint, but have you been looking at Christians lately? The Pope doesn’t exactly live in a basement apartment, and some of those Protestant evangelists live pretty high. I am proud to be transforming our organization to conform to the twenty-first century Christian spiritual outlook.”
The agreement is expected to be quickly approved in voting later today. In a joint press release, the union and the company expressed confidence that shareholder value would increase as a result of the settlement.
How Santa Saved Christmas © John FitzGerald, 2006
Posted December 20, 2006
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