The Sirens Are Unionizing
Damn right, we’re unionizing. Management wants ten shipwrecks a week. It’s ridiculous. Last year it was eight, who knows what it’ll be next year.
Oh, sure, being a siren seems glamorous. Lounge all day, enchant some sailors, punish mankind for mistaking the beautiful for the good. What most folks don’t understand is the amount of work needed to make that possible.
Life at sea is a two-way street. While we’re trying to catch men, men are trying to outsmart us. Just the other day, a ship came by with the captain hanging from the mast. You have to understand, a ship is huge for us. This isn’t some rinky-dink row boat; this is a full captain and crew situation. Management is desperate for these kinds of big-ticket crashes.
So we’re working our magic, and the captain’s going wild, but the ship doesn’t change course. He’s yelling and yelling, but the rowers don’t budge. Right as they’re about to leave our sight, we notice the whole crew has their ears plugged with beeswax. Beeswax! Now, you try and explain that to your boss. We’re still getting criticized for it.
Forming a union is about having a seat at the table. Right now, sirens don’t even get to choose where we work. I was in the Tyrrhenian Sea for a decade until corporate relocated me to the Caspian for a seasonal job. It’s unsustainable.
We all got into this business because we’re passionate. When a sailor is trapped by our tune, slamming his boat into our rocks, realizing the error of his ways just as he realizes it’s too late to alter his fate, it’s all worth it. That’s why we get up in the morning.
Unfortunately, corporate knows that too. But passion doesn’t pay the bills. Passion is no substitute for work-life balance.
Did you know we don’t even get to keep the cargo of ships we crash? Sirens stay up all night mapping trade routes and timing intercepts. All that effort just for management to take most of the cut. Who knows what they do with it.
And don’t even get me started on our instruments. The average person has no clue how expensive a lyre is, not to mention years of lessons. We have to front all those costs, of course. This is the definition of skilled labor, and they treat us like hobbyists.
Management will never understand what it’s like to work the rocks. They don’t know what it means to be a team, to have solidarity. Those corporate suits don’t know the thrill of standing side by side, combing our golden hair as a haggard sailor throws his life away. All they see are dollars and cents.
At the end of the day, we know how to do our job. We know what works and what it means to trap passersby with our lethal charm. It’s an honest profession, and a union will make sure this profession remains viable for generations to come.
