Workers go on a sympathy work stoppage which results in a backlog of garbage. They receive two-and-a-half days pay for the four-day stoppage. To clear the backlog, they are given overtime.Is there something wrong with that opening paragraph? How many hours of overtime will it take before the workers are in a net gain in terms of pay?Last Thursday the newspaper quoted a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Works as saying: “Collection staff resumed regular garbage collection [Wednesday] morning and are in the process of addressing the backlog of garbage which has increased over the public holiday weekend.”Yesterday we ran this story: ‘Overtime approved to clear trash backlog’. Four working days and still many parts of the Island have big piles of trash and, not surprisingly, many residents are getting very angry about the situation.Their mood is hardly likely to be improved by news of overtime payments (nor for that matter Government requests to rebag trash that has been left out in the sun for days.. This newspaper is on record as saying it supports unions, that unions play a vital role in the protection of workers’ rights. But it has also consistently asked that unions exercise commonsense.It is hard to see where the commonsense is here — on either side. In the first instance, where is the commonsense in having a stoppage over a Government worker who drove a Government car despite not being authorised?Where is the commonsense in giving two-and-a-half days pay for an unauthorised work stoppage — and then follow that up with overtime? Does this not smack of rewarding someone for being bad?To the ordinary citizen — those who generally see sense — this must be very confusing.Indeed one person contacted this newspaper to say: “The strike is to make people suffer so they listen to the workers plight. The worker should suffer too.”It seems the tail wags the dog.Do you agree of not? Follow me on Twitter and tell me in 140 characters or less: https://twitter.com/jeremydeacon1