Suicide bombers set for strike action

Suicide bombers set for strike action

... over virgin entitlement in afterlife

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on
Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in
the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far
failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of
virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by
25% next January from 72 to only 54. The rationale for the cut was the
increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a
subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational
Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was
unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action.
General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are
literally working themselves to death in the cause of jihad. We don't
ask for much in return, but to be treated like this by management is a
kick in the teeth."

Mr Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins, but pointed out
that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce
and not by management. "Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an
annual bonus of 250,000 virgins," complains Amir. "And you can be sure
they'll all be pretty ones too. How can Al Qaeda afford that for members of the
management, but not 72 for the people who do the real work?"

Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands where he currently resides,
Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained,

"We sympathize with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in
a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the
realities of modern-day jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western
depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife.
It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people
off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my
staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up." He defended
management bonuses by claiming these were necessary to attract good
fanatical clerics. "How am I supposed to attract the best people if I can't compete with
the private sector?" asked Mr. Bin-Laden.

Talks broke down this morning after management's last-ditch proposal of
a virgin-sharing scheme was rejected outright after a failure to agree
on orifice allocation quotas (OAQ). One virgin, who refused to be
named, was quoted as saying "I'll be buggered if I'm agreeing to
anything like that ... it's too much to swallow".

Unless some sort of agreement is reached over the weekend, suicide
bombers will set down explosives at midday on Monday. Most branches are
supporting the strike. Only the North London branch, which has a
different union, is likely to continue working. However, some members of
that branch will only be using waist-down explosives in order to express
solidarity with their striking brethren.