Pent-up dissatisfaction after the Soccer World Cup burst into a fresh striking season this week. Some of the strikes will cause minor annoyances for citizens who just have to stoically accept that some workers have good reason to withhold their services.
Pent-up dissatisfaction after the Soccer World Cup burst into a fresh striking season this week. Some of the strikes will cause minor annoyances for citizens who just have to stoically accept that some workers have good reason to withhold their services.
Where there is massive unemployment, workers have very little bargaining power with employers so it important that they have a right to strike. We fully support this right which is, after all, solidly entrenched in our still fairly new democracy.
The right to strike is, for obvious reasons, denied to people who are employed in certain essential services such as nursing, policing and others.
What happens however, when we are dealing with professions that are not deemed to be essential, because there no risk of loss of life or even physical injury, but they still provide incredibly important services to the community?
For example, prisoners awaiting trial might have to while away time in jail for a few days longer because court interpreters are on strike.
This might be an unpleasant experience for those involved, but the consequence of a slightly longer incarceration should not be long-lasting.
On the other hand, the consequences of the teachers’ strike for school learners could be devastating and very long lasting indeed. The education system as applied in the vast majority of schools in this country is pitiful,
and in the best of years produces learners with weak matric results. If the schools are not doing a good job when they are fully staffed, how much worse will it be when the teachers do not pitch up?
The teachers’ strike might not involve life or death issues as it does in the medical profession, but it certainly has massive ramifications for the education and wellbeing of an entire generation of learners.
In short the teachers’ strike is bad for learners and bad for the country. Teachers are striking for higher salaries, and since it is true that teachers in government schools are poorly paid, it makes sense to pay them a decent living wage.
If government paid proper salaries to teachers they would be less likely to strike and the profession would probably attract more qualified individuals.
