I’m on strike today. This is the first time I’ve officially withdrawn my labour as part of a wider campaign. The nearest I came to this in the private sector was to take a sickie to secretly go to an interview.
The prospect of strikes was in the air when I was training, and was something I dreaded and wasn’t sure what I would do, after all I was hardly becoming a teacher for financial reasons – I could have gone back to being a programmer if it was money I was after. On the other hand I was being made promises about stable futures, and I’m hardly a hair-shirted hermit suited for an old age of poverty and my private sector pensions weren’t exactly promising a glorious lifestyle.
So I chose to make a life decision based on one set of promises. I was (partly) enticed from a louche life squandering a private sector salary for the prospect of a more meaningful existence followed by a better funded retirement. Now those promises are being reneged on. I think I have a right to politely suggest that this isn’t right.
I don’t really understand the private sector workers complaining about our striking to protect our pensions when theirs are (apparently) so bad. I have two questions:
- If we have it so much better why not do what I did and swap sides?
- Does this really need to become a race to the bottom for us ordinary workers (private or public sector) while the executives’ salaries spiral upwards?
I still have misgivings about striking, and I know most teachers do too. It isn’t something any teacher does lightly. We understand that sacrifices have to be made, and we have accepted a pay freeze and an effective cut to education spending. Personally I’m willing to accept some concessions on the issue of pensions, but I want to feel that the government is taking negotiations seriously; making offers at the table and not after negotiations have ended, not making stupid comments about 15 minute strikes and implying we are blindly following militant leaders rather than being able to make our own minds up.
[...] in Dublin but that would be dull. I’ve also explored my responses to my first ever involvement in industrial action. I’ve alluded to my on-going [...]