Dear Editor,
It appears that there are two major camps in this ongoing teachers’ strike. There are those advocating for the teacher’s objectives, and then there are people who justify the government’s granting of a 6.5 % raise to the teachers. Lost between are several layers of losers that no one cares about or seems willing to address. So, here are the unquestionable losers in this ongoing strike. It is stunning that no one seems to care enough to admit the plight of the students. They are robbed of teachers in their classrooms… mere months before the most important exams of their young lives. My wife taught for eleven years and never took a day off, because she wanted to be there for “her kids.” Times have surely changed.
The market sellers and street vendors who ply their trade in front of the school premises. Several have spoken out and pleaded for an early end to the strike, because it has significantly hurt their businesses. The parents of students whose school was shut or classes dismissed. These parents have to manage work arrangements or arrange measures to ensure that their children are looked after properly. Sometimes at significant financial cost to them. The non-striking teachers who have reported for work, and must juggle the de-mands of working between classrooms and students they are not accustomed to.
It is too early to tell, but the biggest losers of all may end up being the striking teachers. They will likely lose several weeks of salary. While they may not publicly acknowledge it, most companies, governments and institutions frown on strikers. Private-ly, they adopt measures to punish them. Some of these measures include lack of promotions, raises and transfers etc. The longer this strike goes on, the worse it will get for the stinking teachers. They will lose more pay, and the government using its vast social apparatus will begin to prevail in the arena of public opinion. Unless the teachers manage to extract a new hefty pay increase, the strike will be seen as a pyrrhic victory. And slowly, the parents, students, vendors and citizens will increasingly see the striking teachers as less than the victims, and more… as the villains.
Sincerely,
Herbert Allen
