More on the Strike
After yesterdays post I received a reply from a friend who is also a teacher. While I have family members who are teachers I don’t think they are as affected by the salary issue as some people are and so Nelia’s comment caused me to look at the issue from a different angle.
I started tying out a response to her, but thought I would share it with all of you, here it is:
My mom always used to say that there are two sides to every conflict and they are both right.
Clearly teachers, and some health care workers, are earning ridiculously low salaries in relation to the importance of their role in society. That Government seems to be OK with paying them so little is practically immoral.
And on the other hand if your job is saving people’s lives and you have agreed that this is your job then it is, in the same way, immoral to neglect the role that society is trusting you to do.
Same thing for teachers. Teachers carry the hope of the nation on their shoulders in that we have trusted them with the education of out youth. It is immoral to put that trust and responsibility aside after willingly accepting it in the first place.
So who is right and who is wrong? Can you redress immorality by returning it in kind? Some would say they have no choice but to strike, how else to you get government to wake up?
Tough questions. And I am cowardly enough to be glad that I am not in a position where an answer is expected of me.
Not an easy situation tho…am praying that our leaders (government AND unions) have patience and wisdom to handle this situation…
I think the current crisis is because the government has handled the education and health sectors of our country in the same way they handled Eskom – i.e. inadequate planning. In the end, Eskom effectively went on strike – i.e with power cuts etc. And then the government took notice – they had to. And the teachers and health workers are the innocent victims of bad planning and now have gone on strike because it’s the only way that they can get the government’s attention. And look what the gov. did with Eskom – HUGE increases for them (45% each year for 3 years, I’d love an increase like that!). And actually it’s the teachers and doctors/nurses who deserve similar increases.