Thursday, August 30, 2007

Teacher's On Strike*

I have very fond memories of teachers' pay negotiations. My sixth form maths teacher was a staunch unionist and also very distractable. We could get a good half hour off calculus with a well-timed question like "What's happening with the teachers pay negotiations?" Teachers didn't go on strike when I was in High school, but more recently they did, and students took some really awesome support action. A Secondary teachers' strike has a real potential to radicalise young workers.

So I'm really excited that the Secondary Teachers have voted to go on strike. I'll post details of how you can support them, particularly pickets and rallies to go to.

* Has anyone else ever seen a video called Mom's on Strike? It featured a young Yeardley Smith (voice of Lisa). The basic plot-line is pretty self-explanatory. A woman left to do all the housework for her family goes on strike (with a picket line and everything). Then the father left all the work to the two daughters, and they joined the picket-line too. We watched it in a Social Ed class in high school - which led to a pretty cool discussion about girls' experiences with housework in their families (I went to an all girls school).

3 comments:

  1. Huh. I never got to watch that film at East. Although I seem to remember that I seldom attended Social Ed on account of its being generally moronic - mostly sermons about the correct way to cut one's toenails. I'll have to look it up. The film, that is, not my toenails.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:17 am

    What happened next? Did Dad go on strike?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:18 pm

    Did you ever read Altas Shrugged? Its about what happens when all the inventors and industrialists go on strike.

    ReplyDelete