Educating Portugal

General thoughts about Strikes

It’s a right and whatever happens it should always be a right,but there has also to be preserved the right not to strike, whatever happens;
It’s an union ~~weapon~~ tool to use in the mist of negotiations with the employers, but not the only one;
There should be a carefully planed strategy to every strike.

Strikes in education.

Recently there’s been a war between our government and the professors unions, on the battlefield of education land, both sides fight wearing a banner for “a sustainable public education”

The problem

Every strike is scheduled to have the biggest impact it possibly can, so to grab government by the balls, and this creates a shock of the system where supply rapidly falls and rises, demand is fixed so it doesn’t adjust, this is putting it simple.
So in the realm of education, this normally means students don’t have classes, losing a days work, that is easily recoverable. But this time, strikes are to be during the exams season. This shocks not only a day on the lives of students, teachers, government and society in general, but a whole year, and with little gains from it.

The Risk

Every strike is a battle of minds as much as a battle of arguments, whoever gathers the most public support ultimately wins the battle.
So in a scenario where the shock is as big as this one is to be… you better not lose…
How not to lose—Government

Whatever happens stand your grown, do not encore in any strategy where it ultimately result in body bags.
Hire people to break the strike, and have minimal services working.

How not to lose—Unions:

Do not circumscribe the strike to just a day, with such a big risk of alienating everyone that's not directly involved, you have to make the government to come outright and say they fold;
Make sure that no kid that’s suppose to be in school dies, and if it happens you better work you fucking ass of to make sure you’re not blamed for it.

The Battle itself…

Is Going to end nowhere, the unions won’t win anything significant, and government will argue that as long as Troika is supervising them they can’t do anything more to satisfy the people, and it is all the previous socialist government fault

Appendix

student- teacher ratio:
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=educ_iste&lang=en

Economist fables

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

…And darkness covered the horizon… (part 2)