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Last week's teachers strike really was a bit of a damp squib and really hasn't had quite the impact that the unions were hoping for.
The challenge for the civil service unions is that many civil servants (even union members) can't see the point in one-day strikes. Most civil servants are frustrated by the government's attempts to change the pension entitlements (as most of us would appreciate) but going on strike and losing a day's pay really doesn't have much of an impact.
Most striking civil servants would have gone back to work on Friday to find that little has changed but that the work left undone lies waiting. This then puts pressure on the staff to catch up with the backlog.
The interesting thing is that the government really holds all the cards in this situation. The unions will struggle to call out an extended strike because many civil servants can't afford to take too many days of unpaid time off. Not only that but the unions don't really have the clout that they once had with the workforce and many civil servants aren't even members.
However, the teacher's strike had a bigger impact since many parents couldn't go to work because they needed to stay home to look after kids who would normally be at school. Thus the teachers found themselves getting little sympathy from the public at large.
Having been a teacher myself for a while I can appreciate that it's not an easy job. The holidays are generous but the stress of managing classes and the work that goes around them (not to mention the endless stream of government initiates) makes it very draining to say the least. Many teacher work 60+ hours a week at a rate of pay that would be considered poor in the private sector.
Still, not all teachers went out on strike. But the number that did was big enough to brass off large numbers of parents.
While the teachers were on strike, thousands of employees were forced into an unplanned day off work and many employers were left very unimpressed by the teachers' action (since small businesses really miss even one employee being off work). And the customers (the children who were meant to be in school) are now a day behind in an already overfull curriculum.
As a result, many folks have even less sympathy for teachers. Despite the long hours and high levels of stress, teachers still get nearly 12 weeks holiday a year and their pensions are part funded by tax payers (even if their pensions aren't that great any more anyway).
The government only has to watch the teaching unions make their own lives more difficult through calling a strike. Then, with right PR, they can easily swaypublic opinion against the teachers by blaming them for such disruption to parents' working lives.
So, what has the strike actually changed? Not much really!
Karl Craig-West is a blogger, website builder, public speaker and business activist who lives in Leicester, England.
He can be found at http://www.craig-west.co.uk/ but more frequently spends time writing and promoting on http://www.businessinpolitics.com/.
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