Mike's Minute: The teacher strike achieved nothing

As the teachers head back to school, like all the other strikes, nothing got achieved. 

It never does. 

For a strike to work you need to scare people, you need to bring a place to a standstill. 

Cook Strait ferries and the bus and train services were unavailable for weeks on end at a time. That’s what works. But those days are gone, thank the good Lord. 

These days it’s a day here, a day there. 

Yes, we get you are not happy. Yes, you might deserve a better deal. 

But your day off with your one minute of placard waving on the TV news that isn't watched the way it used to be anyway, doesn’t really shift the dial. 

I think also the country has changed in the past few decades. Although unionism had a bit of a spike under six years of Labour, the Employment Contracts Act of the early 90's largely broke the unions for good. 

Not literally, but when people got a choice, they chose to back themselves. 

I wish those who are unionists could see the freedom and potential of non-union opportunity. 

Not all jobs can be individualised, but most can, and teaching is one of them. 

We all know good teachers, great teachers, and ordinary teachers, the same way we know good waiters, and restaurants, and doctors, and accountants, and retail outlets. 

In a nation of small businesses, it tells us we back ourselves. We revel in the idea that we, and our skills and determination, can make a decent living. 

The fact the rote response to merit-based pay for teachers goes something like "how would you judge on exam results?" shows how little they understand their individuality and ability to make a difference. 

It's like that Radio NZ report last week where most of them thought they were in a sunset industry, when in fact the exact opposite is true. 

It's Stockholm Syndrome. Your captors, the unions, have told you this is the only way. It isn't and never has been. 

I have argued this for years and have got nowhere, but that doesn’t make it a bad argument. 

What I know, like hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders know, is that being your own boss and your own person is a winning formula, if you want to win. 

I know, like hundreds of thousands of other New Zealanders, that I love my job and my lot. 

I don’t see the same fizz from teachers. Why do you reckon that is?   

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