An Unholy Sandwich

Normally, our little outings at The Three Q's pub are characterized by pints of Best Boddingtons and quiet and considered discussion, along with the occasional verbal jab or witty rejoinder. Not so last evening.

Now I had not sought to write on this topic again -- my thought are well known -- but one of our group, a dedicated schoolteacher, was obviously distraught and at one point came close to tears. The issue? A looming teacher's strike.

She introduced the topic by indicating her support for unions, ignoring my shudder. However, she went on to say that in a strike situation, this support was conditional upon there being only two actors: the union and a firm's management. Negotiations between these two would either result in a compromise that worked for the two parties, or led to the firm going out of business. This result would mean, of course, that the union would be out of business as well.

A tough situation, to be sure, but one that has been with us for some time.

Then my teacher friend made a telling point.

The union / management negotiation, she suggested, breaks down when the two sides involved trap an innocent third entity between them. In a municipal strike, that third entity is the public; in the case of a teacher strike, it is schoolchildren.

"The whole mess," she stated, "resembles a sandwich with the innocent party caught between two slices of bread. Something has gone very wrong here. Why should the public or children be cast as victims in a struggle they had nothing to do with?"

I added that this struggle could continue for some time. After all, the entity termed 'management' in this case was a combination of elected politicians and civil servant managers, and would be unlikely to state that they were folding the enterprise the way a private sector company might.

After a rather protracted and heated discussion involving several more pints, we reached a sort of agreement on the issue, at least one worthy of further exploration. This would involve binding arbitration, with three players: a negotiator selected by the union, one selected by management, and a third agreed to by both. Non-financial matters would be up for decision, and the budget for the settlement drawn from public treasury would be capped and be approved by a respected auditor prior to the negotiation.

We all deemed the process worth a try, and the approach might even work. Certainly students, parents and taxpayers would be grateful. The problem would be that to bring this about would take a degree of courage on the part of politicians.

As Charlie Brown might say, "Rats."