Teachers Strike for More Parental Choice

Oh, wait, no. I must have misread that. It turns out that "state school" teachers in the Australian state of New South Wales are striking to demand a 25% pay raise. Here's the story at The Ridge News:

The teachers are striking in response to the State Government's alleged attempts to influence the upcoming decision by the Industrial Relations Commission on whether teachers should receive a 25 per cent pay rise over two years.

Last year teachers took their pay dispute to the IRC, which handed down a 5.5 per cent interim wage increase in December, stating teachers had not been adequately compensated for increased workloads since 1991.

It also urged the Government to recognise the significant contribution teachers make to the community.

The IRC's final decision is expected by June 30.

The teachers are demanding the 25 per cent rise but the Government has said it can only afford six per cent over two years.

Two observations. Despite the frequent protestations of teachers' unions that their highest priority is quality education, you don't often see them hit the picket lines over anything other than salaries, benefits, and working conditions. Not that there's anything evil in that. The whole point of unions is to benefit the member workers. Just keep that in mind, though, when teachers' unions start spouting off against parental choice and competition in education. What's in the interest of the union may not be in your child's interest.

Second, note the difference between a strike by workers in a government monopoly industry versus strikes in the private sector. In the private sector, labor disputes are self-regulating. If workers demand too much, raising their employer's costs too far above those of its competitors, they drive their employer out of business--and themselves out of jobs.

In a government monopoly like public schooling, there are no competitors, and the government employer can never go out of business. It's not self-regulating. That's why public school teachers have been able to raise their pay to 1.5 times the average pay in the private education sector in the United States. Your kids are hostages to the system. You've got no place else to send them but the public schools, unless you want to pay private school tuition on top of the property and other taxes that go to fund the public schools. It's not a healthy system, and it doesn't serve the public interest.