As a teacher strike looms, we ask: Who rules?

Teachers’ unions might consider it churlish if it was pointed out that that the last time they went on strike in December there was, coincidentally of course, a Christmas shopping bonanza for the North’s border towns.

The latest decision to go on strike, despite considerable concessions from Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan on the changes proposed by her predecessor, underlines how very difficult it is to bring change of any kind to our public life.

That these strikes are called in direct defiance of the stated policy of a properly elected Government, suggests a disdain for democracy that would hardly be tolerated in the unions’ own affairs.

Democracy is hardly celebrated either by the fact that this strike decision was taken without a vote and that the turnout for the ASTI’s strike ballot last month was just 44%.

The principle that Government decides policy and its employees implement it has been regularly challenged in this country. It has been obvious too that until that principle is accepted, or enforced, then real deep reform will remain an impossible pipe dream.