LONDON LETTER: "They're always moaning and whingeing, they get six weeks' holiday in the summer and they're always in Kefalonia." This week's comment by a parent calling a London radio station may have come as small, but welcome, consolation to Education Secretary, Estelle Morris,
"THEY'RE always moaning and whingeing, they get six weeks' holiday in the summer and they're always in Kefalonia." This week's comment by a parent calling a London radio station may have come as small, but welcome, consolation to Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, as she squared up to teachers' leaders planning to hold a one-day strike over pay allowances.
In the angry language of conflict that has broken out between the normally unflappable Ms Morris and the leaders of the National Union of Teachers, the education secretary bargained she would secure the backing of parents with an emotive plea to teachers not to return to the "dark ages of dispute and conflict".
It struck a chord with many parents, who remembered the damage inflicted on classroom morale during the strikes of the 1980s. But it was a plea that fell on deaf ears in schools, at least as far as one in three NUT members were concerned, and for the first time since Margaret Thatcher presided over education 30 years ago, teachers in London voted to walk out of the classroom..
At a time when the media highlights the case of a school where pupils in one class had 13 different teachers within two weeks, will parents in London really have any sympathy for teachers demanding an extra £1,000 for choosing to teach in the capital, with all its attractions?
And can the NUT really claim victory when the figures show that, while 86 per cent of London members voted for strike action next Thursday, it was on a turnout of just 30 per cent?
The row over London allowances - a kind of salary top-up to cope with high travel and living costs - erupted in January when the NUT criticised a 3.5 per cent government increase, insisting it should have gone up by a third to more than £4,000 for inner London teachers. The NUT also wanted similar increases for teachers in outer London and fringe counties, to boost their allowances to more than £2,000 and £1,000 respectively.
Excessive workload rather than poor salary may top the list of teachers' gripes against the government, but the NUT strike sends another warning to the government that it cannot ignore salary as a key element in solving the problem of recruitment and retention in schools.
For while the government hits targets for filling teacher training places - particularly so during times of economic uncertainty - about half of all teachers leave the profession within four years of qualifying, citing salary as one of the biggest problems.
And current research predicts that with one in four teachers over the age of 50, up to 160,000 teachers will retire from the profession in England and Wales during the next 15 years, putting more pressure on an already demoralised, stressed-out profession.
If the problems in teaching weren't enough to keep the government busy, officers have blackened the home secretary's eye over the police reform bill.
"People want strikes against thugs and criminals, not strikes against the public services," David Blunkett thundered recently when the Police Federation in England and Wales voted nine to one against proposed changes in pay and conditions.
"This man is a bully, police officers deal with bullies on a daily basis, they don't scare us, we take them on," retorted the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Glen Smyth, in a dispute that risked turning into a public slanging match. Legal moves to overturn the 83-year ban on police strikes could come soon.
Against the backdrop of an increasingly angry public sector, the Stephen Byers fiasco looms large alongside the Mittal affair, the Keith Vaz and the Peter Mandelson cases, and chaos in the health service and on the railways remains a thorn in New Labour's side.
A rise in general taxation is on the horizon to pay for the world-class health service promised last year, and parliament is to investigate the role of shadowy spin doctors in government.
Estelle Morris and David Blunkett will no doubt adopt a hard line as they try to diffuse tension among teachers and police in London.
But these are potentially dangerous times for Labour. For while it continues to defy the critics and rides high in the polls, Tony Blair would be foolish to ignore a public that regards his government as more sleazy than the Tories.
rdonnelly@irish-times.ie