How to Explain a Strike

The market never rests, the columnist writes. If any part of human life can become a business, it eventually will. In the United States, that now includes “drop-off parties,” morning rave-style gatherings where mothers celebrate after leaving their children at school on the first day of term. One such event in Atlanta featured a DJ, cocktails and a photo booth.

In Spain, the first day of school has produced a different kind of conversation. Parents are discussing the expected impact of a teachers’ strike scheduled for Tuesday, the first school day. The strike affects Catalonia, as well as Madrid and Andalusia, and has prompted children to ask why they should lose school trips and other activities because of a labor dispute.

The answer, the columnist says, is that this is how strikes work. To apply pressure, they must be felt. That is why demonstrations block streets. Families may explain the issue differently at home, but the disruption is part of the protest’s purpose.

The writer senses that family support for the strike has weakened, based on informal indicators, and describes a certain cognitive dissonance. The same people who demand better schools, more staff and lower student-to-teacher ratios may overlook that teachers are asking for precisely those improvements. Better working conditions, the columnist argues, ultimately benefit students, including their own children.

Children are also told that strikes cost the people who call them, and that they are tiring and draining. Nobody undertakes one frivolously, the article says. Sometimes, it adds, adults need to be reminded of that too.