Tarded a second time

Well, the strike is over, as T.S. Eliot would have it, not with a bang but with a whimper.

The two sides didn't meet during twelve days of striking. Then they met this morning, and by 11 am the union side had agreed to end the strike for...wait for it...a nonbinding promise from the government to consider maybe raising salaries a little more than they otherwise would have in 2009 when the next salary schedule will be set.

Wow. What a stirring victory. Proletärier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!

One of my striking colleagues made a snippy remark the other day to the effect that since I wasn't in one of the two education unions, I was freeloading by reaping the benefits of their work in raising salaries without paying dues. Without the union, who would look out for my interests? Who would handle salary negotiations with the government?

I told her I could negotiate for myself, thank you very much.

She scoffed, not a little disdainfully.

But now that it's over, do I think I could have elicited a vague, noncommittal promise from the government to consider raising teacher's salaries at some point in the future? All on my very own, without the force of organized labor behind me?

Sure. I could have done as well by sending the prime minister this letter:

Dear Prime Minister Stoltenberg,
Wouldn't it be a good thing to pay teachers more money?
Thanks, Robert

Some peon in his office would have sent me an autopen-signed letter to the effect that the government values teachers and that they are working to raise salaries as much as they can and hope to find the money to keep raising them in the years to come.

All for the price of one stamp. And I can put the 6000 kroner ($1200) I don't pay in union dues each year toward Ella's college fund.