It's that time of year again! South Africa is home to some very powerful unions who control all sorts of service delivery, including garbage pick up, electricity, the postal service and, of course, education. Around the end of July every year, all these organizations threaten to strike. Many actually do. In fact, this time last year both the military and post office went on strike. Cars were burned in Pretoria, and I had no mail for weeks, but the government caved and things quieted quickly.
The reason for my writing this now is that tomorrow is the final day of negoitiation between the Department of Education and the major teachers' unions. There is a possibility of a strike on Thursday. We had a big staff meeting today in preparation. No one was particularly fired up about the issues either way. There was a general sense of resignation, along with the usual feelings of injustice.
Anyway, I'll let you know what I'm doing Thursday!
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