Strikes occur either where rights established by law and contract are abrogated or where there are disputes over interests, that is, terms and conditions of employment as are determined by bargaining power. Undoubtedly, most strikes occur over demands for increases in wages and salaries. Money matters a great deal and plays a significant role in most disputes of interests. Undoubtedly workers can improve their life chances if they create a workers state or eliminate exploitation at the work place; however it is generally agreed that they can best improve their life chances if they increase their take home pay.

Winning improvements in salaries, it has been argued, is far easier to achieve than fundamental transformations of economic and social systems. Employers and employees alike would be loath to agree.

The current strike by teachers in the education system is a case in point. Teachers are poorly paid but so too are all public servants. The first point is that teachers are better paid today than they were say 10 years ago and this is as it should be. The second point is that for the first time in a very long time public servants are better paid than teachers. Indeed, one of the grievous points in the current dispute is the fact that some categories of teachers fall below the minimum wage level prescribed for public servants. Indeed, one profound yet unfortunate consequence of the Armstrong Tribunal Report of 1999 is that cleaners and sweepers in the general public service earn more that junior ranks within the teaching profession. It is true that this anomaly has been recognised and efforts are in place to address it in due course but the indignity of this reality nevertheless rankles within the fraternity of this once most honourable profession.

It is a supreme irony that throughout the 1980s public servants and teachers were all poorly rewarded by the state but within recent times efforts to correct this disadvantage have resulted in one group being so much better rewarded that the other is quite reasonably offended. It is little wonder therefore that our teachers seek sanctuary abroad.

But to be honest, the indications are that teachers are poorly rewarded throughout the region. Indeed very recently education administrators met in Trinidad to consider the constant haemorrhaging within the region to the USA and further a field. Yet such is the lot of the Guyanese teacher that any vacancies created by the export of teaching skills within the region will be welcomed by our teachers.

Within recent times the Government has been most responsive and even the purblind would hesitate to question the improvements that are taking place within the system. The sad reality is however that wealth must first be generated before it can be distributed and in this respect the Guyana economy has not been permitted to perform up to expectation. Indeed, unhelpful international market forces, domestic political instability, violent crime, public disorder and an almost manic obsession within some sections of the society to destabilise economic development has made it most difficult for the state to be as generous as it knows it ought to be to the work force.

The Government's recent efforts notwithstanding, a strike by teachers to improve their life chances was always on the cards and in certain circumstances and occasions can generate much public support. However, holding students hostages, as seems the current case, is extremely unpopular. Examinations, for most of these students, come at the end of a long, expensive and sometimes very tortuous journey.

In the case of CAPE, there were two very tough years of study. In the case of SSEE, some seven years of grinding commitment and in the case of CXC, five very demanding years. In each case these students now find themselves the victims of the strike action taken by the very teachers who year after year demanded strict commitment from them. Earlier, they were denied, the once in a lifetime, opportunity to excel in track, field and swimming at the Annual National Sports when the GTU withdrew its support for the meeting. Now our students are threatened with the loss of the fruits of years of intellectual effort.

In spite of all the disadvantages that have befallen the teaching profession, it is still perceived by many, not least of all students and parents, as a most honourable profession.