Ryan Bridge: Labour shouldn't automatically back the Unions

Last week ended with a bizarre situation where Labour effectively came out against a pay rise for teachers. They did this because that’s what the unions wanted. And what the unions want, the unions usually get. Union strategy 101 is getting everyone who’s not a member to become one. The tactic is peer pressure. If you can deprive non‑union members of a pay rise while dragging out pay negotiations, that’s leverage. Labour last week got rid of Willow‑Jean Prime, who scored an F in the portfolio. Ginny Anderson has been lumped with it at a time when National is seen, across a bunch of polls this term, to be either better or at least as good as Labour on education. Which is saying something. Like health, it’s usually the purview of the left. But something’s shifted, and Ginny probably needs to take a good, hard look at which battles she blindly follows her comrades into. Charter schools are another example. I was reading at the weekend about the breadth of subjects and students these schools cater to: seven Māori schools, a Pasifika girls’ school (which we’ve featured on the show), autism‑focused schools, French, sport, Cambridge. Last week the principals’ union said all those schools — there are 19 applicants so far — should be closed.The money, they said, should be put back into the mainstream system. They don’t believe schools are failing certain cohorts of young people, which is the very reason charter schools exist. To an average parent, an average person, but most importantly, an average voter, this looks political, not practical.I think most Kiwis accept that mainstream schooling doesn’t work for everyone. Most also accept that teaching needs to be better paid, regardless of union affiliation. To rail against these things just because your union mates demand you do so is hardly going to win back public support in an area where ground has clearly been lost.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.