Mike's Minute: Primary teachers' union – pull your head in

The primary teachers' union is doing my head in. 

This country needs fewer people like them and more people wanting to get on with it, get ahead, dream big, be bold, work harder and generally look at life in a more upbeat way. 

The latest problem for the union is they want facilitated bargaining. I bet they do. 

Unlike just about everyone else union based who has signed a deal, the primary teachers lot think they are so special and so different that the fact they can't reach a deal like everyone else must be someone else's fault. 

My line, and it's always been this way, is have a structure, a couple of cracks, a bit of back and forward, a best and final offer and then if you can't agree go to compulsory arbitration. Not facilitated. Make it compulsory. 

You argue your case, the decision is made and that's the end of that. 

These cases we have seen of late all go on for literally months, and all end up literally the same. In the recent cases everyone has got about 2% this year and 2% next. That is not a result that required that amount of angst and anger and walk outs and placards and TV news stories with moaning unionists talking about unfairness and shortages. 

What the unions have never quite gripped is social licence. 

The broad idea of unions representing the most vulnerable of workers is not a bad one. 

But like so many of these things, it's turned into an industry where hundreds of people on large salaries rely on division and upset to have a job. 

Happy workers do not make happy unionists and teachers especially are not vulnerable. Cleaners are vulnerable. Teachers are largely on six figure salaries. 

On a bang for buck basis unions don’t pull their weight. They are not worth it. Stalling is not a productive tactic, and placards are last centuries technique. 

Compulsory arbitration – I dare them to give it a go. It's short, it's sharp, it ticks a box and we can all move on. 

But why would you want to solve an issue quickly when your very existence relies on the opposite? 

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