When 35,000 Ontario teachers went on strike last month for a day, there was a lot of complaining and hand wringing -- "it's irresponsible!," "it's illegal!," "what about the kids!" -- with Conservatives gravely calling on the Liberal government to immediately end this travesty, apparently akin to slaughtering baby seals or the Syrian government bombing civilians.
There was also a lot of similar whining last year when the Occupy movement clogged parks and city intersections, preventing patriotic shoppers from reaching H&M in time to buy $4 socks knitted by hand by Vietnamese fetuses.
Here's the deal. Whether it's teachers or Occupiers or Arab Spring protesters or, God help me, hockey players, people can only stand up to power and perceived injustice by exhibiting some kind of power of their own. And the only way to do so is through leverage. If you don't have leverage, you don't have power. It's as simple as that. When I worked at agencies, I bitched and complained about the hours and salary freezes. But I needed the job more than I needed the raise. My employers knew that and I knew that. Bubkis leverage.
Let's consider ourselves lucky that the less powerful in our society attempt to gain leverage by walking off the job or protesting in the street, instead of blowing themselves up on buses or kidnapping children or politicians. Kids missing a few days of school never killed anyone. Relax.
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