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Ryan Bridge: What was the point of the mega strikes? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So one hundred thousand workers went on strike. Now what
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the cost to settle these claims will surely run into
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the billions of dollars, easily run into the billions of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: dollars for all these workers. Nineteen seventy nine, that was
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the last time we had to strike this big. That
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: was a general strike, three hundred thousand people. This was
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Muldoon days. It was over a dispute with the driver
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: unions and Transport went to arbitration. The unions one well,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Muldoon lost. The deal went through this time senior doctors
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: refused binding arbitration. Simeon Brown offered it. They said, nap
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: secondary teachers they've got a few more strikes in them
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: before Christmas, though they're lower level. And the primary teachers
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: they say they've now got more dates set down to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: talk pay conditions etc. Next month. You'd have to say,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: based purely on a little bit of polling and a
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: little bit of vibes, that the workers win the week
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: they've won the pr battle. I mean, personally, I'm already
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: sick of hearing about how much senior doctors get Paid'll
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: be sick of their kids missing school any more. Delayed
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: hip operations and they'll be hell to pay. If the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: unions expect strikes to kick off again next year, they
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: might just find themselves falling out of favor worth workers
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: in the private sector. Remember the median wage median salary
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollars a year. Private sector workers haven't been
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: getting the same increases as the public ones. And the
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  Speaker 1: offer of these teachers are rejecting right now would have
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: almost eighty percent of them earning more than one hundred
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: k a year base salary base salary. Arguing for more
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  Speaker 1: and dragging out industrial action for too long, you risk
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: looking well political what the government said you were, or
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: greedy or both. Given the state of the books and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the enormous deficit blowout that this current lot inherited, you
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: have to be careful, don't you. So the unions, I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: think have won the battle. The question really is they
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: win the war? For more from Early edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks it be from five am weekdays,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.