I AM old enough to recall an era when strikes were commonplace. That was a long time ago. As a consequence the current round of strikes are an almost unknown phenomenon for most people, politicians included. Unsurprisingly, as a result a lot of nonsense is being said about them.
Standing back from the individual disputes and looking at them as a collective phenomena, three things are pretty apparent.
First, there is a not unreasonable desire on the part of mainly public sector workers to maintain their real incomes in the light of 10% inflation and many private sector workers enjoying pay rises not far short of that.
