Editor: I congratulate Brookswood High鈥檚 Steven Lofgren on his well-written to the editor regarding the strike (The Times, March 6). That is not to say that I agree with him. In any labour dispute there are rarely 鈥済ood people鈥� against 鈥渟uper-villain(s),鈥� as he puts it. Nor is that the case here.

No doubt teachers want what鈥檚 best for the students, but unfortunately that message (including the government鈥檚 deplorable reduction in Special Ed. teachers) took second place to their demands for a 15 per cent pay increase, and the ridiculous claim for substantially expanded bereavement leave.

They would have had the moral high ground had they accepted net zero (which they must have known the government was not going to budge from anyway) and concentrated entirely on student-based issues. They entirely lost any moral high ground when it was revealed that they have hypocritically offered their own BCTF staff a net zero wage increase.

Barry Whaites,

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