Should Christians ever go on strike?

A strike usually happens when workers stop working because they feel that they are working under bad conditions of unjust salaries or oppression by their leaders.  The aim of a strike in this sense is to protest against bad working conditions and force the leadership to put in place good working conditions.  Should Christians then ever go on strike?

A Christian may only go on strike, if the strike in question, satisfies the following three principles.    The first principle before resorting to strike, is that all avenues of dialogue with the leaders should be fully tried and exhausted.

If full and genuine dialogue has failed to solve the problems, then a Christian may rightly go on strike but if such dialogue has not taken place then a Christian should not strike. 

The second principle is that the benefits of a strike should be greater than the foreseen damage that the same strike may cause.  For example, a nurse going on strike must ask herself, is my striking for salary increment greater than the damage that may happen when I leave patients alone in the hospital wards?

If the foreseen damages to be likely caused by a strike are greater than the benefits of the strike, then a Christian should not join that strike, but if the reason for the strike is really grave and that the benefits of the strike will be greater than the damage caused by the same strike, then a Christian may join the strike.

In this sense, a Christian is not happy to see the damages but only tolerates these damages for a greater good of solving the grave problem.

The last and third principle to help a Christian to choose whether to join a strike or not, is that the demands of the strike should be realistic and achievable by the leadership.  The workers wanting to go on strike should first sit down, analyse the economic situation of their employer and make their judgement whether their demands can be achieved by their employer.

If they judge that the employer cannot achieve the demands, then a Christian should not join the strike because it is fighting for unrealistic and unachievable demands but if the group of workers makes a right judgement that the demands are achievable by the employer then a Christian may join the strike.

Using the three principles let us analyse the Judiciary strike.  First, were all avenues for dialogue fully tried before the strike started?  The prophet thinks dialogue was given enough time since 2006.  Are the demands of the judiciary workers achievable?  The prophet thinks that the demands were approved to be achievable by parliament in broad daylight.  Are the benefits of the strike greater than the damage caused? The prophet from Galilee thinks that since the strike has taken a long time, there is now more suffering of Galileans who want to access court services, hence there are more damages now than benefits.

Fellow Malawians let us pray for a fast solution to this problem.

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