New agreement seeks to end teachers' dispute

Following the rejection of a new collective agreement by a small majority of the members of the Danish Union of Teachers in April 1999, negotiations conducted with the assistance of the public conciliation service led to a revised agreement on the night before industrial action was due to start on 19 May. The teachers had rejected the initial deal because of a new working hours system which they saw as providing too few preparation hours compared with teaching hours. The revised agreement guarantees more preparation hours to those teachers who have particularly high teaching hours. The dispute was postponed until the result of a new ballot was available on 3 June.

20 April 1999 saw the publication of the definitive result of a ballot of trade union members over the new agreement for primary and lower-secondary school teachers employed by municipal authorities, negotiated by the the trade union bargaining cooperation body, the Association of Local Government Employees' Organisations (Kommunale Tjenestemænd og Overenskomstansatte, KTO) as part of the spring 1999 public sector bargaining round (DK9903114F). By a small majority of 51% to 49%, the members voted against the agreement despite the recommendation in favour by the majority of the executive of the Danish Union of Teachers (Danmarks Lærerforening, DLF), headed by presidentAnni Herfort Andersen. The teachers' bargaining committee issued a dispute notice immediately, allowing industrial action to be initiated from 19 May (DK9904120N).

The prospect of finding a resolution to the dispute before industrial action commenced was considered greater for teachers than for nurses, another group which rejected the 1999 municipal settlement (and whose dispute was subsequently ended by political intervention - DK9905126N). The teachers' "no" vote was not a rejection of the entire KTO agreement for the municipal and county area. The teachers accepted the agreement's general economic framework, but a small majority were dissatisfied with the new rules on working hours which were part of the specific agreement between the teachers and the National Association of Local Authorities (Kommunernes Landsforening, KL). Consequently, it was not unexpected that shortly before the 19 May deadline (the night before, in fact) the public conciliator succeeded in persuading the parties to accept a mediation proposal which entailed an adjustment of the rejected agreement on working hours.

The rules on working hours in both the original agreement and the revised version signify a decentralisation. Whereas teachers' preparation time was formerly determined by a central agreement directly connected to the number of teaching hours, the initial agreement guaranteed 400 preparation hours for each teacher and a "pool" for joint preparation and development of the school. This pool of approximately 125 hours per teacher - with a guaranteed minimum of 50 hours per teacher - was to be distributed locally.

This decentralisation can be viewed as a natural consequence of the general tendency in municipal primary and lower-secondary schools, where teachers' individual class teaching is soon to be replaced by cooperation within a team of teachers. However, at the same time the decentralisation will give the municipalities the opportunity to obtain extra teaching hours from the same number of teachers. This is considered highly desirable, as the number of pupils in municipal primary and lower-secondary schools will increase in the years to come, while the finances of the municipalities will be strained over this period. Accordingly, many teachers feared that the new rules on working hours would be misused by the municipalities, and that is why they rejected the agreement.

Another point of criticism was that there was no guarantee that teachers with a heavy load of teaching hours would receive the corresponding amount of preparation hours. This point became the central issue in the efforts to create a new, revised agreement. The 400 hours were reduced to 375 and the remaining hours were put in the pool for local distribution. Simultaneously, it was decided that the shop steward and the school principal have to agree on the distribution of these hours. In the event that they do not agree, the extra pool will be distributed according to centrally determined rules, which give the teachers with higher teaching hours more preparation time.

The mediation proposal containing the adjusted agreement on working hours was put to a ballot among teachers in municipal primary and lower-secondary schools. The result, awaited with suspense by the executive of DLF, was due to appear on 3 June. Prior to the outcome being known, it seemed that it might be difficult to obtain the required extra votes in favour, since there was a slightly higher number of negative votes among the members of the DLF executive. On the other hand, the issue had become to an even larger extent than before a kind of vote of confidence in the union president and the majority of the executive. Furthermore, the prospect that a strike might mainly take place during the summer vacation might tend to promote a vote in favour of the agreement.