New statute helps improve industrial relations climate in education in Francophone Belgium

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A first step has been taken towards the normalisation of relations between teachers' trade unions and the French Community government, the regulatory authority of the Francophone school system, in Belgium. The unions are satisfied with the statute governing the conditions of kindergarten and primary school teachers which is to be implemented on 1 September 1998. They hope that this will put an end to 10 years of cuts and job losses in teaching and open the way for more finance for the sector which has been the prime victim of budgetary cuts.

Under the sole authority of the French Community government since 1989, Belgium's Francophone teaching system very soon nearly went bankrupt. As it was impossible to obtain more resources to meet demographic and teaching needs from the federal authorities without upsetting the entire sensitive balance between Belgian institutions (including the allocation of budgets between Flemish- and French-speaking communities, unified social security and so on), the Community government initiated a programme of reforms and restrictions that focused on employment in the education sector.

Secondary and higher education were in the front line, but teachers in primary schools were also hit when the Community government increased their workloads by imposing a series of supplementary tasks.

Bitter memory of the 1996 strike

A draft decree introduced on 31 January 1996 by Laurette Onkelincks, minister-president of the French Community in charge of education, provided for a series of rationalising and reorganising measures to reduce the workforce by between 2,800 and 3,000 people (8.4%) according to official calculations. The Christian trade unions, affiliated to the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens/Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond, CSC/ACV) and the Ecolo Party, however, estimated that more than 7,000 teaching posts had already disappeared between 1994 and 1996 (18%). The minister-president hoped that Parliament would adopt the proposal quickly before negotiations began with union representatives.

The ensuing dispute led to a total paralysis of the French-speaking school system for four months. Starting on 9 February 1996, the strike ended on 12 June without benefit to the unions, despite an exceptionally high level of protest activity: schools had shut, street demonstrations by teachers, parents and pupils had been organised in Brussels and other towns and students had been involved, themselves protesting at the higher-education reform around the same time. At the start of the school term in September 1997, the reorganisation plan was implemented without change and the government announced that it did not plan any further cuts before the end of its term of office, that is, before 2000.

The failure of this exceptionally widespread protest movement in 1996 has deeply affected the world of education and its unions. Splits have appeared between different Christian union federations and between some of them on the one hand and the Socialist Belgian General Federation of Labour (Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique/Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond, FGTB/ABVV) on the other. Until then, they had all been unanimously united to fight the measures and to support their members on strike.

Meanwhile, the traditional rivalry between denominational and non-denominational education networks, both financed by the public authorities, was revived. The Social-Christian Party (Parti Social-Chrétien, PSC), which demanded increased resources for Catholic schools, stirred up a conflict amongst the already weakened unions.

Between 1996 and 1997, the government voted through a series of reforming decrees to confirm its intention of improving the quality of teaching and reducing academic failure without, however, releasing extra funds.

Furthermore, following the dispute, it appeared that the unions no longer had a privileged relationship with the public authorities in the debates on the organisation of teaching: all the measures had been adopted without prior negotiation or consultation with the unions and the government had treated union representatives and the "leaders" of the education networks as all on the same level.

A step towards refinancing?

In February 1998, in order to finalise the new statute governing primary education, the minister-president of the French Community said that she would use a "new negotiating method" - namely, prior negotiations with the unions in an attempt to secure agreement with all the parties involved before government adoption.

The new statute was unanimously well received by the main representatives of the teachers' unions, Régis Dohogne, for the CSC/ACV-affiliated Federation of Christian Teachers (Fédération des Instituteurs Chrétiens, FIC), and MJ Giot, the new leader of the FGTB/ABVV-affiliated General Confederation of Public Services (Centrale Générale des Services Publics, CGSP). It provides for gradual alignment of kindergarten teachers' pay with that of primary and intermediate school teachers, a reduction in their timetables, some reduction of their duties through the recruitment of new teachers for specific courses (such as Dutch and sport), the recruitment of auxiliary teaching staff and a series of other measures demanded by trade unions to protect existing jobs.

This new satisfaction on the part of the trade union organisations is a remarkable change in attitude towards the authorities. However, this new peaceful climate has not prevented them from warning the government again that, unless it decides to refinance the entire education system at every level - raising salaries, creating new posts, adapting operating budgets and taking into account the specific problems of schools and demographic trends in the French community - then it should, according to Mr Dohogne, expect disturbances every five years.

That warning was addressed mainly to the French-speaking political parties, which must, after 1999, renegotiate the financing of regions and communities with their Flemish counterparts. The issue will then be whether the Francophone political world is ready to support and reinforce teaching as it is now organised. The unions want to play a key role in those negotiations, as that would help them to regain some credit with their disillusioned grassroots members.

Commentary

The measures adopted at the start of the 1998 school year are without doubt the first new measures taken to help education for years. The return of the trade unions to the negotiating field will give hope to teachers who have suffered grievously during the years of restrictions and job losses and who had taken badly the failure of their 1996 strike.

Nevertheless the future is not without problems. In the immediate future, there is the recurrent conflict between the denominational and non-denominational education networks which compete against one another, and in the longer term the major negotiations at federal level between Flemish- and French-speakers on the criteria for financing the communities and the education systems that depend on them. Nothing guarantees that the entire Francophone education system in Belgium will not be entirely reorganised after 2000. That is what the trade unions organisations expect. (Estelle Krzeslo, )

References: "L'intransigeance de l'exécutif communautaire et la déroute des mouvements sociaux", J-E Charlier, L'Année sociale 1996 (1996); "La reprise en main de l'enseignement", J-E Charlier, L'Année sociale 1993 (1993).