SCHOOL REFORM (4)

The schoolteacher lockout has now been going on for one week. 600,000 schoolchildren up to the age of around 16, and 270,000 young people doing an apprenticeship-type course (social worker, for example), are kicking their heels at home. Two-earner couples are finding it difficult to have their children looked after.

The lockout is a sensitive issue in the Blotscher household, not least because my wife is a teacher. Since we do not agree on everything, I will tread carefully.

The core of the dispute is about the way in which teachers organise their work. Danes almost universally work 37 hours a week. Although there are some variations, teachers on average teach 22 lessons a week, representing 16.3 full hours. The remaining time is taken up with preparation, marking, meetings, talking to parents and such like. If it takes the individual teacher less time to prepare than that, then they get a windfall; if it takes longer, then tough. In either case, how and when non-teaching work is done is pretty much up to the individual teacher.

The employers - mostly local authorities - have long wanted to change this arrangement. In particular, they want the ultimate power over how non-teaching work is organised to move from the individual teacher to the headmaster. In other words, teachers would negotiate with their headmaster about how much preparation is needed in individual subjects; and if this were less than the current arrangement, then the teacher would be assigned other duties.

On this, I side with the employers (and against my wife). I don't think that schools are so different from other organisations - either commercial companies, or non-commercial public sector bodies - that there should be a deviation from the principle that it is the boss that ultimately decides how work should be organised. I also doubt that this change - in itself - would have a big impact in practice. True, there would be a few headmasters, whose new power would cause a rush of blood to the head. But no leader can lead an organisation without the support of the people who work in that organisation. So massive changes to the current work arrangements would be short-sighted.

However, there is a reason why the teachers should be concerned. That is because the Government has already submitted a proposal, whereby schools would remain open for longer hours, much more in line with the system in the U.K. Many activities (eg sport) that currently take place outside school would be brought within the school day. In order for this to happen, teachers must be physically present at the school for more hours during the day. That can only really happen if the headmaster decides that they should be there; which in turn requires the change outlined above.

In other words, it is widely believed - and I agree with them - that the employers are taking the position they are taking, because the Government has already decided to change the way schools are run; and that that change will automatically lead to more teaching hours, and so to a squeeze on preparation and other non-teaching activities. There are two problems with this. The first is that it is unproven that the way to make schools better is to have a longer school day; some countries have longer days and worse results, some the opposite. The second is that the process is contrary to the way the "Danish model" of labour relations is supposed to work, namely that employers and employees negotiate and come to an agreement, while politicians stay out of things and accept the result. This is not completely possible in the case of teachers, since the central Government is itself an employer of teachers. Nevertheless, difficult as it may be, the Finance Ministry (qua employer) is not supposed to do the bidding of the Finance Ministry (qua the purseholder for the Government).

What happens now? The problem for the teachers with a lockout is that it leaves them worse off, drains their strike fund, and saves the employers around Dkr.50m a day in foregone wages. On the other hand, it makes a lot of parents annoyed, since their children can't go to school, and at a time of year when exams are just around the corner. Against that background, I expect the Government to step in and impose a settlement some time before the end of the third week of the lockout. Enough time to distance themselves from the idea that they are not letting the parties find a settlement on their own, but not enough time to completely bankrupt the teachers' union and ruin schoolchildren's exam revision. I also expect that settlement to back the employers' position more than the teachers'.

Whatever happens, this is a watershed for Danish labour relations. Public sector labour disputes tend to be strikes, in which employees try to impose their demands for better working conditions and/or more pay in the face of stingy employers. This time, by contrast, it is the employers who are making demands. The eventual resolution of the dispute - and there will be a resolution at some point, though it may well be imposed - will cast its shadow over the Danish labour market for years to come.

Walter Blotscher