Magnús sees shared will to resolve teachers’ contract dispute

Magnús Þór Jónsson, chair of the Icelandic Teachers’ Union, says he sees a shared will emerging to resolve a dispute over the teachers’ collective agreement. He told mbl.is that the parties may be able to reach an understanding by midnight on Saturday.

Magnús said employers proposed on Tuesday taking a different approach from the agreement already in place. He said teachers had also been told that day that the government would not honour last year’s agreements, and that they had received a draft of a revised, less favourable agreement. In comments to RÚV, he said the developments had put the collective agreement at risk.

Magnús said the proposal to move away from the goal the parties had been working towards came only days before the deadline to activate a clause in the current agreement. If the sides do not reach agreement by the end of Saturday, teachers may have to invoke the clause.

Inga Rún Ólafsdóttir, chair of the negotiating committee of the Association of Local Authorities, told mbl.is on Thursday that Magnús’s comments about a possible breakdown in the agreement had taken the association by surprise. She said responsibility lay with the leadership of the teachers’ union and described its actions as unexpected.

Magnús said the union wanted to continue working from its own proposal. He added that comments in the media and interviews suggested the parties were getting closer, and that a shared will to conclude the negotiations might be forming.

The Association of Local Authorities said on Friday that work on evaluating teachers’ jobs, carried out by the association, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, and the teachers’ union, was progressing well. Inga Rún said the evaluation was the largest part of the collective agreement signed in February last year, which remains in force until May 2028. The association said the work had proved more extensive and time-consuming than initially expected.