The teachers face a concentrated propaganda campaign against them by the capitalist media, which seeks to pit other working people against the teachers and attack their right to strike.

On September 22, commentator Thráinn Bertelsson attacked the teachers’ strike in his regular column in Fréttabladid, the most widely circulated daily in Iceland. Under the headline “Hostage taking or a strike?” he charged that the “ideology behind [the strike] much more resembles the ideology of terrorists and hostage-takers than labor struggle.” Using a common argument by big-business commentators, he said the teachers’ strikes hurt children, not employers. He went on to say that strikes in general are outmoded.

An editorial in the same paper that ran on September 19 lamented that if the teachers won their demands “the wages of all other wage-earners will rise.” It argued that “then the buying power of everyone will plunge and inflation will go wild. This is a horrific vision.” The editorial was repeating a myth frequently peddled by the employers: that higher wages for some workers will hurt other working people by causing inflation.

Teachers are demanding an immediate average increase of 13.5 percent and annual increases ranging between 2.25 percent and 3 percent.

Eiríkur Jónsson, chairman of the Icelandic Teachers Union, spoke at a rally held at the strike headquarters in Reykjavík on September 22. According to the Strike Mail, a daily union bulletin published during the strike, he said the teachers’ negotiation committee had clear direction from the membership “not [to] settle before we have accomplished our goals regarding the classroom work and work management, and including the so-called wage pot in the basic wage. These demands are not up for compromise.”

The “wage pot” refers to a sum of money that each principal can divide at will among the teachers. This came with the last contract. Siggerdur Ólöf Sigurdardóttir, a teacher in the town of Kópavogur, explained this further in an interview. “We aren’t allowed to tell how much we are getting from the wage pot,” she said. “Solidarity was being undermined, and finally people were so angry that most were ready to strike.”

The other main issue is the number of classes per week and how much other work can be assigned to the teachers by the principal, the issue of so-called work management. “The main thing is to be able to prepare the classes adequately,” two teachers from Seltjarnarnes told the Militant at the opening of the strike headquarters. “All kinds of extra tasks have been piling up in recent years. We are under a lot of pressure to cover everything.”

The municipalities are pressing for more money from the national government to settle with the teachers. Prime Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson, who took office in mid-September, answered, “This is not our dispute.” He added that it had been clear when the municipalities took over the schools from the state some years ago, that extra funding was out of the question.

Minister of Education Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir has not ruled out passing a law against the strike. She has played on worries over senior students dropping out of school and said she understands people who think that teachers’ wages should be decided by a government board. A few members of parliament have floated similar proposals.

The strike has brought forth divisions within the labor officialdom. Two days before the strike, Halldór Björnsson, chairman of Starfsgreinasambandid (SGS), a union federation, said, “We are deeply worried about this, but it’s hard for us to interfere.” The Confederation of Labor, to which SGS belongs, has collaborated with the employers and the government to “keep stability” and “keep inflation down” by agreeing to keep wage increases at about 2-3 percent.

Helgi Helgason, a spokesman for the Federation of Teachers, responded to similar remarks in an article in Fréttabladid. “The interference of those who guard the low-wage policy of the so-called parties of the labor market suggests that the ‘wage cop’ is still its old self and ready to use any means to prevent a contract.” In face of the big-business propaganda campaign, the strike is being widely debated among working people here. Some buy into the argument that the teachers demands are “excessive” and that they would harm other workers. But others are expressing solidarity. Sigrídur Ágústsdóttir, a retired home-care worker, said, “I think it’s good that they stand their ground. Our workload is always being increased.”  
 
 
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