Orientering fra fællestillidsmanden: Dear colleagues As you may have heard, the negotiations on the renewal of the collective agreement (overenskomst) between the state and our trade unions broke down this Friday. This has brought us to a situation closer to a conflict (strike or lockout), although we are not there yet. Why a breakdown? The negotiations broke down this Friday because no progress has been made in the negotiations. The chief negotiator on the employer side, minister Sophie Løhde, applies a rhetoric saying that the employee side just want to have but don’t wants to give. Reality is that the public sector, in particular academics are lacking behind w.r.t. salary development compared to the private sector. Also, the state is demanding that we give up the paid lunch break and that the our collective rights are weakened. The lunch break: We, on the employee side, argue that the paid lunch is a consequence of the existing collective agreement, but this has not yet been settled in industrial court. The employer side, has challenged the lunch break outside the proper negotiations with the result that we have had to include the stipulation of the right in our demands. So why is this lunch break important for us, we already work more than 37.5 hours per week. It is important because, raising the work hours by 2.5 per week, technically can be seen as saving 7% on the salary budget, and thus be an argument for a 7% cut in funding from the state to the universities. Another disagreement is the work hour’s governance for the elementary school teachers. This is now a matter of legislation, which it should not be. In the Danish model work hour rules should be set through negotiation between the employers and the employees. When can conflict start? Conflict has to be called with a month notice, and con not be effective before April 1. The arbitrator (Forligsmanden) can postpone the conflict 2x14 days and force the parties to continue negotiation. What does the conflict mean to us? A conflict can either be a strike called by the trade unions, or a lockout called by the employers. It can be partial or general. If you are covered by conflict you have to stop working immediately when the conflict starts. You cannot teach or supervise, you cannot continue experiments. The employer and the trade union will from day to day decide if there is critical work that has to be done due to safety or due to the life and welfare of humans or animals. If you are traveling when a conflict you are covered by starts, you have to return home immediately. It is unclear what will happen with ph.d.-students who get delayed because of the conflict. A debate with university senior management is in process on this, we seem to share the view that individual ph.d.-studies should not suffer from a conflict. Will you still get paid during conflict? If you are port of conflict you will not get any salary from the university during the conflict. Instead, your trade union will compensate your lost salary. A joint model for all academic trade unions is being finalized soon. Who will be involved? Only members by the trade unions will be covered by conflict. If you are not a member of the trade union you should consider signing up. The salary and working conditions you have at the university are a result of the work done by the trade unions both at the national level and local level by the shop stewards. The collective agreements, continues work with working conditions and orderliness, continuous salary negotiations for all (also non-members), protection of individual rights etc. And in the situation of a conflict over the collective agreement we are stronger the more people are involved, and that will create a better result for all. Talk to your union representative about how to become a member. Members of the trade union cannot resign from the union to avoid being covered by conflict. How will students be affected by conflict? As these covered by conflict cannot teach and undertake exams, the students will be affected. Depending on how long a conflict will go on, students may loose a whole semester. This is a responsibility the employer must handle. A conflict will have a lot of negative effects. That is why everybody tries to avoid it. But if we are met with unreasonable demands and no room for protection of our real wages we may end in a situation where conflict is the only way forward. Enough is enough. Links to more information In English https://dm.dk/Landingpages/OK18/GuideKonfliktEN In Danish https://dm.dk/Landingpages/OK18/ -- Olav W. Bertelsen Fællestillidsrepræsentant (AC), Aarhus Universitet Lektor, ph.d., Institut for Datalogi http://www.cs.au.dk/~olavb Tlf: 20586120 olavb@cs.au.dk<mailto:olavb@cs.au.dk>, olb@dm.dk<mailto:olb@dm.dk>, olavbertelsen@gmail.com<mailto:olavbertelsen@gmail.com>