Teachers without qualifications risk losing their union

By Tor Gasslander, from Flamman 9/2018 (March 1, 2018)

The leadership of Lärarförbundet, the Swedish Teachers’ Union, is proposing that the union stop organizing teachers without qualifications. The idea is that it will strengthen the position of teachers with qualifications. But critics argue that it will rather have the opposite effect – and that a large part of the teaching corps will thus have no possibility of organizing themselves in a specialized professional association.

“We see this as a way of bringing the Swedish Teachers’ Union into the future and of contributing to a stronger teaching profession,” Johanna Jaara Åstrand, President of the STU, said to Flamman.

In mid-January, the leadership of her union announced that they wanted to draw a clearer line between who is a teacher and who isn’t.

According to the leadership’s proposal to the union congress, which will be held in October this year, the STU thus wants to stop admitting new members who are not qualified teachers. If the proposal becomes reality, it would mean that many of those now working as teachers in the Swedish school system would be without the possibility of organizing themselves in a dedicated national trade union.

Permanently hiring teachers who do not have a license has not been permitted in the country’s schools since 2011. Owing to the extremely extensive shortage of teachers, the Government introduced a temporary relaxation of the rules in 2016, which allowed teachers without qualifications to be employed as teachers for up to three years.

More and more without qualifications

According to the latest statistics from Skolverket (the Swedish National Agency for Education), however, the proportion of teachers without qualifications in Swedish schools continues to grow. During the 2016 school year, 57 percent of new hires in the teacher corps – calculated as full-time equivalents – consisted of people without teaching licenses. Forecasts from Arbetsförmedlingen (the Swedish Public Employment Service) show no signs that the shortage of trained teachers will decrease.

According to a report from Sveriges kommuner och landsting (the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions) released last week, 187,000 new teachers will be needed by 2031. That is more that Per-Arne Andersson, the head of SALAR’s Training and Labor Market Division, estimates is possible to train – even in theory.

“Simply expanding teacher training programs isn’t realistic for solving the teacher shortage. We also need other professions in society such as nurses, engineers, doctors, social workers, and so on,” he says.

For the time being, the large group of teachers in the profession who lack licenses have the possibility of joining at least one of the industry’s two trade unions. Lärarnas Riksförbund, the National Union of Teachers in Sweden, only organizes trained teachers, but the STU has up until now also stood open for untrained teachers. They also organize preschool teachers, principals, and career advisers. The NUT has sometimes joked that the STU takes “anyone at all.”

Several sources in the STU have now told Flamman that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the proposal to stop organizing teachers without qualifications. Beyond some members feeling the proposal is simply devoid of any solidarity, many are also arguing that it will lead to fewer members over the short term at the same time as they are losing one of the most important recruitment arguments in relation to the NUT.

On Thursday [March 8], the STU’s important Gothenburg district is expected to take a decision on a motion to counter the proposal.

“If we are to succeed with our union commitments, if we are to succeed in getting a better work environment and higher salaries, we need to stand together, united. If we exclude a group and leave them to worse conditions and lower salaries, that also affects us,” wrote the 27 members behind the motion.

Second-class teachers

Ludvig Fahlvik is a teaching student, and has worked as a substitute teacher during his education. He thus belongs to the thousands of teachers who are so far not technically authorized to teach. Today, Ludvig is a member in both trade unions as a student. According to the STU’s new proposal, students will also be able to be members in future.

Ludvig is convinced, however, that the proposal will create some kind of second-class teacher.

“The salary structure will be affected, people have to realize that. If teachers without qualifications can’t take part in the union’s successes, it will affect the whole occupational group. Over the long run, it will pay off to hire teachers without qualifications before teachers with them,” he said to Flamman.

Another member with good insight into the organization of the STU says that, moreover, the choice is untactical.

“All this about creating a professional union is probably people thinking it’s easier to push issues about improving schools rather than work environment issues, for example – it’s a lot more difficult to get a hearing there. But I think this is enormously untactical, since we’re undermining our own strength as a union,” said the member, who wished to remain anonymous.

Unite the profession

But STU President Johanna Jaara Åstrand doesn’t agree.

“We see the opposite; we have always organized ourselves based on a fundamental idea: that we want to unite the entire profession into one organization. The proposal we’re putting forth now is to be clearer about who is included in the teaching profession. We see it as a way of strengthening our identity,” she said to Flamman.

“It’s a question of being clear about what is actually required to carry out satisfactory teaching work. A part of that requirement is that teachers who have not completed their training won’t have as good conditions as those who are trained.

“We have rules that say that as an untrained teacher, you can’t be permanently employed – that you remain in short temporary jobs and draw the short straw if a trained teacher applies for the job. That’s how we want it to be, and so we also want to be honest with who we’re organizing,” she says.

Facts:

Sweden has two unions that organize teachers: The National Union of Teachers in Sweden and the Swedish Union of Teachers.

Both unions sign joint central collective agreements through a cooperative organization, Lärarnas Samverkansråd (the Teachers’ Cooperative Council). Both unions are also agree on the principle of not recruiting members directly from each other.

The NUT organizes teachers with qualifications and study and career advisers, and has 90,000 members.

The STU organizes, for example, preschool teachers, recreation instructors, elementary school teachers, high school teachers, study and career advisers, teachers in music and cultural schools, and principals, and has 230,000 members. Teachers without qualifications constitute a minority of the union.

Source: Lärarnas Riksförbund and Lärarförbundet

Up through 2027, the number of children and students of preschool, elementary school, and high school age will increase by nearly 350,000, which is equivalent to an increase of around 15 percent compared with 2017.

In the next few years along, over 600 new preschools and 300 new schools will need to be built in Sweden to hold them all.

Up through 2031, the total recruitment need for teachers will be 187,000 full-time equivalents. The need is greatest over the next five years, as it is estimated that preschools and schools will recruit the equivalent of 77,000 full-time teachers.

Nearly one fourth of all students in high school career programs today are beginning teacher training. To meet these needs, the figure would need to be significantly higher. In addition, the shortage of labor power will increase in many professions over the next ten years.

More and more teachers are returning to the profession. Last year the figure increased 40 percent – that is, 3,100 teachers who went back to school.

Since 2011, Swedish municipalities have invested SEK 15 billion (USD 1.8 billion) in teacher’s salaries above the levels of the industrial agreement, which serves as the benchmark for the entire labor market, and above state salary investments for the same period.

Source: Sveriges kommuner och landsting