Music Teachers To Go On Strike

The Association of Music School Teachers (FT) will go on strike October 22 if a collective bargaining agreement is not reached with the Icelandic Association of Local Authorities (SÍS).

According to an announcement on the union’s website, the teachers have been in negotiations with SÍS for the past ten months now, and remain the only teachers’ union that does not yet have an established collective bargaining agreement.

Vísir reports that their greivances centre mostly around wages. In particular, the teachers want their salaries to be comparable to that of any other specialist in the education field.

Other teachers went on strike last March, asking for a 17% increase of their wages. The strike ended weeks later, with the teachers receiving a 6.8% general pay rise, to be doled out in three steps between now and October 2016. A 2.8% pay rise went into effect at the time, followed by a 2% increase on January 1, 2015, and then a 2% increase on January 1, 2016.

However, the dispute with the music teachers remained, and was refered to government negotiators last June. If no deal can be made in the next 14 days, the music teachers will strike.