"The Working Dead": Teachers' experience of reform in the Danish public school

This paper combines interest in the ghostly in organisation with an empirical analysis of how teachers in the Danish public school have been affected by simultaneous implementation of two major reforms. In 2013 a school reform was put in place, alongside with a reform of teachers’ working hour regulations. Prior to the latter reform, the negotiations between the teachers union and the employer side broke down. The result was a lock out of the teachers and the closing of all public schools for almost one month. The government unprecedentedly put an end to the conflict by implementing the working hour regulations through Law 409. However, even if the conflict ended, it refuses to go away. As this teacher puts it: "I get really mad, when people tell me that now we have to put things behind us and move on…I can't!" Even today, 4 years later, we see how teachers resigning from their job, do so by referring to their entangled experiences of conflict and reform, which eventually have made them loose the joy of teaching (Pedersen, Böwadt, & Vaaben, 2016).