On Sunday 11 April, the mediator together with the employers’ organisation Norsk Industry and the Fellesforbundet union presented a proposal for a new collective agreement for the coming two years covering the metal, packaging and textile and clothing sectors. The proposal has been recommended by the two parties; the result of the ballot among Fellesforbundet members will be presented to the mediator before 30 April noon. The agreement envisages a general wage increase of NOK 1 per hour (worth NOK 1,950 or Euro 245 annually) with the right to local wage negotiations, and NOK 1.50 per hour without the right to local negotiations. Further, a local addition of NOK 0.50 per hour to level out documented discriminating low wages for women in any given workplace. The total value of the agreement is estimated at 3% wage increase. Fellesforbundet president Arve Bakke says: “The result gives an extra increase for the lowest paid and we have constructed a model intended to level out discriminatory inequalities in pay between men and women in the individual company”. Five days later, unions in the LO and YS confederations negotiated an agreement at nearly the same terms with the Spekter employers’ organisations, covering around 190 firms with 180,000 employees in a range of sectors but mainly health, transport and energy.
English: message of EUCOBAN network of EMF / EFFAT / ETUF-TCL / EMCEF; http://www.epsu.org/cob/363;
Norwegian: http://www.fagforbundet.no/forsida/?article_id=50435
M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS)