– Now it’s our turn – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
– We have been at the forefront during the pandemic and can not risk people escaping the profession because the payment is too bad. Now we are going up to the same level as others, says health secretary Gro Buttingsrud at Bærum health and wellness to NRK.
She has 30 years of experience as a health secretary and also works at the emergency room in Oslo.
– We are the ones who pick up the phone when you call the GP, we are the ones who take blood samples, remove stitches and change wounds. And at the emergency room, we are the ones who stand in front and meet you when you arrive. In addition, we have a number of administrative tasks. It is a very versatile and fun job, she says.
The corona pandemic has made the job extra heavy, for her as for many others in the public sector.
– It has been busy, with many changes of routines at short notice. And applause is nice, but that’s not what pays for my bread, says Buttingsrud.
Steep fronts
Conflict has been raging for some time already: Unio, which organizes many of the nursing staff and teachers, has gone high on the field with demands for greater wage growth than industry. They themselves meet with accusations from LO and NHO that this will violate the rules of the game for the wage settlement and put jobs in the private sector in danger.
The reason is that competitive industry negotiates first, in line with the so-called wage front-line model. The result in these industries will then set the framework for the rest of the wage settlement.
In this way, public employees will be prevented from receiving higher wage growth over time than employees in industry.
– Why do you deserve more than employees in the industry?
– We do not deserve more than the industrial workers, but we deserve the same. We want the same wage growth as the industry has. They have simply moved away, she says.
– But does that mean that this year you have to get more in wage growth than the industrial workers get?
– Yes we must. Then we will reach the same level, hopefully.
The conclusion is coming
According to the main associations YS and Unio, which often end up in the shadow of big sister LO, available wage statistics show that the industry has supplied itself with more of the wage cake than public employees such as teachers, nurses, auxiliary nurses and health secretaries.
– Now it’s our turn, says Lizzie Ruud Thorkildsen, union leader in the largest YS union, Delta. Her union organizes around 90,000 members – many of them in health and care.
She fears that the picture of a skewed wage development between the public and private sectors will be even clearer when the “decision” is presented on Friday morning.
Then comes the report from the technical calculation committee, which forms the basis for this spring’s wage settlement.
– In recent years, the industry has granted itself wage growth that is far above the framework for the frontier profession, while the everyday heroes in the welfare services have seen their meager wage growth become eaten up by the price increase, Thorkildsen claims.
Requires more
The Delta boss receives support from the union’s leader Mette Nord. Her union is by far the largest in LO and in Norwegian working life. The members come from a wide range of professions, not least in the health sector.
– The front subject is clear that groups that have been left behind and over the years lagging behind, will actually be compensated. We can not live with the private sector taking out a higher wage growth year after year than others, says Nord to NRK.
However, she said that it is completely irrelevant for her and LO to support a demand that special groups in the public sector should be given priority over others, such as nurses and teachers.
– We must lift the whole team in the public sector, says the powerful LO top who also meets quickly in the Labor Party’s central board.
As a basis for this year’s requirements, the Delta manager refers to the development over the last couple of years:
– For years in a row, we have taken responsibility and accepted a moderate wage increase, rather than throwing the public sector on strike during the pandemic. At the same time, prices have risen more than wages. As a result, they have less money to spend. It must be compensated this year, says Thorkildsen.
As a basis, she refers to a wage increase of 4.5 percent for employees in the municipal sector in recent years as a whole. In the same period, inflation was 4.8 per cent, which shows that municipal employees have lost purchasing power on average.
At the same time, the Delta chief points to Statistics Norway figures which show that skilled workers in industry had a wage increase of 5.5 per cent in the same period.
– It is unacceptable for our members. And now I fear that the numbers are going the same way – that industry and the private sector have again taken out more. That’s how we can not have it, she says.
– Will threaten competitive industry
Jørn Eggum is the leader of Fellesforbundet – the largest trade union in the private sector. He believes that a demand for the public sector to have more, regardless of the settlement in the private sector, will threaten competitive industry and private value creation needed to finance the welfare state.
– If you look at wage development over time, the development is steady between the various sectors, he says.
He uses the period 2015–2020 as an example. According to Eggum, industrial workers achieved 13.1 percent in the period, while government employees received 13.7.
– This year we demand strengthened purchasing power for our members. Delta must be willing to prioritize within the framework of its groups – we do this when we want a fair settlement where we promise low-paid people, says Eggum.
– Several years
NHO chief Ole Erik Almlid and LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik also rejected the demand for higher wage growth for groups of public employees when the parties in working life met representatives of the government in the so-called contact committee on Monday.
– If we see this over the period 2013 to 2020, we see that wage developments in industry have been slightly below what we calculate as the framework, while other sectors have been slightly above. So we have to look at this over several years, Almlid told NRK after Monday’s meeting.
He will not ask for a new interview now, before the TBU figures are presented, but refers to the statement from earlier this week. And then he was clear:
– Here, everyone must be loyal to what we call the front subject. This means standing up and giving the same wage supplement that we land on in the private sector.
The same message came from NHO’s counterpart. LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik described the demands for extra wage growth for public employees as one “Attack on the way we negotiate wages in Norway”.
– When we are on our way out of a crisis and on our way into a major restructuring, it is absolutely certain that this model will not crack, she said.