– Ask us before you stop a strike – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
– Vyou do not have a real right to strike.
This is what the leader of the nurses’ association, Lill Sverresdatter Larsen, tells NRK.
She and her members have repeatedly experienced a halt to the struggle for higher wages.
Last June 7 last year. Then Gjertrud Langnes and the others who went on strike for higher wages in Oslo municipality had to return to work without having met their requirements.
Danger to life and health for the users of Nordberg Hjemmetjeneste was the reason when the strike was stopped with a forced wage board. It was the municipality itself that reported the danger.
Nurses who work there believe that what the municipality reported did not vote, but was not asked until the then Minister of Labor Torbjørn Røe Isaksen (H) stopped the strike.
Now they demand to be heard before a new strike stops.
– Yes, I mean it. We are the ones who feel problems on the body. We are the ones who see where the shoe hits. Where there is danger. That is what we who work with the users see, says nurse at Nordre Aker Hjemmetjeneste Gjertrud Langnes.
Danger to life and health «all the time»
She and the other nurses start a weekend where the staff is thin. At the turn of the evening on Friday, she will reach 15 users by half past ten.
Langnes and colleagues and shop steward Taha Abdulwahabi say the staffing has often been as thin or bad than when the municipality reported danger to life and health, and had their strike called off last year.
– Has it been the same staffing many times since June last year?
– Yes, almost always, and that’s frustrating. It’s tiring not least. It struggles so people quit, and of course you understand that they do not have the strength to work themselves to death, says Langnes and adds:
– So the danger to life and health we have had to live with all the time.
She still believes that users can feel confident in receiving proper care and follow-up, even if time is short and they often have to cut back on the unnecessary services to help with showering.
– Vi are so responsible that we do not drive quite to the border. We do not do that, she says.
The City of Oslo did not want to be interviewed, but Camilla Glasø, director of the Department of Health and Coping in Nordre Aker, writes in an e-mail to NRK:
«District Nordre Aker assesses soundness every single day in the operation of the home care service, and is confident that life and health are taken care of through our work routines and emergency preparedness routines. »
Meeting with the Tajik
The Norwegian Nurses’ Association approached Minister of Labor Hadia Tajik (Labor Party) right after the election this autumn with a demand that they must be guaranteed the right to be heard before she cancels a strike on the grounds of danger to life and health.
Tajik and Lill Sverresdatter Larsen had a meeting about this claim on 25 January.
– It is important that such an intrusive instrument as a compulsory wage board has legitimacy with the parties in working life. So when the nurses’ association gives this type of feedback, it is something I take with me in the further work. But I will not now announce any changes in how we solve this, says Minister of Labor Hadia Tajik (Labor).
The leader of the Norwegian Nurses’ Association says she has clear expectations of a right to a fair hearing, and says she does not understand “Why it should take so long”.
– It should be possible to say that we get the opportunity to respond if the employer believes there is a danger to life and health. It must happen now, before we enter into wage negotiations, says Sverresdatter Larsen.
– We do not have real wage settlements
The Norwegian Nurses’ Association believes that their opportunity to wage a wage struggle is being undermined by the fact that their strikes have been called off.
Therefore responds Lill Sverresdatter Larsen that the government says the wage settlement is up to the parties in working life, and something they do not want to interfere in.
– NJonas Gahr Støre says that the salaries of the nurses must be taken between the parties – then there is no real salary settlement anyway, she says.
The Minister of Labor will not answer directly whether she agrees or disagrees that the nurses do not have a real right to strike, but says she is concerned that it should be real.
– I am concerned that the right to strike should be real. And I am concerned that a compulsory wage board as a tool should have legitimacy with the parties, says Tajik.