The parties agree – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
After 15 days of strikes and six days of intense negotiations, the pilots and SAS management have become the only ones. NRK can experience that.
Swedish Today’s Industry gets confirmation from the chairman of the board of SAS, Carsten Dilling, that the parties have reached an agreement.
– We have an agreement, now we will only get the last signatures in place, Dilling says to the newspaper at 9 p.m.
About half an hour later, SAS sent out one press release where they wrote that even though the mediation process has gone in the right direction, an agreement has not yet been signed.
Five year agreement
NRK has previously been able to report that the dispute has been specifically about the term of the collective agreement.
On Monday night, NRK will be informed that the duration of the agreement will be five years.
During this period, the pilots cannot go on strike or renegotiate the agreement. In Norway, it is common for a collective agreement to have a duration of one year.
The strike ends
The agreement means that the pilot strike will now end.
The strike has so far cost SAS 100-130 million Swedish kroner per day.
Around 30,000 passengers have been affected by the strike daily.
The company will get the planes in the air as soon as possible. But it will still take a couple of days to be in full operation again, NRK was informed on Monday.
– Normally, it takes five days to get full production again after a strike, says Aleksander Wasland, leader of the Norwegian Aviation Association, to NRK.
Unusual mediation
– It is a completely unusual mediation, I would say, said national mediator Mats Ruland to press during one of the lunch breaks this weekend.
Previously, the national mediator has called it a major labor dispute that has affected several parties.
– There are many who are not allowed to travel, many who are stranded and the company is in a difficult financial situation, which is to NRK earlier this week.
Get to the top of an economic crisis
The strike became a fact when the parties broke off negotiations on 4 July and 900 pilots in Norway, Sweden and Denmark went on strike.
The core of the conflict was created by staffing companies.
When the pandemic came, around 560 pilots in Norway lost their jobs. Nevertheless, they were given a five-year right to re-employment.
The subsidiaries SAS Link and SAS Connect were started up after the agreement on the right of re-employment was entered into. These will take over aircraft and be filled with new pilots.
With these attempts, the SAS pilots believe that the company is circumventing its obligations to bring the dismissed pilots back.
SAS, for its part, has rejected this and believes that the company relates to all agreements entered into.
The strike came on top of an economic crisis in SAS where the company has said that they must cut annual costs by 7.5 billion Swedish kroner and at the same time raise 9.5 billion Swedish kroner in new capital.