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9 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 23/2001
Norwegian electricity workers will strike this Friday over proposed legal changes that could allow large-scale outsourcing of jobs in the industry.
The draft law is seen as a prelude to privatisation of the country's electricity sector, which is now mainly under state and municipal control. So far, the government has ignored calls from the power workers' union EL & IT and the national labour confederation LO to withdraw the legislation.
A first two-hour protest strike on 11 May will bring out 4,500 electricity workers across the country, EL & IT announced yesterday. Altogether, the Norwegian power industry employs about 18,000 people.
The union argues that outsourcing would compromise both security of supply and work safety. It would also pose a threat to electricity workers' jobs and employment conditions.
At the global level, EL & IT is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
The strike was announced as the Norwegian trade union confederation LO was holding its annual congress. EL & IT delegates to the congress, which is continuing, asked the Norwegian trade union movement as a whole to express support for the strike and to oppose electricity privatisation. Market-oriented restructuring in the sector had already resulted in higher prices to the consumer, EL & IT's Svein Davidsen told the congress. Privatisation would mean "centralisation and foreign ownership", and therefore the end of local control.
The LO congress also heard a call for a tenfold increase in Norway's consumption of natural gas by the year 2010. A resolution tabled by the ICEM-affiliated oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF argues that greater industrial use of Norwegian gas reserves would cut pollution and boost employment.
A switch to gas-fired electricity generation could cut Norway's CO2 emissions by 60 percent, NOPEF's Lars Myhre told the congress. Myhre, who chairs the ICEM energy workers' section, also said more gas should be used as a feedstock for Norwegian industry - notably the petrochemical sector, which "stands ready to expand its activities if access to gas as a raw material is ensured." To that end, he called for the construction of a new gas pipeline to Norway's industrial Grenland region. Transport was another sector where greater use of gas would cut pollution, Myhre said. A transition to gas-powered ferries would create many new jobs, he pointed out.
In similar vein, a motion to the LO congress from the ICEM-affiliated Norwegian chemical workers' union NKIF calls for the recuperation of energy from industrial processes. With proper public support, the union argues, Norwegian industry alone could retrieve almost 10 terawatt hours of energy per year from its own production processes.
POSTSCRIPT: STRIKE SUCCEEDED WITHOUT HAPPENING
Thanks to intensive union lobbying, and to the strike announcement by EL & IT, a majority of Norwegian members of parliament had agreed by 10 May to vote against the draft legal changes to which the unions objected. The strike was therefore called off at the last minute, having achieved its aims just before it was held. The formal parliamentary vote will take place towards the end of this month.
The draft law is seen as a prelude to privatisation of the country's electricity sector, which is now mainly under state and municipal control. So far, the government has ignored calls from the power workers' union EL & IT and the national labour confederation LO to withdraw the legislation.
A first two-hour protest strike on 11 May will bring out 4,500 electricity workers across the country, EL & IT announced yesterday. Altogether, the Norwegian power industry employs about 18,000 people.
The union argues that outsourcing would compromise both security of supply and work safety. It would also pose a threat to electricity workers' jobs and employment conditions.
At the global level, EL & IT is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
The strike was announced as the Norwegian trade union confederation LO was holding its annual congress. EL & IT delegates to the congress, which is continuing, asked the Norwegian trade union movement as a whole to express support for the strike and to oppose electricity privatisation. Market-oriented restructuring in the sector had already resulted in higher prices to the consumer, EL & IT's Svein Davidsen told the congress. Privatisation would mean "centralisation and foreign ownership", and therefore the end of local control.
The LO congress also heard a call for a tenfold increase in Norway's consumption of natural gas by the year 2010. A resolution tabled by the ICEM-affiliated oil and petrochemical workers' union NOPEF argues that greater industrial use of Norwegian gas reserves would cut pollution and boost employment.
A switch to gas-fired electricity generation could cut Norway's CO2 emissions by 60 percent, NOPEF's Lars Myhre told the congress. Myhre, who chairs the ICEM energy workers' section, also said more gas should be used as a feedstock for Norwegian industry - notably the petrochemical sector, which "stands ready to expand its activities if access to gas as a raw material is ensured." To that end, he called for the construction of a new gas pipeline to Norway's industrial Grenland region. Transport was another sector where greater use of gas would cut pollution, Myhre said. A transition to gas-powered ferries would create many new jobs, he pointed out.
In similar vein, a motion to the LO congress from the ICEM-affiliated Norwegian chemical workers' union NKIF calls for the recuperation of energy from industrial processes. With proper public support, the union argues, Norwegian industry alone could retrieve almost 10 terawatt hours of energy per year from its own production processes.
POSTSCRIPT: STRIKE SUCCEEDED WITHOUT HAPPENING
Thanks to intensive union lobbying, and to the strike announcement by EL & IT, a majority of Norwegian members of parliament had agreed by 10 May to vote against the draft legal changes to which the unions objected. The strike was therefore called off at the last minute, having achieved its aims just before it was held. The formal parliamentary vote will take place towards the end of this month.