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1 May, 2000Nearly two-thirds of private sector union members have rejected the mediated 2000 collective bargaining deal.
NORWAY: In what is expected to be a widespread and long industrial dispute in Norway's private sector, the LO national trade union center has announced strike action as of 6 a.m. tomorrow, May 3, 2000. The tentative collective bargaining deal reached in early April between private sector employers and the LO, which was only achieved through mediation, has been voted down by 64.3 per cent of union members. (See related IMF news items, dated March 30 and April 3.)
The Fellesforbundet, a member of the LO and affiliated to the International Metalworkers' Federation, will have the following trades on strike as of tomorrow morning:
- engineering industry,
- building trades,
- asphalt firms.
For Fellesforbundet, this will comprise approximately 60,000 members of their union in about 1,500 enterprises. Altogether 80,000 workers, or over one-third of the country's private sector unionised workers, will down their tools on May 3, and many others could enlarge the dispute should it continue indefinitely.
Norway, with a population of 4.5 million, has not seen such a big labour conflict since a lockout of 102,000 workers in 1986. Trade union leaders and Labour government ministers say that the present work stoppage is being partly triggered by workers' anger at being asked to accept small wage increases when business leaders, preaching austerity, have taken enormous pay hikes.
The total membership of Fellesforbundet is 160,000. It is the largest trade union in the private sector in Norway and organises mainly in the iron and metal sector, shipbuilding, car and aircraft repair, as well as the textile industry, shoe, construction, paper, fish farming, agriculture and forestry.
The Fellesforbundet, a member of the LO and affiliated to the International Metalworkers' Federation, will have the following trades on strike as of tomorrow morning:
- engineering industry,
- building trades,
- asphalt firms.
For Fellesforbundet, this will comprise approximately 60,000 members of their union in about 1,500 enterprises. Altogether 80,000 workers, or over one-third of the country's private sector unionised workers, will down their tools on May 3, and many others could enlarge the dispute should it continue indefinitely.
Norway, with a population of 4.5 million, has not seen such a big labour conflict since a lockout of 102,000 workers in 1986. Trade union leaders and Labour government ministers say that the present work stoppage is being partly triggered by workers' anger at being asked to accept small wage increases when business leaders, preaching austerity, have taken enormous pay hikes.
The total membership of Fellesforbundet is 160,000. It is the largest trade union in the private sector in Norway and organises mainly in the iron and metal sector, shipbuilding, car and aircraft repair, as well as the textile industry, shoe, construction, paper, fish farming, agriculture and forestry.