18 April, 2012Fellesforbundet, Norwegian affiliate of the IMF, ICEM and ITGLWF, concluded a new collective agreement for the workers of metal, textile, cable and technology and data sectors granting among others equal pay and working conditions for temporary workers vis-à-vis permanent staff.
NORWAY: Twelve hour long negotiations between Fellesforbundet and its employer counterpart, Norsk Industri, were successfully concluded with a new collective agreement on April 15, 2012.
The agreement is an outstanding achievement from the point of its political results on top of the economic framework achievements.
Among others Fellesforbundet managed to obtain the following improvements for its members:
- General hourly wage increase by 1.25 NOK (0.17 Euro);
- Extra pay increases for workers in the textile and clothing sectors;
- Compensation for rotation agreements offshore;
- Two weeks paternity leave, paid by employer;
- Equal pay and working conditions for employees from the host company and the workers hired through temporary employment agencies, both covered by Fellesforbundet collective agreements;
- Agreement on making the rule of general applicability of collective agreements less government influenced;
- Principal agreement on a new industrial collective agreement for the four agreements included in the frontrunner model.
The new agreement, valid for two years will be submitted for vote to the members. The deadline is May 10, 2012.
The International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) congratulate the new achievement made by Fellesforbundet in protection of their members' rights. The benchmarking condition of equal treatment for temporary and permanent staff merits special attention as a showcase on how the spread of precarious work can be combated nationally.
The executive bodies of all three global union federations jointly agreed at their last meeting Geneva in February 2012 that the fight against precarious work will be proposed as one of the main priorities for the new IndustriALL Global Union, which is to be created in June 2012.