Money and increased purchasing power will obviously be the most important thing for LO this year. They are ready to strike for a “good and solid” wage increase, according to LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik.
Last year, LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik had to declare a strike because the employers did not advertise enough. This year too, it is likely that LO will enter into the wage settlement with solid wage demands. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTBPublished:
Today 10:30
Updated less than 20 minutes ago
– We are prepared to go on strike to get what is fair, what is right, Følsvik said when she spoke to LO’s representative board on Tuesday morning.
– We must have our share of the cake. And a fair distribution. Because there is actually room for a good and solid wage settlement. Export revenues are historically high and the industry is going through good times, said the LO leader.
On Tuesday, LO gathered in Folkets Hus in Oslo, where those who were waiting adopted the main demands in this year’s wage settlement and the formulation of the collective agreement policy statement. The statement is used as a management tool when the individual confederations enter their respective negotiations.
The backdrop is that for several years most employees have received worse advice and have had to deal with what LO considers to be a historically aggressive, failed and unfair interest rate policy.
At the same time, large parts of the industry are experiencing very good profitability, to the extent that the wage cost share – the part of the expenses that goes into paying the employees – was below 72 per cent last year.
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Increased purchasing power
In other words, LO will prioritize more money and increased purchasing power over anything else in this year’s salary settlement.
– After years of high inflation and an increasingly tough interest rate level, increased wages are the most important thing for our members. The requirement is that wages must increase more than the rise in prices. The requirement is increased purchasing power. It will be our task not to disappoint them, said Følsvik.
The LO leader tells NTB that members and shop stewards she speaks to are clear that times are tighter.
– It is kroner and øre that are important to people now, there is no doubt about that.
The proposal also states that LO believes there is a need for “a broad further and continuing education reform”. Demands are also made for language training paid for by the employer during working hours.
Must be over 4.1 percent
For people to have increased purchasing power, wages must rise more than prices.
The price increase this year is estimated at 4.1 per cent by the Technical Calculation Committee, which comes up with the figures before the salary settlement. This year’s wage growth is estimated by Norges Bank at five percent, and several other economists also expect it to land around that.
For an employee with a salary of NOK 600,000, this basically means a salary increase of NOK 30,000 this year.
The representative office is not in the habit of quantifying the wage demands that the negotiators take with them to the employers, but tends to say something about where the demand must lie in relation to the wage trend.
The front profession model means that the wage frame exposed to competition industry has the carrying capacity to, becomes the leader for other settlements, also for large groups of employees in the state and municipality.
Lower wage share
– The figures from the Technical Calculation Committee show that there is room for a good settlement, Følsvik said on Friday.
It is also part of the picture that industrial companies’ wage cost share – the part of the company’s expenses that goes into paying out wages – has fallen from an average of 80 per cent over the past 20 years to 71.6 per cent last year. This means that the companies and owners took a larger share of the cake last year, at the expense of the employees’ share.
– The wage settlement is about us as employees getting our share of the pie. We therefore do not work for the employers to put all the value creation in the mattress, or to put it another way: Take that money with you to Switzerland, said the LO leader when she organized a press seminar together with chief economist Roger Bjørnstad.
She called the development “dramatic” and emphasized that it is contrary to the basic intention of the frontline model.
– We have seen a trend over the years now where the wage share has decreased. We cannot continue with that. We have to reverse this development, said Følsvik to NTB.
LO’s secretariat adopted its recommendation on Monday and will present it to the representative council on Tuesday. The session will also conclude with whether LO will meet NHO collectively in the frontline, or whether it will be negotiated federally.
The joint union will go first
Based on what has been revealed in the prelude to the board of representatives meeting on Tuesday, everything indicates that a union-wise settlement will be adopted this year. It will also be in accordance with what has been the tradition for a number of years: federal settlements in main settlements and coordinated settlements when there are intermediate settlements.
This means that, by all accounts, it is Fellesforbundet and leader Jørn Eggum who will meet Norsk Industri to hammer out a wage settlement that will set the standard for the rest of organized working life.
– The feedback we have received is unequivocal. After years of high inflation and an increasingly tough interest rate, increased wages are the most important thing for people, Eggum stated after the federal board had made its decision at the end of January.
* The main requirement is that wages must increase more than the rise in prices.
* In addition, the union wants low-wage workers to have an additional wage supplement in the form of a krone supplement.
* The association also demands a broad continuing and continuing education reform.
PS: It is unlikely that reform or revision of the AFP scheme will be part of the front-line settlement after the national meeting of the Federation last autumn turned its thumbs down on LO’s draft reformed scheme.
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