(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This is the question that the Norwegian Transport Workers' Union (NTF) and the Trade and Service Industry's Main Organization (HSH) will fight over until the mediation deadline on Wednesday. If they do not agree – and there are many indications that they will not – the food stocks of most large chains will be hit by strikes. It is a strike the transport workers are fighting for more than themselves. Union leader Per Østvold and his members are fighting for everyone who has chosen solidarity through trade union organization rather than thinking about their own wallet in the short term.
What Østvold and NTF have specifically raised as a requirement is that a separate wage supplement of 1,4 per cent be given to employees who are unionized. Those who choose to stay out of a trade union will not receive the supplement. If NTF succeeds – and if other unions follow up with similar demands in the years to come – it will become increasingly less profitable to be disorganized. Thus, the degree of organization will probably increase – alternatively decrease more slowly than it would otherwise do.
Last time Østvold and NTF tried something similar, it was a lack of support from LO teams that stopped them. Now they have Gerd-Liv Valla in the back, and thus it may seem that larger parts of the LO system understand that the trade union movement must work on several fronts, with different methods and more requirements that go beyond pure pay requirements in order to continue to meet workers' rights.
HSH and Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon (NHO) try to present NTF's demands as "undemocratic", because they believe that a separate tariff supplement for trade unions will be in conflict with the freedom of association. HSH seems most desperate when they claim that the unorganized are helping to "pay" the trade unionists' dues. It is obvious to turn the matter upside down.
The reality is that those who make it one hundred percent free choice to stand outside a union until today have received all the benefits of the labor movement's wage struggle, but have not been paying the costs. Even if NTF gets a breakthrough for its demands, some will force the disorganized. But having to bear the costs of not having the employees together is fair and reasonable. No one would argue that an organization that negotiates benefits for its members in other areas threatens organizational freedom. Of course, this is not the case with wage requirements.
The fact that NHO and HSH put themselves on the back foot, emphasizes that employers have no sense to appreciate the positive effect a high level of organization has. Not just for the organized (and disorganized free passengers), or for society as a whole. Many also indicate that Norwegian companies and employers benefit from a well-organized working life with trade unions that have power, but thereby also a high awareness of their corporate social responsibility. In fact, employers also depend on having someone to talk to and negotiate with, if they are to experience predictability and orderly conditions. If the level of organization continues to decline, it will be difficult to find club leaders with authority.
The development Norway has undergone in the last hundred years, where most people have had more to do while at the same time building up a domestic market that has given business owners a significant income potential, would not have been possible without strong unions. Not least the companies that are now affected by the strike – the food chains – are completely dependent on the entire Norwegian people being allowed to participate in continued welfare development. It is not only the employees who will be affected by increased differences. It also affects companies.
Much indicates that the NHO has decided to throw the Nordic model on the boat, and to draw Norwegian working life in the Anglo-American direction. That is, a working life with weak unions, a high degree of local wage formation, poor dismissal protection and a comprehensive right of management for the business owners. Saying yes to NTF's demands will be directly counterproductive to achieving these goals. Therefore, the NHO is dismissive.
But that is also why NTF's requirements are so important. In the future, Norwegian wage settlements will often be about the organization of working life – and about fighting NHO's attempts to crush the Nordic model. Tariff supplements for NTF's members can be the first step on the way to stopping NHO. And to regain lost ground.
Keep that in mind if you can't get milk and bread for the weekend.
