(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Both the transport workers, the journalists and the hotel employees are now on strike, and at the time of writing it also seems that the graphic artists will put down the work. Thus, we are in a strike where both principles and money are at stake. The strikes come as a result of an increased willingness and awareness of the need for trade unions to put their power behind their demands. But that is due to the fact that the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise has decided to do the same.
NHO does its best to prevent people from seeing themselves benefited from being unionized – in the transport settlement they have set foot on tariff surcharges, in the hotel settlement they speculate that a low degree of organization makes the strike ability weak. The way NHO speculates in the low degree of organization shows how important the transport workers' demands for tariff supplements are. Only with a high degree of organization can the unions put clear power behind the demands. Then you also have to find ways to increase the degree of organization.
We feel confident that the country's wage earners and trade unions will stand behind the members of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union and prove that NHO is wrong. To say it with the Transport Workers' Union leader Per Østvold: This is a strike LO cannot afford to lose.
The "offer" from Reiselivsbedriftenes Landsforening (RBL) is nothing more than a shame offer to a group that is already among the lowest paid in Norway. The Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union (HRAF) demanded nothing more than to receive the same settlement as employees in other competitive businesses, but was fed up with a far worse offer. RBL apparently believes that HRAF's members should not only find themselves earning around 80 per cent of the average industrial worker's salary, they should also find themselves lagging behind other occupational groups. In order to further squeeze HRAF and their members, RBL will deny HRAF the right to negotiate the hiring and hiring of labor.
The travel companies' drive towards the employees, HSH's unwillingness to accept measures that can increase the degree of organization and the media companies' insistence on changing journalists' pension schemes at their own discretion shows an NHO that is on the offensive against professional rights and trade union organization. Their goal is to reduce the influence of trade unions, lower the degree of organization and thereby be able to dictate wage and working conditions at the local level. The demands made by the striking this spring have not only been reasonable. They are also absolutely necessary to ensure that wage formation and labor organization in Norway continue to take place within a Scandinavian welfare model, rather than an Anglo-American system where workers must still have a hat in hand.
