Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

OSLO

Strike set to hit Oslo schools

Pre-schools, schools and nursing homes in Oslo are set to be hit by strike action after two of the four trade unions representing workers employed by the city pulled out of wage talks on Wednesday morning.

Published: 30 May 2012 10:23 CEST

Strike set to hit Oslo schools

Photo: Fredrik Varfjell/Scanpix

After a week of negotiations, labour groups Unio and YS Kommune announced that 635 workers would go on strike in an initial round of industrial action.

”It’s regrettable that Oslo’s inhabitants will now be affected by a strike. There’s no other option than a strike when the city is not willing to give employees higher wages that are in line with those received by other groups in society,” said Unio Oslo’s chief negotiator Terje Vilno.

The first group to go out on strike will be Unio members who had planned to start work at midday on Wednesday.

These will be joined on Thursday morning by further Unio-affiliated workers along with members of the YS union.

”Shift workers will be the first to go out, which typically means employees at nursing homes, retirement homes and similar operations. On Thursday, schools, pre-schools and administrative offices will also be affected,” said Vilno, as Unio presented a list of all the workplaces (pdf) set to be hit be its strike action.

”Oslo city set an ultimatum whereby we had to approve a framework of less than four percent if we were to achieve a broad-based solution. We felt we were too far apart from one another to build a bridge,” said Vilno.

The city’s Conservative Party governing mayor, Stian Berger Røsland, said Oslo residents would soon feel the effects of the strike.

”It’s disappointing and surprising that two of the organizations have chosen to go on strike,” he told news agency NTB.

”We thought the mediation process was satisfactory and constructive. It’s difficult to see what they want to achieve with a conflict.”

Røsland urged members of the public to get in touch with individual workplaces or check the city’s websites s for information on the concrete ramifications of the strike.

Representatives for the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and labour group Akademikerne planned to continue negotiations.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of €420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of €2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some €200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of €2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

Url copied to clipboard!