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Doctors to strike in five Norwegian cities

The Norwegian Medical Association has confirmed that 23 doctors in Tromsø, Trondheim, Narvik, Bergen and Stavanger will go on strike from Monday next week.

Published: 21 October 2020 13:02 CEST

Doctors to strike in five Norwegian cities

Photo by Markus Frieauff on Unsplash

The news comes following last week’s breakdown in talks between the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) and the Norwegian Medical Association (NMA).

READ ALSO: No Norwegian agreement over doctors’ terms as strike awaits

Provisions over on-call working hours are the key stumbling block in the dispute.

The medical association believes that the workload for GPs is too great given that on-call services are added to normal working hours, and with doctors unable to set any limits for how many shifts can be imposed.

The NMA has warned that the scope of the strike could be increased if an agreement is not reached before October 26th, national broadcaster NRK reports.

Between four or five doctors in municipalities affected by the strikes will be taken off duty, NMA union president Marit Hermansen told NRK.

“We take responsible strike action with major on-call services. These are active on-call doctors who also have full-time regular medical practice. But they will (only) be striking as on-call staff,” Hermansen said.

Given the pressure placed on health services by the Covid-19 pandemic, the union leader said the public would be protected from consequences of the strikes as much as possible.

“We are concerned that this walkout will not impact patients or services in a way that endangers life or health. We don’t want to create difficulty for municipalities dealing with the pandemic. That’s why we have chosen five large city municipalities,” she said.

KS has criticised the strike and said that there was currently no basis for renewed talks between the two sides.

“We regret that the NMA has chosen conflict on an issue on which we should sit around the table with the state to find a solution,” the working environments director for KS Tor Arne Gangsø said to NRK.

Any action that affects emergency wards could endanger life and health, Gangsø said.

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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.

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