Why do Norwegian employers want to demand staff get tested for Covid? 

Norway’s government has asked everybody showing symptoms of respiratory infections to stay at home. This has lead to more staff being unable to come to work. The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) has said that this has also lowered the bar for employers having to pay out for sick pay. 

“The prerequisite for being entitled to sickness benefits is that you are unable to work. But then we take into account that the health authorities say that you should stay at home when you have mild cold symptoms, that means that the threshold for when you should be home from is lower than before the coronavirus,” Director of the NHO, Nina Melsom, told public broadcaster NRK. 

Ove Andre Jakobsen, a restaurant manager in Grünerløkka, Oslo, said the advice that those with respiratory symptoms should stay home could cause chaos in industries where working from home isn’t possible. 

“There will simply be a crisis if people have to stay at home because they have a little sore throat or headache,” Jakobsen said. 

As a result, employer organisations in Norway are lobbying the government for the power to demand employees test themselves for Covid-19. 

The Enterprise Federation of Norway (Virke) has backed up the NHO’s position that businesses should be able to demand employees to get tested for the virus. 

“The authorities must give clearer signals that employers can demand that employees take a corona test. The general advice to stay at home when you feel sick is challenging, and now we risk a situation where employees who could actually work call in sick,” Stian Sigurdsen, director of Virke, told NRK. 

What does Norway’s government say? 

State Secretary at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs Vegard Einan told NRK that that employees shouldn’t be forced to be tested and they should instead do so on their own volition

“We can not think that the employer should demand that employees test themselves. Throughout the pandemic, we have relied on trust. Trust is glue in society. Therefore, we must have confidence that the employee will test themselves if they have symptoms such as sore throat, fever, headache, impaired general condition or have lost their sense of taste and smell,” Einan explained. 

What does Norwegian law say? 

Simployer which provides human resources assistance and expertise on employment law say that employers are more or less unable demand that workers get tested for Covid unless it poses a risk to life for customers and other members of staff. 

The reason for this is because Covid testing comes under the category of health, with plenty of legal mechanisms in place to protect the privacy of employees. 

“The employer can not demand that the employee be tested for Covid-19. The requirements in section 9-4 of the Working Environment Act are that the test is imposed by law or regulation, that the position involves a special risk or when the employer deems it necessary to protect life or health,” Simployer’s legal HR and management consultant Ragni Myskvoll Singh said in an article for the site. 

Essentially this means that testing can only be demanded in special cases where lives could be put at risk. This is then balanced against the employees right to privacy and any contractual or collective agreements that may be in place. 

Employers can instead ask workers to get tested with it being up to the member of staff to decide for themselves.