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The case is being updated.
An agreement was reached on the agreement between KS and Unio on September 16 this year, but now members of both the Education Association and the Norwegian Nurses Association have rejected the result in their respective referendums.
A unanimous federal board of the Norwegian Nurses Association rejected the results of the negotiations on Monday after 95 percent of the nurses who participated in the vote voted against it.
The central board of the Education Association followed suit after 58.8 percent of the voting members in the KS area voted against it.
This means that there will be mediation and that the risk of strikes will increase. In the healthcare sector, the Norwegian Medical Association also announced a regular doctors’ strike starting next week after a break with KS on Thursday night last week.
– Low participation, clear signals
Turnout in the NSF referendum was just over 40 percent, meaning the result was not binding on the federal board.
– Although the vote was not binding, the advice was unequivocal, says union leader Lill Sverresdatter Larsen of the Norwegian Nurses Association (NSF) in a press release.
Education Association leader and chief negotiator for Unio, Steffen Handal, says he has a strong understanding that members are unhappy with the outcome of the salary deal that he himself agreed to in September.
Bad
– In isolation, it’s bad. I said that when I came out of the negotiations, and I still mean it. A 1.7 percent cap is far from what we had planned when settlement began this winter. But then the corona pandemic came and sent the country into a crisis, he writes in a press release.
In the Education Association, only 33.2 percent of members in the Kansas area voted. Handal says that even though turnout was low, the result gave a very clear signal to the federal leadership.
The other Unio unions in the KS area have accepted the result, so the mediation will take place directly between KS and Utdanningsforbundet, as well as between KS and NSF.
The dates of the mediation have not yet been decided, national mediator Mats W. Ruland tells NTB.
KS wants a conversation
– Now we have a very demanding situation, where 70 percent of the members of the organizations of the three largest associations have said yes to the outcome of the negotiations, while two have said no. Additionally, academics have a recommended mediation proposal that has been rejected by the Norwegian Medical Association due to the municipal medical agreement, says KS director of working life Tor Arne Gangsø in a comment to NTB.
Gangsø says that KS is now considering inviting industry parties to a conversation about the situation that has arisen.
– The result of the negotiation has a limit of 1.70 percent, the same as the issue in front. But with the significant salary increases for, among others, kindergarten nurses and teachers last year, there was hardly any money to distribute this year, Gangsø says.
– Great frustration
Larsen points out that nurses are the occupational group most in short supply in Norway.
– The signal of nurses in a referendum is seen like this not only by themselves, but also by patients and families, it says in a press release.
Handal says he hopes KS will take the referendum result seriously.
– The evolution of teachers’ salaries has been too poor for several years. Our frustration with this is great and justified. During the crown crisis, teachers have been at the forefront and have taken over some of the heaviest ceilings in the workforce for Norway, Handal says.
