Wage settlement in the City of Oslo
NITO and Akademikerne
NITO is not a member of Akademikerne, but collaborates on wage negotiations in the state and municipalities. This means that we are part of their negotiating delegations, and our members are covered by Akademikerne's collective agreements with the state, KS (the local government sector) and the City of Oslo (which is a separate collective bargaining area). The same applies to the corporate agreement with Samfunnsbedriftene.
NITO and Akademikerne have worked for many years to ensure that members of the City of Oslo are also allowed to negotiate their salaries locally in their own business or agency.
"We are disappointed that no pot has been set aside for local negotiations this year. Overall, however, this is a good result for our members," says Gro Gaarder (pictured), head of NITO Municipality.
More people switched to local wage formation
Although the demand for a separate allocation to the local pot was not met this time around, this year's settlement marks an important step on the road to local wage formation (in Oslo municipality called LOK). The work of moving groups over to local wage formation is a long-term process, but this year's negotiations have yielded concrete and important results: The number of employees with local wage formation in the City of Oslo in practice doubled. This is primarily due to the fact that all employees in the city council departments and the city council's secretariats are now covered by this scheme.
This shows a willingness on the part of the municipality to recognise the need for more flexible and business-oriented wage negotiations for academic and technical professions. NITO and Akademikerne will continue the targeted work on this transfer in the coming settlements.
Strengthened co-determination in the education agency
Another important breakthrough in the mediation concerns the demand for increased co-determination and the right to negotiate in the education agency, which has long been the subject of discussion. The formal right to negotiate and co-determination in the education agency will henceforth be given to associations that represent either 10 per cent of the employees or have at least 200 members in the agency.
For NITO's part, this will not have practical significance in the first instance, since we have fewer members here. However, for the partners in Akademikerne, and especially the Lektorlaget, this means a significant strengthening of their position and representation in the education sector in the City of Oslo.
"We take a positive view of all changes that go in the right direction in the City of Oslo, whether it is increased co-determination or more local wage formation," says Gaarder.
A more user-friendly system of agreements
The parties have also agreed on a new and simpler structure for the agreement. This is a work that has been going on continuously ever since the last main wage settlement.
The purpose of the restructuring is first and foremost to make the agreement system more user-friendly, transparent and accessible, for both union representatives and managers in the municipality.
It is emphasised that the changes are generally not intended to entail material or substantive changes in the employees' rights, unless the parties have specifically agreed and specified this during the process. This modernisation of the agreement system will simplify the daily cooperation and make it easier to navigate the common rules for working life in the City of Oslo.