Norway has what’s widely viewed as the best sick-pay provisions in the world, along with the highest absentee rate from school and work. Questions have flown over whether Norwegians are really so much sicker than workers in other countries, but employers have so far failed in their efforts to restrict generous sick-leave benefits.
National employers organization NHO landed in a stand-off against Norway’s largest trade union federation LO, and now seems to have lost. State officials were involved in NHO’s and LO’s lengthy discussions to reform and renew a new agreement regarding inclusive worklife, the so-called IA avtale that’s been under renegotiation for months. The Labour-Center government ultimately allowed LO to demand full preservation of current sick pay provisions for the next four years.
NHO had support from other employer organizations Virke, Spekter and KS (the latter of which represents municipal governments) for sick leave amendments, and even from a few labour organizations (Unio, YS and Akademikerne, representing teachers) that see a need to reduce absenteeism. It hit 7.2 percent during the third quarter of last year, according to state welfare agency NAV.
NHO lacked majority support in Parliament, though, to trim benefits on the theory that would trim absenteeism. Only the right-wing Progress Party and the Liberal Party proposed changes in sick pay benefits, while Conservatives leader Erna Solberg promised that her party would not cut benefits even though some of her party’s chapters wanted to.
LO broke off negotiations in December, because it wouldn’t accept anything other than full preservation of sick pay. While admitting that “there’s no doubt” absenteeism is too high, “we don’t believe that punishing people economically because they’re sick will solve the problem … if people stay home even though they could go to work, we need to work with other means of encouraging them to go to work.”
When LO walked out, Norway’s longtime system of three-way negotiations and cooperation among NHO, LO and the state fell apart. Things got worse when Labour Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre blamed NHO for the breakdown, even though it was LO and its leader, Peggy Hessen Følsvik, who broke off talks. LO also demonstratively refused to attend NHO’s annual conference on employment issues and the economy this week, opting instead to demonstrate outside the conference and hold its own meeting at the same time.
Now Støre’s Labour Minister Tonje Brenna has called both LO and NHO back to the bargaining table later this month, where sick pay benefits are likely to be upheld. Brenna and Støre insist they see the need to cut sick leave, but now they’ll try other measures that critics claim may amount to shaming those who call in sick. Employers and taxpayers, meanwhile, will need to keep covering the high costs of sick leave, which has kept rising for years despite various other attempts to bring it down.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund