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3 April, 2006
A last-minute compromise in Norway late in the evening on 31 March averted a strike by 38,000 industry workers. A government-appointed mediator reconciled pay and other issues between ICEM affiliate Fellesforbundet and Norsk Industri, representing some 1,000 industrial firms.
The union was seeking adequate salary increases for 2006, preservation of an early retirement programme, called avtalefesten pensjon (AFP), and a halt to the practice of paying foreign workers lower pay rates. Government mediation, however, failed to stop a construction strike that began yesterday, 2 April, between 19,000 trade unionists of Fellesforbundet and the National Association for the Building Industry.