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6 October, 2008
Norway’s general workers’ union Fellesforbundet, conducted a World Day for Decent Work seminar on 30 September in the union’s offices in Oslo. The event brought together representatives from many of the union’s sectors, international officers of the national centre, LO, and Labour Party officials of the federal government, including Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion Dag Terje Andersen.
The union intentionally convened the forum to occur just days before the government will take up the draft State Budget for 2009. That will start tomorrow, 7 October.
One of the main proposals put forward by the ICEM affiliate on the budget is over social dumping regulations concerning the use of workers on temporary contracts. Currently, a person on a temporary contract must bear the burden of proof that an employer is circumventing existing legal procedures on the use of temporary contracts.
“Our demand is that fixed termed contracts must be the norm and that if an employer uses temporary contracts, it is their obligation to prove that it is within the limits of the law,” said Fellesforbundet President Arve Bakke. As well, he added, a demand within this round of social talks is that “the main contractor must be held responsible for wages and conditions for all employees of the subcontracting firms.”
Fellesforbundet also prominently took up the issue of restaurant workers at last week’s Decent Work seminar. The union is demanding that the government impose regulations that the country’s culinary industry must have regional safety representatives, much like those in other Norwegian industries.
Such representatives could better monitor the social abuses so common in this sector. Fellesforbundet says workers oftentimes are enlisted in restaurants on a day-to-day basis.