Government officials determined that a strike by nurses at several private-sector nursing homes around the country posed a “danger to life and health,” and invoked compulsory arbitration between the Norwegian nurses’ union, Norsk Sykepleierforbund, and employers’ representative NHO Service.
Labour Minister Hanne Bjurstrøm said she effectively was ordering the nurses back to work because the strike was spreading to a patient hotel at Haukeland Hospital in Bergen and because of precarious staffing reports from a nursing home at Lambertseter in Oslo.
The union had planned to pull nearly 50 more nurses off the job from February 13 if their pay and benefits conflict wasn’t resolved resolved, but had insisted that their strike didn’t threaten patients’ welfare.
A nurses representative claimed the employers had succeeded in efforts to “maximize a crisis.” The nurses had wanted the same pay and benefits granted other nurses in the public sector.
Views and News staff
