Late-night negotiating during the weekend averted a strike by airline ground crews at four Norwegian airports. Flights were thus taking off as scheduled on Sunday, and both airlines and passengers were relieved.
“It was tough but we had a good tone throughout it all,” negotiations chief Bente Ørberg of the workers’ union Junit told news bureau NTB on Sunday. “Therefore we reached a settlement.”
Union officials and their counterparts at employers’ organization NHO Luftfart started talks with a national mediator at 10am Saturday. If they hadn’t settled their differences, ground crews at the main airports in Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger and Bodø would have gone out on strike from Sunday morning.
In the end, employees of Widerøe Ground Handling received raises of 2.6 percent, while those with high seniority and experience stand to receive additional compensation as well.
newsinenglish.no staff