Intense mediation managed to avert a strike among state employees on Thursday after 17 hours of negotiations. Four major trade union federations agreed to accept raises of between 2.7 and 2.8 percent.
Weary state mediator Mats Ruland managed to strike a deal between state employers and the trade union federations Akademikerne, LO Stat, Unio and YS. The settlement is in line with terms accepted by major industrial groups in the private sector earlier this spring.
Nikolai Astrup, the government minister in charge of local governments, said he was glad a state workers’ strike was avoided. “This is important after an extremely demanding year,” Astrup stated in a press release Thursday evening.
More than 8,000 members of Unio, however, are on strike after demands for pay raises of more than 2.8 percent were rejected by municipal employers. The strike has called teachers, day care center workers and health care personnel off the job from Agder in the south to Alta in the north.
newsinenglish.no staff
