Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions celebrates its centenary

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) celebrates its centenary in 1999, having been founded on 1 April 1899, and several major events will mark the event during the year. LO remains an influential organisation, playing an important role in incomes policy and collective bargaining.

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, LO) was founded on 1 April 1899 and has organised several major events during 1999 to celebrate its 100th anniversary. For example, as part of the celebration, a large reception was held on 16 April 1999, which brought together representatives from its affiliated unions, the Norwegian parliament and government, employers, and national as well as international collaborative partners. We take this opportunity to provide a brief description of Norway's most influential trade union confederation and to examine the challenges it currently faces.

Membership and organisation

At present, LO has 28 affiliated trade unions with a total of around 830,000 members, of whom three-quarters are in employment. Since the Second World War, the membership bases of the various LO unions have gradually diminished compared with unions outside LO, but LO remains the dominant employee organisation in large parts of the private sector, and in those areas of the public sector outside education and the health service.

In the past 20-25 years, LO has seen the number of its member unions decline, mainly as a result of mergers. In 1993, LO decided to establish four cartels - LO Stat (state government employees), LO Kommune (municipal government employees), LO Industri (industrial workers) and LO Service (service sector workers) - which look after the unions' interests at this broad sectoral level (eg, facilitating cooperation between unions in areas such as collective bargaining, and drawing up an industrial and bargaining policy which reflects the common interests of the unions concerned).

Responsibilities

Centralised confederations have for a long time been a characteristic feature of trade unionism in the Scandinavian countries. However, in contrast to its neighbouring countries where much power has devolved to the member unions, the Norwegian LO has retained responsibility and influence at central level. LO's elected leadership, along with the individual union leaders, meet weekly in the executive committee, which is an important coordinating and decision-making body. LO still plays an important role in national pay bargaining in the private sector, and the main confederation is a formal partner to all the agreements entered into by its individual unions. Decisions as to whether or not the two-yearly collective agreements between LO unions and the member associations of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon, NHO) are to be renegotiated individually or collectively, are taken by the LO's general Council, and the mid-term negotiations are always carried out at centralised level (NO9904126F). However, in many cases LO is usually reluctant to go against the wishes of its larger member unions, especially on issues that are of importance to these unions. This factor was the reason for LO's decision to pursue industry-level pay negotiations in 1998 (NO9802150F) despite the fact that its leadership, and a majority of its unions, wanted to see a national settlement - ie between the central organisations of LO and NHO.

During the 1980s, many commentators and researchers predicted that the main confederations had played out their role as collective actors. However, cooperation on incomes policy in Norway was given a new boost from 1988 onwards, when unemployment rose substantially and there was a decline in Norwegian competitiveness. Wage restraint laws adopted in 1988 and 1989, which were based on settlements negotiated by LO and NHO, were succeeded by the so-called "solidarity alternative" from 1992-7 (NO9702104F) -a social pact between the labour market parties and the government, stressing moderate wage growth and employment. In the latter period there was a rise in employment, and welfare provisions such as the sick pay scheme, early retirement and maternity leave were retained, and in many instances improved.

Although a decision was made to continue cooperation on incomes policy with the national government at LO's national congress in 1997 (NO9705110F), critical questions were raised as to the extent to which this venture had been weakened by the change in government in autumn 1997, when centre parties took over from the Labour Party (NO9710129N). A year later, however, in autumn 1998, an initiative was taken to revitalise cooperation (NO9812117N). Prior to the 1999 pay negotiations a joint committee, which included all the major social partners, agreed that the increase in pay from 1998 to 1999 was not to exceed 4.5%, and that the reform of continuing vocational training would be included as a central element in the negotiations (NO9903120F).

Commentary

As it celebrates its centenary, most commentators agree that LO is one of the most influential actors in Norwegian working life. Despite the fact that the organisation's membership base has declined vis-à-vis the other employee organisations, it has managed to retain its position as the strongest, and in many areas the only, representative of organised employees in Norway. This may partly be explained by the fact that LO alone is larger than the three other main union confederations, and partly by the fact that its member unions are willing to pool their powers and influence at central level. In addition, LO's counterpart on the employer side, NHO, has chosen to uphold its participation in tripartite bodies, and at the same time managed to strengthen the influence of its central administrative organisation vis-à-vis its member associations. The Norwegian model of pay determination, with a general consensus about allowing competitive industries to lead the way, has also been a contributing factor in making LO and NHO influential actors in the industrial relations system. Furthermore, LO's ability to avoid internal disputes with a disintegrating effect may also be seen as an important factor in this regard. Despite disagreement on certain issues, there have been no major conflicts between unions in the private and public sectors, nor between unions organising employees at different levels in the occupational hierarchy. Many will also argue that the strong position of LO in recent years owes as much to the personal strength and unifying capacity of the present leader, Yngve Hågensen.

Recently, the representation on important committees and boards concerned with incomes policy has been extended to include more organisations. However, despite this trend there is little evidence to suggest that the position of LO and NHO have been weakened, as long as there is an agreement to continue the cooperative venture on incomes policy to the same extent as at present. A decrease in the political support for this venture may weaken LO's role, and the same may happen if LO and NHO do not retain their affiliates' support for the current bargaining model.

An important challenge to LO's member unions in the future will be to retain and strengthen their position and status among employees in the private sector. There are still large groups of non-unionised employees, especially in the private services sector. Changes in educational patterns also seem to suggest that recruitment among groups with higher education will be of future importance to LO unions in both the private and public sectors (NO9901110F).

Changing patterns in the organisation of working life will be an additional challenge to collective agreements, and the main responsibilities of trade union organisations. Norway has yet to witness significant changes in its regulatory framework in the direction of increased flexibility with regard to working time arrangements and conditions of employment. It is very likely, however, that the near future will see increased pressure from the employers' side to ease the framework in such areas.

Pay determination in the public sector may also be a challenge to LO in the years to come. The union confederations which organise public sector groups with higher educational qualifications believe that pay settlements in recent years have concentrated too much on the low paid, and want to see more emphasis given to improving the relative pay of their members. A similar argument is pursued by the employers, especially in the municipal sector. The implication of this may be that the LO unions in the public sector will face difficult times ahead, especially if the short-term goal is low nominal pay increases as part of incomes policy cooperation. (Kristine Nergaard, FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science)