Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations is split

The Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations (AF) is at present a divided organisation, and several of its affiliated trade unions have established a new confederation for "academics". All together, seven of AF's affiliates, which comprise 28% of AF's membership, have decided to disassociate from AF. This raises the questions of what role the new confederation is to play in public sector bargaining, and how the AF membership of the unions concerned is to be ended.

On Friday 17 October 1997, it became public knowledge that four of the trade unions affiliated to the Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations (Akademikernes Fellesorganiasjon, AF) were in the process of establishing a new confederation for academically qualified workers, together with the Norwegian Medical Association (Den norske lægeforening), previously affiliated to AF (NO9710131N). The four organisations concerned are Norwegian Society of Chartered Engineers (Norske Sivilingeniørers Forening), The Norwegian Federation of Business Economists (Norske Siviløkonomers Forening), The Norwegian Dental Association (Den norske Tannlægeforening) and the Association of Norwegian Lawyers (Norges Juristforbund). Since this date, three additional AF-affiliated unions have expressed a wish to transfer to the new confederation. These are the unions organising architects, veterinarians and psychologists.

The new organisation

The new organisation is to be called Akademikerne (literally The Academics). The five organisations which have established Akademikerne have approximately 78,000 members altogether, 60,000 of whom are presently employed. Two-thirds of these are employed in the private sector or are self-employed. Einar Madsen of the Norwegian Society of Chartered Engineers has been elected as president of the new confederation.

The new organisation will to a larger extent represent academically qualified people. According to its statutes, Akademikerne will be a confederation for trade unions which organise professionals with an academic education - ie employees with at least a university degree (at masters level, which in Norway usually means five years or more of higher education) or equivalent. Furthermore, Akademikerne will strive for "differentiated and market-based wage determination, as far as possible through local bargaining at the firm level". In those cases where wage negotiations have to take place collectively, Akademikerne will seek to ensure that the wages are differentiated on the basis of the firms' needs to recruit and retain academically-qualified staff. Elements such as education, qualifications, effort and responsibilities should count.

The organisational structure of the new organisation has many features similar to that of AF. A reading of the statutes suggests that the activities of the new confederation's secretariat and joint decision-making bodies, will be limited to a minimum. According to the statutes, the affiliated trade unions will "as far as possible have to attend to their members' interests through union and decentralised activities". However, Akademikerne wishes to use conferences and seminars in order to build up a feeling of common cause, and to gain understanding for the confederation's work.

Problems with the establishment of a new confederation

Three practical problems are evident with regard to the establishment of the new confederation:

• the AF membership of the unions involved does not cease until the end of 1998;

• it is unclear what bargaining rights the new organisation will have within the public sector; and

• there is disagreement with AF regarding the lawfulness of the name Akademikerne

The membership question

The four AF-affiliated trade unions which were party to the establishment of the new confederation may not formally disassociate from AF earlier than 1 January 1999. This means that AF has a right both to collect membership fees and to bargain on behalf of these trade unions, until the disassociation has been made effective. So far, the leadership of AF has not signalled that it is willing to relieve the organisations of their membership before the formal expiry date. The members of the new organisation have also chosen to retain their seats in the decision-making bodies of AF, and at AF's general council meeting on 13 November 1997 several representatives from the "breakaway" unions were elected onto AF's board. The seven unions which wish to leave AF have put forward a proposal for an agreement between themselves and AF. They have proposed that the question of for how long they should pay membership fees to AF in 1998, should be a matter for negotiations between AF and the trade unions which want to leave it. The seven unions also want to negotiate over how joint funds should be divided, and have asked for an extraordinary general council meeting in order to discuss these matters.

The right to negotiate

Another question which has been discussed is what bargaining rights the new organisation will attain. In order to attain the right to bargain in the state sector, the organisation must have at least 10,000 members within this sector. While the unions within Akademikerne state that they have well over 10,000 members within the state sector, the Ministry of National Planning and Coordination, which administers the state's employer responsibilities, has requested that the membership figures be formally confirmed. Also within the municipal sector, the question of negotiating rights is unsettled. Within this sector there is a voluntary agreement stipulating that negotiations are to be conducted by three bargaining cartels. So far it is uncertain whether the employer side is willing to widen this right to encompass four bargaining cartels, so as to include Akademikerne. This question must also receive the approval of the three bargaining cartels which are party to the agreement today, including AF.

The question of the name

A third issue which is a basis of conflict, it the question of the new organisation's name. AF believes that the name of the new organisation, "Akademikerne" is too similar to AF's own name "Akademikernes Fellesorganisasjon", and has taken out a lawsuit against Akademikerne.

Commentary

Even though the establishment of the new organisation came as a surprise to most people, including the head of AF, the knowledge that there were internal conflicts within AF was not novel. The disassociation of The Norwegian Medical Association from AF, effective from 1 January 1997 (NO9709121F), is one illustration of this. Internally within AF there has been disagreement about the bargaining demands within the public sector, while at the same time there has been dissatisfaction with the past years' bargaining results.

One explanation for why its affiliated trade unions' bargaining demands and priorities have been so diverse is that AF has had a broader recruitment policy than the comparative organisations in Denmark and Sweden. For example, AF has among its affiliates trade unions which have members with three years of higher education. The new organisation comprises largely of trade unions which organise members with five years or more of higher education, and a significant proportion of its members are employed in the private sector. In these organisations, members from the public sector are thereby able to compare the wage development in the public and private sector, and the organisations believe that they will benefit from a more market-based wage.

The establishment of the new organisation may have an impact on the bargaining system in the public sector, and may also entail new cooperative constellations amongst the confederations. Only 40% of Akademikerne's members are public sector employees, and hence Akademikerne will be the smallest confederation within both the state and municipal sectors. However, its members often hold strategic important positions and, combined with comparatively significant higher wages in the private sector, this may entail that this group of employees has greater bargaining powers than its membership numbers would indicate. Nevertheless, it is correct to assume that the other confederations will not be supportive of the profile which Akademikerne is promoting. The centralised bargaining system in Norway makes it difficult for one confederation to break away from the bargaining level and the bargaining "profile" which the other confederations have agreed on. The establishment of Akademikerne may have made it easier for AF to cooperate with The Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, LO) and the Confederation of Vocational Unions (Yrkesorganisasjonenes Sentralforbund, YS) regarding the profile of wage settlements. However, such a development may again entail even more breakaways from AF. (Kristine Nergaard, FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science)