Latest attempt to create new trade union confederation

In September 2000, following the failure of a proposed merger between the AF and YS confederations, four public sector trade unions announced plans to create a new Norwegian union confederation. The proposed confederation would be the largest trade union organisation in the state sector.

Another attempt may be made to create a new trade union confederation in Norway in the near future, according to plans presented by four public sector unions in September 2000. The four organisations are the Norwegian Police Federation (Politiets Fellesforbund, PF), the Norwegian Union of Teachers (Norsk Lærerlag, NL), the Teachers' Union Norway (Lærerforbundet) and the Norwegian Nurses' Association (Norsk Sykepleierforbund, NSF). The news followed only a few weeks after the Confederation of Norwegian Professional Associations (Akademikernes Fellesorganisasjon, AF) decided to end its involvement in a planned merger with the Norwegian Confederation of Vocational Unions (Yrkesorganisasjonenes Sentralforbund, YS) (NO0006195N), and to dissolve itself in 2001 (NO0007199F).

The four public sector unions

NL is the largest trade union for teachers and educational personnel in Norway, and organises employees at the pre-school, primary and lower-secondary levels. It has 85,000 members, and is the third-largest individual union in Norway. It is an independent union with no affiliation to a confederation, and as such negotiates independently with central government in public sector wage bargaining. NL has for some time been considering a merger with Lærerforbundet, which is the second-largest organisation for teachers and educational personnel, with 37,000 members (NO9904127N). This process will go ahead regardless of the outcome of the latest initiative to create a new union confederation. Lærerforbundet is affiliated to AF, but was throughout the process reluctant to see a merger of AF and YS.

NSF represents state registered nurses and is also a member union of AF. The organisation had around 57,000 members in November 1999, the main bulk of whom work in the municipal sector. The last of the four organisations considering the new confederation is PF, which is the result of a 1997 merger between two organisations representing law-enforcement personnel (NO9711136N). It is an independent union with about 10,000 members.

The proposed new union confederation

The proposed new union confederation has not yet been given a name, and many issues remain to be settled - such as the content of its political platform and its organisational structure. These issues will not be settled until the members of all four organisations have given their consent to the establishment of a new confederation at conferences to be held in autumn 2000. If established, the new confederation would organise approximately 200,000 members, mostly employed in the public sector, and as such it would be Norway's third-largest union confederation. The four unions involved are all important central actors in the public sector, and combined they will make up the largest employee organisation in the state sector. A large majority of their members are teachers in the primary and upper-secondary school system who are employed in the municipal sector, but whose pay and working conditions are laid down in the state sector collective agreement. In the municipal sector. the organisation would mainly represent nurses and pre-school teachers.

The leaders of the four organisations have stated in the media that they do not envisage a centralised organisation with a large administrative secretariat, like the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen I Norge, LO), but rather a collection of organisations that enjoy significant independence, very much like in the old AF. However, it is also emphasised that a new confederation is not to be a new AF, but rather, according to the leader of NL, Helga Hjetland, a confederation of strong professional organisations. In recent years, AF has been marked by significant internal tension (NO9711133F, NO9807174F and NO9901111N). According to press releases, the proposed new confederation's main focus of activity would be limited to wage and incomes policy and international activity. The stated aim is to establish an organisation that will help its affiliates to be a significant force in wage formation, especially in the state sector. The intention is to have the new confederation in place by the time of the 2002 wage settlement, but before that the members of each organisation will decide the fate of the proposed confederation in national conferences to be held during the autumn of 2000.

Commentary

The planned creation of a new union confederation was a well-kept secret over the summer months of 2000, and it seems that for a while the talks ran parallel with the merger process of AF and YS. The proposed merger of AF, YS and PF (NO0002179F) failed when AF withdrew from talks in June 2000 on the grounds that there was no sufficient basis for a new confederation. Among the more problematic issues was that of the balance of power between the main confederation, its bargaining cartels and the individual member unions. In June, AF decided to dissolve its organisation in 2001.

The discontent felt within AF was a legacy which went back several years, and which culminated in a series of breakaways in the late 1990s (NO9711133F, NO9807174F and NO9901111N). Since then Lærerforbundet and the NSF have constituted the main bulk of AF's membership base, at almost 80%. Thus, when the two largest member unions no longer wanted to retain AF as a confederation, there was no other alternative than to dissolve it. That the two have now opted for a second attempt to create a new confederation may be explained by the fact that the proposed confederation is to be a "minimal organisation", which will allow the organisations access to central wage negotiations in the state and municipal sectors without conceding too much of their independence. The smaller unions are excluded from the preliminary stages of these broader negotiations. As such, one must presume that the new confederation will have only limited responsibilities and duties, and that the member unions themselves will bear the main administrative burden. Furthermore, joining AF was never an alternative for NL and PF, because of its troubled past, and the most viable option for them was thus the creation of a new confederation.

The four organisations involved have important features in common, because they are all large unions with a main focus in the public sector, and with a relatively similar base in terms of the educational level of their members. The tensions and fragmentation witnessed within AF was very much grounded in divisions along educational lines, as well as differing views on the degree of centralisation in wage formation. The new organisation will beyond doubt have a much more concentrated political and organisational focus, as well as limited ambitions with regards to coordination and centralisation.

The creation of a new confederation may also have significant impact on relations among Norway's union organisations. A central question will be the extent to which the new confederation will enter into permanent cooperative ventures with other confederations, or whether it will cooperate on a more case-by-case basis. LO and AF have had a general cooperation agreement in place for some time, as have LO and NL, involving a certain degree of coordination during wage settlements. Cooperation has been more successful in the state sector than in the municipal sector, because NL has on successive occasions received support from LO in retaining the arrangement by which its members are municipal employees but with their wage and working conditions determined by the state sector agreement. Municipal employers has been greatly opposed to this arrangement. So far, LO has not commented on the potential consequences of the creation of a new confederation, but its cooperative venture with the NL is unlikely to be improved by such a move.

The deputy leader of LO, Gerd-Liv Valla has welcomed the new organisation, but believes that it will eventually merge with LO (according to an interview with the NTB broadcasting company on 4 September). LO has been trying to attract employees with higher education for some time now (NO9901110F), and Ms Valla has on several occasions called for closer cooperation among trade union confederations (NO9907140F). (Haavard Lismoen, FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science)