Publications

The majority of Norwegian wage agreements are of two years' duration, and the
current settlements will expire during 1998. However, issues relating to
remuneration will be renegotiated at central level in 1997. Most of the
agreements between LO (the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions or
Landsorganisasjonen i Norge) and NHO (the Confederation of Norwegian Business
and Industry or Næringslivets Hovedorganisasjon) in the private sector
expire on 31 March 1997, and bargaining is expected to commence in mid-March.
Agreements in the public sector expire one month later. The social partners
have not yet specified their demands, but all the central parties have held
initial bargaining conferences. In this feature, we describe the economic
climate in Norway prior to the wage negotiations, examine the provisional
demands the social partners have put forward, and comment on these demands in
the light of the existing social pact between the central labour market
parties in Norway, the so-called "Solidarity Alternative"
(Solidaritetsalternativet).

The immediate catalyst for the current prominence of working time in UK
industrial relations is the failure in November 1996 of the Government's
attempt to have the EU Directive on certain aspects of the organisation of
working time (Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993) annulled by
the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Steps are being taken to implement the
Directive, though the present Conservative Government hopes to get the
Directive "disapplied" if it wins the forthcoming general election. Also
important, however, is the growing debate about the implications for the
well-being of individuals and their families of the fact that UK's hours of
work are long in comparison with other EU member states.

According to a recent analysis by the Institute for Economics and Social
Science (Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut, WSI) basic wages
and salaries in western Germany grew on average by about 2.3% in 1996. Thus,
pay increased by about 0.8 percentage points above the inflation rate, which
stood at 1.5% in 1996. Altogether, about 15.1 million employees were covered
by collective agreements signed in 1996. The highest pay increases, at 2.8%,
were in the energy and water industry and in the iron and steel industry. The
lowest increases were in banking (1.5%), post and telecommunications (1.4%)
and public services (1.3%).

On 19 February, the Government presented a bill to Parliament, proposing
modifications in the legislation concerning the granting of workers' claims
in case of their employer's insolvency. There is no doubt that it will be
passed by Parliament. This will then be the second time the legislation has
been modified in order to comply with EU Council Directive 80/987/EEC on this
subject.

The Dutch Government wants to allow employers temporary exemptions from the
legal minimum wage [1] (WML- wettelijk minimumloon), and to that end, a bill
was submitted to Parliament in 1996. The target group consists of long-term
unemployed people aged between 20 and 65. The purpose of the bill is to give
such people the prospect of qualifying for a full-time job while working. The
definition of "long-term unemployed" is taken from an existing statutory
regulation.

[1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/efemiredictionary/minimum-wage-4

On Sunday 2 February 1997, a so-called "multicoloured march for jobs" drew
about 50,000 people from all over Belgium to the streets of Clabecq, a small
industrial town on the borders of the provinces of Brabant and Hainaut.

The end of 1996 and the first two months of 1997 were marked by a wave of
strikes that began last November and December, upsetting the relative
industrial calm that had existed over recent years. The strikes peaked during
January but continued throughout February, for at least certain groups of
employees, though by then they had begun to peter out. The strikes represent
basically a head-on clash with the Government's policy of austerity, and
focus primarily on discontent with the tax system and a recently-passed tax
law. This clash also acquired a political character, since the demands of
workers across various sectors converged and merged within the wider context
of discontent.

The primary objectives of Partnership 2000 (P2000) are: " the continued
development of an efficient modern economy capable of high and sustainable
economic and employment growth and operating within the constraints of
international competitiveness, ensuring that Irish society becomes more
inclusive, that long-term unemployment is substantially reduced, and that the
benefits of growth are more equally distributed. The strategy provides a
framework within which specific issues or programmes will be developed, in
the normal way."

The new decree, issued on 14 January, brings Italian pensions legislation
more into line with the rest of the EU. Presenting the decision to the press,
the Minister of Labour, Tiziano Treu said that "1997 will be the year in
which a real supplementary social security system will begin to be set up in
Italy.".

Three independent pay review bodies were created more than 25 years ago in
what has been described as an attempt "to remove a range of highly sensitive
settlements from the political arena" (P Bassett, /The Times,/ 7 February
1997). They recommended pay increases for doctors and dentists, the most
senior grades in the armed forces, the civil service and the judiciary, and
for the rest of the armed forces. The pay review system assumed greater
importance when it was extended to cover nearly 500,000 nurses, midwives and
other health service professionals in 1983 and a similar number of
schoolteachers in England and Wales in 1992. In both cases, the creation of
pay review bodies followed lengthy disputes and a history of repeated failure
of the negotiating machinery to produce agreement on pay settlements without
frequent arbitration or periodic special enquiries.