The Royal Ministry o Foreign Affairs,
Oslo Press Division

Norway Daily No. 86/00

Date: 5 May 2000

STRIKE TO ESCALATE ON TUESDAY (Dagsavisen)

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) moved yesterday to take an additional 10,000 workers off the job as of next Tuesday. This escalation is much more moderate than expected, and indicates that the LO is aiming for a long strike which will be costly for the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO). We have no desire to make trouble for the public or for the Government, says LO president Yngve Hågensen.

HÅGENSEN’S DILEMMA (Vårt Land)

LO boss Yngve Hågensen is in a quandary: how can he meet the insistent demands of union members without abandoning the moderation line he has advocated throughout the 1990s? The strategy of blaming the rejection of the negotiated labour settlement on greedy corporate executives has so far been 100 per cent successful.

STOLTENBERG ANGERS NHO (Dagsavisen)

According to the TV2 newsroom, the Government aims to transfer an additional share of sick pay costs over to employers. A measure reported to be included in the Revised National Budget will expand employer sick pay liability from 16 to 21 days, costing companies around NOK 1 billion annually. The NHO is furious. This affects the entire commercial sector, but small and medium-size businesses will often be hardest hit, says NHO deputy director general Kristin Clemet.

NEW MASSIVE WALKOUT THREATENS ON 25 MAY (Dagsavisen)

Employers and unions in the public sector were far from each other yesterday when the LO and the Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations (AF) broke off negotiations with the employer organizations. Negotiations on behalf of 650,000 government and municipal workers could lead to a new wave of strikes, and to avert this, both sides will have to show much greater willingness to accommodate each other. The major public sector employee organizations are prepared to maintain normal progress as negotiations move into a mediation phase. If they keep to the timetable, a settlement should be reached around 25 May. If negotiations fail, the country will face another nationwide strike.

LABOUR LOSING STRUGGLE AGAINST PRIVATE SCHOOLS (Vårt Land)

Minister of Education, Research and Church Affairs Trond Giske is prepared to apply stricter standards when deciding on applications for government funding, and the Centre Party agrees. In his educational policy statement yesterday, Mr. Giske expressed concern about the spreading of private schools. Says Inge Lønning (Conservative), As long as a parliamentary majority is not interested in changing the Private School Act, Labour is doomed to defeat in its resistance to private schools.

WOLVES RESTRICTED TO DELIMITED REGIONS (Nationen)

The Government decided yesterday to limit the area in which wolves will be allowed to establish mating pairs and family groups. Things will get tougher for wolves wherever large numbers of sheep graze. The Government has also submitted a Wildlife Act amendment to the Storting. If adopted, the amendment will provide a legal basis for killing predators to prevent them from becoming established in areas where they are not wanted.

SUICIDE AMONG YOUTH ON THE RISE (NTB)

In Norway, relative to its population, more children and teenagers commit suicide by shooting themselves than in any other country in Europe. Over 40 children and teenagers commit suicide every year, and over half of them shoot themselves. Child psychiatrist Berit Grøholt says firearms are found in one out of every three homes in Norway, and she calls on parents to keep them more securely locked away.

WORTH NOTING

• LO boss Yngve Hågensen hesitates to halt air traffic, petrol supplies or custodial services in schools for fear of prompting compulsory mediation. (Dagsavisen)
• Production at Raufoss has to be up and running again by Monday morning. Otherwise, BMW alone will have to dismiss between 60,000 and 70,000 employees, says BMW vice president Klaus Wenzel. (NTB)
• Union leader Arnfinn Nilsen would rather risk a defamation suit than retract his statement that the NHO engages in strikebreaking activity at its own headquarters. (Dagsavisen)
• 150 employees of Premair, a charter airline, walked off the job today. 3,000 passengers will be affected by the strike this weekend. (Aftenposten/Nett)
• Some hotel owners have a hard time accepting the strike. Pickets in front of Oslo’s Hotel Bristol succeeded in turning back non-union workers. (Klassekampen)
• Printers’ union leader Finn Erik Thoresen says Aftenposten has been publishing news on the Internet in violation of an agreement with journalists preceding the current strike. (NTB)

TODAY’S COMMENT from Vårt Land

National uniform schooling has been Labour Party policy for over fifty years. There is reason to take note, therefore, when Labour’s Minister of Education, Research and Church Affairs, Trond Giske, proposes to modify this policy, launching a new concept which may be translated as a unified school. Mr. Giske’s intention is to proclaim that the uniform school should not be a standardized school with no room for variation. He’s got a point: the value of Norway’s public schools is that they bring together children from different backgrounds and give them a common basis of experience. Variety is not just a matter of putting children from different backgrounds into the same school. It is also a matter of creating room for alternatives to the dominant school system. In our view, this is an important democratic right as well as an essential element which will help maintain the vitality of Norway’s educational system. But there is a battle of words going on here. By calling them private schools, alternative schools are encumbered with the images of the social stratification of bygone times. It would be more fitting to call them free schools. The free schools already running are no threat to the Norwegian educational system. We need both – unified schools as well as free schools. The result would be best with the government backing the public schools, but not by suppressing the alternatives. That would be standardization, regardless of whatever word is used to camouflage the fact.