The Norwegian Medical Association (Dnlf) held its national conference in October 1999. The issue of the future pay bargaining structure in the public sector was discussed, and it became clear that Akademikerne, the trade union confederation for academically-qualified professionals to which Dnlf is affiliated, will be seeking major changes in the 2000 bargaining round.
The Norwegian Medical Association (Den norske lægeforening, Dnlf) held its national conference on 20-22 October 1999. On the agenda was the election of a new president, the association's strategy to improve the medical profession's reputation among the public and in the media, and various health policy matters. The issue of the future pay bargaining structure in the public sector was also discussed at the conference.
Dnlf is a trade union for Norwegian medical doctors, and its role includes conducting pay negotiations for its members in the public sector, and also representing private sector members in negotiations over public subsidies to private practices. The association is also an influential actor in the development of the health service in general. Dnlf was the driving force behind the establishment of the new confederation for professional associations, Akademikerne, in 1997 (NO9711133F). The associations affiliated to Akademikerne have a total of 110,000 members, of whom 41,000 are employed in the public sector.
At the conference, the leader of Dnlf, Hans Petter Aarseth, was re-elected, after a relatively intense campaign between the two candidates for the post as president. In his opening speech, Mr Aarseth warned that Dnlf's main priority in the run up to the 2000 pay settlement is the intensification of efforts to change the public sector wage system, in order to allow for more market-based wages in public sector jobs. In a newspaper interview, Mr Aarseth stated that 2000 will see a settlement the like of which has never been seen before in Norway, and he hinted that Dnlf will use non-traditional means to reach its ends, details of which remain undisclosed (Dagens Næringsliv, 21 October 1999).
There is a long-standing general dissatisfaction over their wage levels among academically-qualified staff in the public sector. Akademikerne would like to see a clearer wage policy which supports high-income groups with a higher education, greater emphasis on local bargaining, and more individually-determined and market-based wages. The basic objective is a less centralised system of pay bargaining, with more funds transferred to local negotiations. Akademikerne is planning to stress this point in the 2000 bargaining round, and also the creation of a separate collective agreement for its members in the public sector. In Norway, there is only one main collective agreement on pay and conditions in the state sector and one in the local government sector. These agreements are all-encompassing, and a revision covering the majority of bargaining parties has often been forced upon minorities on the employee side. The creation of separate agreements for each bargaining party would therefore be a serious threat to the unity of the bargaining systems in the public sector.