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A new centre-right government took office in Norway on 19 October 2001. Trade unions are worried that the new government will take a much more liberalising attitude on issues such as privatisation and public ownership, and are especially concerned about recent signals concerning increases in the use of competitive tendering in the state sector.
A new centre-right government took office on 19 October 2001. It is a coalition of the Conservative Party (Høyre), the Christian Democratic Party (Kristelig Folkeparti, KRF) and the Liberal Party (Venstre), and succeeds the previous Labour Party (Det norske Arbeiderparti, DnA) government, which in September experienced its most disastrous parliamentary election result since 1927.
Although the coalition is very much dominated by the Conservative Party, the post of Prime Minister was nevertheless given to the leader of KRF, Kjell Magne Bondevik, who was also Prime Minister in the previous centre coalition government of the late 1990s. Both the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration are headed by representatives of the Conservative Party. Trade unions are worried that the new government will take a much more liberalising attitude on issues such as privatisation and public ownership, and are especially concerned about recent signals concerning increases in the use of competitive tendering in the state sector.
In its joint political platform, the new coalition government has pledged to carry on the reforms being carried out in the public sector in Norway (NO0109101F), and to maintain their main principles and objectives. However, greater efforts will be made to enhance competition in the public sector to achieve the objectives stipulated in the reform programme, through measures such as an increased use of competitive tendering and giving services provided by private enterprises the same standing as services provided by public enterprises. The importance of developing a leaner and a more efficient bureaucracy is also emphasised in the platform, in order to free resources to be used elsewhere in the public sector – such as public services provision - but also in other parts of the private sector labour market.
The transfer of ownership of public hospitals to the state has also become part of the public sector reform programme (NO0108139F), and in this area a slight liberalisation of policy by the new government is also discernible. It emphasises that private healthcare institutions also must be taken into account in this process. Private hospitals are said to be an important supplement to the public institutions, and to provide an important 'corrective instrument' for the public institutions with regard to organisation and efficiency.
Like the previous Labour government, the new coalition's labour market policy will be to combat premature exits from the labour market, increase access to labour, and facilitate increased mobility in the labour market. As such, many of the objectives outlined in the former government's 2002 state budget proposal will most probably be maintained, such as efforts to: facilitate increased use of combinations of work and pensions; introduce stricter requirements with regards to access to rehabilitation pensions; and increase the number of jobs available for people with disabilities.
The new government has also pledged, like its predecessor, to ease the regulations concerning labour immigration in order to allow for increased immigration by people from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), and to increase the efficiency of procedures for the approval of work permits (NO0012113N). There are indications to suggest that the new government will go further in this regard than the Labour government did, in that it will allow the 'import' of unskilled labour, in order to cover future needs for more labour. Until now, the emphasis has been on qualified labour.
Furthermore, the new government has no intentions of changing the present sick pay scheme, despite its concern about the increasing costs to the national pension scheme (NO0109140N). However, it will closely monitor the progress made by the social partners in their efforts to reduce the sickness absence rate, in the light of the new agreement on the issue entered into by the partners and the former government in October 2001 (NO0110107F). If the objectives stated in this agreement are not met, the government will seriously consider a tightening of the present legal framework.
Another objective stated by the new government is to alter the Act relating to shop opening hours, which has been subject to significant controversy (NO9906138N) since it was first introduced by the Labour government in 1997 (NO9707116F). More specifically, the government wants to transfer the provisions regulating opening hours on Sundays and public holidays to the Act relating to Sundays and public holidays. The implication of this will be extended opening hours on weekdays, while maintaining stricter regulations on Sundays and public holidays. The coalition has also expressed a wish to soften the provisions concerning voluntary overtime and temporary employment in the Act relating to Worker Protection and Working Environment (AML). A public committee was established earlier in 2001 by the Labour government to deliberate changes to, and further development of, the AML, and will, among other matters, consider the issue of working time.
The coalition has pledged to strengthen and improve the situation of voluntary organisations, but remains relatively silent on the issue of trade unions. In its 2002 state budget proposal, the previous Labour government proposed increasing the tax deduction level for trade union subscriptions (as well as for membership subscriptions to business/industry associations). It remains to see what the new government's position will be on this matter.
The leader of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, LO), Gerd-Liv Valla, has expressed some worries about what she regards as a shift to the right with the recent change in government, and is especially concerned with the proposed downscaling of public ownership and the signals indicating an increase in privatisation and the increased use of competitive tendering in the public sector. The policy is seen as a threat to collective welfare arrangements, and there are fears that, coupled with the proposed alterations to the shop opening hours Act, it will contribute to increased insecurity and worries among employees. LO was in favour of the budget proposal put forward by the Labour government in September 2001 which, it believed, emphasised 'welfare for all', and was especially satisfied with the proposed tax deduction on trade union dues. LO has warned the new government about tampering with the proposed increases in tax reductions on union dues. Another important demand put forward by LO is that of maintaining the cooperative venture on incomes policy, the 'solidarity alternative', which has been an important feature of Norwegian industrial relations for over a decade (NO0012117F).
The employers' side is on the whole satisfied with the new government's joint programme. The issue of labour immigration has for a long time been a key policy matter for the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (Næringslivet Hovedorganisasjon, NHO). The Labour Market Administration (A-etat) has also on several occasions called for an influx of labour from countries outside the EEA. LO has been relatively sceptical on this matter, but has recently also altered its position in favour of a softening of the legal framework. The Federation of Norwegian Commercial and Service Enterprises (Handels- og Servicenæringens Hovedorganisasjon, HSH) welcomes the initiative to allow increased labour immigration as well as changes in the regulations on opening hours, and hopes to see an equal treatment of retail outlets affected by the new regulations. HSH had for a long time been critical of the present opening hours rules, which in its opinion in many cases lead to a distortion of competition, in that some types of outlets may be larger and contain more goods than others (NO9804160N).
The joint political programme of the new coalition government is relatively ambitious, involving measures such as significant tax reductions and defence expenditure, as well as proposed revitalisation of the agricultural sector. However, the 2002 budget proposal put forward by the previous Labour government has left little room for costly schemes of this kind, and a substantial amount of extra cash needs to be found before the coalition can afford to implement its key policies in 2002 and beyond. In this situation, it may be tempting to spend more of Norway's oil revenues. In spring 2001, the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget) adopted a new policy to enable the use of an increasing share of Norway's oil wealth for welfare schemes, but the policy also involves a definite limit as to how much money can be withdrawn from the Government Petroleum Fund. That money has already been spent in the Labour government's state budget proposal for 2002.
One way of financing the new government's policies may come from selling off government ownership shares in private sector industries. The new Minister of Finance, Per Kristian Foss, has already signalled a willingness on behalf of the government to reduce the state's ownership shares in private sector enterprises - although no names have been revealed, the most likely options are companies such as Statoil (NO0105131N), Norsk Hydro and Telenor. The viability of this proposal remains to be tested within the coalition itself, but also within parliament, and it is unclear just how far-reaching these measures may be.
The election in September has brought the relatively tight relationship between the Labour Party and LO onto the agenda of both organisations. There are voices within the Labour Party that wants to see an end to the close relationship with LO, because it is regarded as a contributing factor to September's disastrous election result. Within the trade union movement, there is a recognition of the need to place the issue on the agenda in order to have a 'healthy debate internally' on the matter. In a newspaper interview, however, the leader of LO argued that it is not a matter of the Labour Party cutting its ties with LO, but rather 'that the Labour Party should listen more to LO.' Ms Valla also called for a better dialogue with the the Socialist Left Party (Sosialistisk Venstreparti, SV) (NO0105132F).
As the relationships within the labour movement may be changing, so are the alliances in Norwegian politics. The Centre Party (Senterpartiet, SP), which was part of the previous centre coalition government (NO9710129N) but was left out of the new centre-right coalition, has signalled a willingness to enter into a closer cooperative relationship with the Labour Party and SV, a cooperative venture which will be a defining moment in Norwegian politics. SP has taken part in every non-socialist coalition since the Second World War apart from the new centre-right government. The previous Labour Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, has also argued that a viable alternative to the present centre-right coalition government may be an alliance between the Labour Party, SP and SV, by means of a formal agreement or indeed in the form of a coalition government.
Finally, with the change in government the right-wing Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, FRP) has gained a much more influential role, because the new government relies heavily on its support in parliament in a number of important policy areas. However, in a number of other areas the policies of the FRP and the new government clash, and not least in relation to the issue of immigration. The FRP has traditionally been opposed to immigration of any kind and has questioned the need for a softening of the regulations concerning labour immigration. It is also opposed to the system of centralised wage formation that exists in Norway today, because it believes that pay, working conditions and employment conditions are issues to be settled by employees and employers at the company level. (Håvard Lismoen, )