News - 01.03.2024

Moderate wage increases will not suffice on their own

Statement from VR and LÍV ‘s negotiation committee

VR and LÍV‘s Negotiation Committee has met regularly throughout the week and analyzed the current situation in the collective wage negotiations. As has already been announced, VR and LÍV withdrew themselves from the coalition of trade unions, known as the Union Alliance, which also consisted of SGS, Efling and Samiðn. VR and LÍV have now formed a discussions task force to continue working towards a new collective wage agreement. VR‘s Consultative Council also met this week, to discuss the situation.

It is the opinion of VR and LÍV‘s Negotiatios Committee that there are several issues of crucial importance to VR and LÍV members that must be addressed before a new collective wage agreement is signed. In the initial negotiations between the Union Alliance and SA, there was discussion of a wide-ranging collective agreement which would be centered on reining in inflation and promoting stable interest rates, not unlike the famous the National Truce agreement from the 1990s. Such an agreement would have to rest on four inter-related factors, which together could bring about this change; moderate wage increases; the revival of various support systems for workers, such as interest-rate payments and increased child-support; strong prerequisite clauses which would allow for revisions of the agreement if its main goals would not be achieved; and finally a thorough examination of issues relating to the housing market. In particular, VR and LÍV believed it to be necessary to shore up the defenses of both home owners and renters.

It was in this context that VR and LÍV agreed to moderate wage increases. However, of these four factors, the moderate wage increases are the only element remaining. It would be unacceptable to have workers shoulder all the responsibility for inflation on their own – inflation which they are not even responsible for. Furthermore, if current offers were accepted, there would be a serious danger of the collective wage agreement failing to fulfil its aim as business owners have not consented to taking responsibility for increased prices and have also refused to include strong prerequisite clauses into the contract.

VR and LÍV have also not been able to discuss a variety of special issues. For example, issues relating to worker education and career development, the job experience of young people, and the position of workers in airport services at Keflavík airport, where certain working conditions are unlike anything else in the Icelandic labor market.

VR and LÍV have formally requested that the State Conciliation and Mediation Officer get involved in their negotiations with SA. It is vital that negotiations begin as soon as possible, in order to address the important issues discussed above and achieve a consensus about a collective wage agreement for the next few years.

LÍV’s members, including VR, are about 47 thousand, making it the largest federation of working people in Iceland. The members of the discussion task force are, on behalf of VR, Ragnar Þór Ingólfsson, Bjarni Þór Sigurðsson, Halla Gunnarsdóttir, Ólafur Reimar Gunnarsson, Selma Björk Grétarsdóttir and Þórir Hilmarsson, and, on behalf of LÍV, Eiður Stefánsson.