Elsa Fjelde from Stavanger lost her job during the oil crisis in 2016. After two years of unemployment, she returned to the Rosenborg shipyard. The time spent as a job seeker would have major consequences for the pension. To be able to get AFP, one must work in an AFP company for seven of the last nine years before turning 62. For Fjelde, it just didn’t make it. – I came back and worked. Then I applied for AFP when I was 62. Then I got the answer that I was missing 21 days in the seven years. The other 23 years didn’t mean a thing. Photo: Erik Waage / news Else Fjelde, who first told her story to FriFagbevegelse, believes the rules are too square. – If they choose seven years, why should it be the last? If you are dismissed, it is not so easy to get a new job. Wants change LO central has proposed major changes to the AFP scheme. Among other things, they want AFP to be earned throughout the career, not just the last years of working life. – This is an “either or arrangement”. If you are one day short of fulfilling the conditions, you will not receive the pension as it is today. We think that is unfortunate. We want to make this a safer and more permanent arrangement, says LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik. LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik Photo: Marius Guttormsen / news LO is also concerned that the current AFP scheme does not reach everyone who needs it, such as workers in service and trade industries. The employees, who are often young, rarely stay until retirement age. Major disagreement LO faces opposition from its largest confederation, Fellesforbundet, which wants to keep the current arrangement. This week there is a national meeting, and on Wednesday they will vote on proposals for a new AFP. The leader, Jørn Eggum, is trying to gather LO around a solution that ensures AFP for new professional groups. But if everyone is to participate, the scheme could become so expensive that those who have AFP today risk getting less. This causes concern among the members of the Federation. Leader of the Federation, Jørn Eggum Photo: Amanda Iversen Orlich / news – There is no doubt that we have a preponderance of industrial workers in our union and for them the scheme works very well. A compromise for us is that we must look after all the occupational groups that we have. – In the national assembly hall sit industrial workers, but also representatives from low-paid professions in hotels and restaurants who may have very different starting points on the issue of AFP. How easy is it to be a union leader when the hall is divided? – I don’t know if we are so divided. But I am excited and will follow the debate closely on how we should set our course. Demanding money on the table NHO believes that the current AFP scheme scares many employers from becoming organized because it is so expensive. Director of Labor and Employment in NHO, Nina Melsom, says the financing of a new scheme must be in place. – Calculations show that three times as many will get AFP. It is to make it fairer. If you want to make it fairer, you may have to look at how you distribute it among yourself. – Where do the contradictions between LO and NHO stand now? It’s on the funding. If the scheme becomes too expensive, it will create major challenges for our member companies. – Loses 2 million Elsa Fjelde and her husband had to change their plans drastically because she did not get AFP. Fjelde had to work from the age of 62 to 64, and now she is starting a new job. She has lost a lot of money. – I read online that if you take out AFP when you are 62 and live until you are 90, then it is about two million.
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AFP trap cost Elsa Fjelde dearly. – May have lost two million – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country
