Alizada smilingly welcomes news at the Oppsalhjemmet in Stovner in the north-east of Oslo. He is just about to prepare and roll out today’s lunch to the residents, from the oven comes the smell of delicious, freshly baked chocolate cake. – 1 May was Christmas Eve, in a way. Almost everyone got a raise. As a healthcare worker, I have gained NOK 100,000. That never happens, he says. Alizada says that he has neither bought expensive clothes nor a new car. – I will save for a pension or go on holiday, he says. The 27-year-old also refers to better working conditions and pensions and less stress when the municipality took over the operation of the Oppsal home, where he has worked since 2019. Alizada enjoys helping the elderly with care, food and medication and enjoys working with the nurses. At the same time, increased pay provides increased motivation and can contribute to increased recruitment, he believes: – Now there may be more people who want to study healthcare. The elderly wave is coming, and we must prepare. Everyone went up in salary Alizada has previously told about the salary jump in the local newspaper Vårt Oslo. He is a shop steward for the Trade Union at the nursing home and meets news while the election campaign is heating up. And once again, private versus public nursing home management is a hot potato. When Oslo took over city council power in 2015, 14 of the city’s nursing homes were run by commercial companies. Six of these have now been taken back into municipal operation, while seven are run by non-profit actors. One nursing home has been closed. Now recent figures from the Trade Union for the six nursing homes show that: All employees who are organized in the Trade Union increased their wages. The health professionals’ annual salary increased between NOK 40,000 and NOK 140,000. On average, all healthcare workers increased their annual salary by NOK 65,000. HEALTH SUBJECTS: Mette Nord and Ingvild Kjerkol visit Kuben upper secondary school in Oslo. Photo: Peder Bergholt / news With news in tow, Trade Union leader Mette Nord and Health and Care Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) visited pupils and staff at Kuben high school in Oslo this week. Håkon Rønningsbakken Da-Costa (20) from Nydalen and Thea Marie Beck (20) from Oppsal are now on their way to a vocational certificate as healthcare workers. She already has two years’ experience from a nursing home. None of them highlight salary as important for their career choice. But Beck experienced a salary jump when the nursing home she previously worked at was again municipally run. – I worked privately for quite a long time. Then I earned very little. Although I felt that I was doing a lot of work that skilled workers also do, I earned so much less. After we became municipal, I earn a lot more, she says. Rønningsbakken Da-Costa wants to work as a porter. – It is a very important job, even if it is only four years of education, he says. HEALTH SUBJECTS: Håkon Rønningsbakken Da-Costa (20) and Thea Marie Beck (20) go to Kuben high school in Oslo. Photo: Peder Bergholt / news – Matters a lot When the municipality takes over operations, the employees are transferred from a tariff in the private sector to a municipal tariff agreement, explains Nord in the Trade Union. – This means that the vast majority of them earn somewhere between NOK 40,000 and NOK 150,000, depending on where they are on the salary table, seniority and whether they have a professional certificate or not, says the LO top to news. – The collective bargaining agreements in the private sector are worse than they are in the public sector, says Nord. – The Conservatives say they will demand competitive conditions if nursing homes are privatized again. Don’t you think they’re telling the truth? – They cannot promise that, because there is freedom of association, also for employers in this country. What we have seen is that employers in the private sector choose the employers’ organization that has the worst tariff, says Nord. The wage difference between public and private is greatest in Oslo, which is a separate tariff area, and wages are somewhat higher at municipally run nursing homes in Oslo than in other parts of the country. SALARY: The union’s leader Mette Nord. Photo: Peder Bergholt / news In the sun in front of Oslo City Hall, the Conservative Party’s city council leader candidate Eirik Lae Solberg can be happy about the bourgeois majority in news’s recent Oslo poll. Private actors contribute to new thinking, mutual learning between the public and private sectors and well-being measures with football pubs and spas, he believes. Lae Solberg says this about the wage figures from the Trade Union: – I have no reason to doubt these figures. They underline why it is important that we demand competitive pay and working conditions when we open a few nursing homes in Oslo to competition. PROMISE: The right-wing city council leader candidate promises competitive wages and working conditions for healthcare professionals. Photo: Kristian Skårdalsmo / news – But a 140,000 increase in salary for some, surely there is no doubt that the employees would rather want municipal operation? – I see no reason why there should be any difference in the pay conditions for private and public sector workers. Everyone has a need to attract labour. – But how can you promise that they will not get poor pay conditions, if the nursing homes are privatized again? – We will make demands for it. In recent years there has been a development in the EU and thus in EEA law which makes it possible to set these requirements. There are no legal obstacles to this. It depends on political will, says Lae Solberg. He rejects that the Conservative Party should interfere in the collective bargaining: – But when we put services out to competition and buy services, we can make demands for competitive pay and working conditions. Lae Solberg warns that the Conservative Party will put 3-4 of Oslo’s approximately 40 nursing homes out of competition if there is a bourgeois election victory on 11 September. Party barometer Oslo August 2023 What will you vote for in the municipal election? Compared to measurement from May 2023.Party Support Change33.8%H−0.816.2%AP+0.512.7%MDG+2.89.5%V+3.08.8%SV−3.76.5%R−0 .66.2%FRP+1.72.1%SP+0.71.9%FP−0.81.1%KRF+0.60.5%INP−1.20.4%DEM−0.80 ,3%Other−1,3Click on the party circle to see the full party name. Based on 599 interviews conducted in the period 14.8.23–18.8.23. Margins of error from 0.5–4.6 pp. Source: Norstat – Want to privatize But getting more and more competent employees in care is not just about wages. Health Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) is now strengthening an initiative that looks at various attempts to organize the tasks in the municipalities’ care services. An increased proportion of full-time workers and an increased proportion of skilled workers are important goals of the initiative. Privatization is not the way to go, believes Kjerkol, who asks the voters to judge the Conservative Party based on what the party has done when it has governed major Norwegian cities. – The “record” of the Conservative Party is completely clear: They want increased privatisation. They privatize when they have power. It is the working people who have to pay for it through lost pension rights and lower wages, she says. In the welfare services committee’s report, the issue of pay and working conditions is raised: – The committee cannot conclude that employees of commercial suppliers have worse pay and working conditions overall than employees of the public sector in the same sectors, it says. The reason is that many elements are included in the concept of pay and working conditions. But regarding wages, the committee says this: – The findings show that the wage level is on average 9 per cent lower for commercial producers seen as a whole compared to public ones, but the results vary between the sectors.
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Got a salary jump of 100,000 when the municipality took over – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
