03.09.21 06:48
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A total of 220 employees in opera, theater and orchestra in Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger go on strike after no agreement was reached in the mediation.
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The mediation deadline was at midnight on Friday night, and the parties reported the breach just after 0200.
– The background for possible conflict is that the employer side refuses to stand by promises of a fair pension scheme, wrote the country’s largest artist organization, Creo, in a press release earlier this week.
For Bergen, this now means that 28 organized by the National Stage and 92 by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra have now gone on strike.
Henning Målsnes, Head of Communications at Harmonien, writes in an SMS to BA that they only comment on purely operational consequences:
– Our concerts from tonight must be canceled until further notice.
Also 54 at the Norwegian Opera & Ballet, 25 at the Norwegian Theater, two at the National Theater and 19 at Rogaland Theater will now strike.
Controversy over pension
The dispute is over the pension schemes.
– In fact, employers have been asking for this strike for many years. Now they have received it, says Lise Olsen, deputy head of LO Stat and head of negotiations.
– I think everyone in the cultural sector had looked forward to meeting the audience again. Not least, our members had looked forward to having the audience in the hall. When employers jump from their promises and throw people into strikes, it is under any criticism, adds deputy leader Odd Haldgeir Larsen in the Trade Union.
The employee side wants a hybrid pension and believes this is a “golden mean” that continues important qualities in the pension scheme they abandoned in 2016.
– Incomprehensible
The other party, Spekter, strongly regrets that the cultural offer to the public is now affected, after a year and a half with strict restrictions, audience restrictions, cancellations and closure.
– It is incomprehensible that LO chooses to strike in theaters, orchestras and operas to replace Norway’s best defined contribution pension scheme with a scheme that the cultural institutions believe will be worse for the employees and freelancers. LO’s requirements will also weaken the financial predictability of the cultural institutions, says CEO Anne-Kari Bratten in Spekter.
Spekter states that questions about the consequences for operations must be answered by the individual companies.
An escalation of the strike with a further 215 members has been announced from 8 September, and then institutions in Kristiansand and Trondheim will also be included.
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