Norway hit by labour conflict
OSLO: About 85,000 Norwegian workers went on strike on Wednesday as the
biggest labour dispute since the 1980s curbed oil exports, closed hotels and
halted ferries.
The stoppage, triggered after the main private sector unions rejected a 2000
pay offer last week, also disrupted road freight transport and newspaper
printing and closed breweries.
Some supermarkets have run short of food due to hoarding.
A strike by tugboat operators hit the nation's vital oil exports by
preventing tankers from docking at terminals which normally load one million
barrels per day (BPD).
Offshore oilfields were producing as normal but the share of output normally
piped to land and then loaded onto tankers was going into storage. Norway,
the world's second largest oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia, produces about
3.2 million BPD.
Private sector unions last week rejected a pay deal worth 3.5-4.0 percent
and voted to go on indefinite strike. The dispute, which formally began at
0400 GMT, is the biggest labour conflict since a lockout of 102,000 workers
in 1986.
The action has hit financial markets by fuelling worries about inflation and
new central bank interest rate hikes after a 0.25 percentage point rise in
key rates last month raised the key deposit rate to 5.75 percent.
The crown currency weakened to a new 15-year-low at 9.0291 per dollar in
mid-morning against 8.9360 late on Tuesday as the U.S. currency powered
ahead. The crown gained against the sagging euro, to 8.0920 from 8.1330.
An opinion poll in the daily Aftenposten on Wednesday showed 42 percent of
Norwegians thought more pay was the most important demand, while 19 percent
reckoned a fifth week of holidays, promised by employers from 2002, should
be introduced earlier.
Some supermarkets have run low on supplies due to hoarding and shops in
neighbouring Sweden were hoping for a bonanza of Norwegian shoppers.
Newspapers carried advertisements telling readers they would have to rely on
Internet editions in coming days. Many commuters along the west coast had to
drive long detours around fjords because domestic ferries had stopped
running.
A total of 86 hotels were shutting. The Grand in Oslo, where winners of the
Nobel Peace Prize stay before receiving the award in December, told clients
to check out by midday before closing.
Labour unions and employers seem deadlocked over the demands but the
Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) employers' group said
it was holding the door open to contact.
"Time will show who, how and when contact is made" between the two sides,
deputy NHO leader Lars Christian Berge told NRK radio. Members in the
Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) voted "No" to a pay offer last
month.
The Labour government of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, which took office
in March, has said huge wage hikes for business leaders are partly to blame
for the strike.
The financial daily Dagens Naeringsliv stoked that discontent on Wednesday
by saying that Kjell Almskog, the chief executive of Anglo-Norwegian
engineering group Kvaerner, had a deal guaranteeing him a record package of
169 million Norwegian crowns ($18.77 million) if he were ousted.
(Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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