The collective wage agreement negotiations between the trade unions in Unio (e.g. Forskerforbundet) and the state sector has come to a conclusion after prolonged mediation. The new agreement will be sent out for a referendum to Unio’s members in the state sector, in accordance with the rules in the new basic agreement.
The negotiations followed the principles in the so called ‘Front Runner Model’ where representative industries within sectors exposed to international competition negotiate first and set the norm for other industries. This model led to an annual wage increase of 3.84% in the state sector. This result is actually more than in the export industry this year (3.7%), since it compensates the state sector for an accumulated lag in salary increase over several years, relative to the export industry.
The result of 3.84% does not mean that we all will see an increase in our salary of 3,84%. The number is the estimated general increase in salaries calculated over the calendar year. In practice, the actual number will be lower, partially since the increase will be effective per May 1st, and also since there has been some wage drift due to local salary growth and as a result of wage carry-over from last year. The actual general increase in salaries is therefore estimated to be 2.46% effective from May 1st this year.
Again, it does not mean that your salary increases with 2.46%. In the end it might be even more or less. The amount of money equivalent to a general increase in the university´s accumulated salaries of 2.46%, will be negotiated locally in the autumn between the employee organizations and the management at UiA. You will receive further information when these negotiations start, both from the university and from Forskerforbundet. The deadline for these negotiations is Oct. 31st.
According to the new basic collective agreement, the salary increase will be negotiated locally in the autumn. Last year, half of the budget negotiated for wage increases was decided in a central agreement, leading employees to receive a common, general increase. In the new settlement, this central element is removed and the whole budget will be negotiated through local negotiations between the trade unions and the management of the university.
More details from the negotiations:
- Forskerforbundet now has a new basic collective agreement for the public sector (Hovedtariffavtale)
- The centralized negotiations decided that the increase in salaries (3.84%) will in full be negotiated locally. As a result, there will be no central wage increase since all is distributed through the local wage agreement negotiations
- We will no longer see our salaries described in numbers (eg. Salary level 68) but rather in monetary terms
- There will be new arrangements for automatic increase in salary due to increased experience, and the automatic salary increase will be steeper for research scholars (stipendiater)
Wage agreement negotiations are difficult to understand due to many technical terms. You can find an explanation of many of these here: Explanation of important terms