The special tribunal convened to help solve the Icelandic State’s wage dispute with nurses and academics has revealed its decisions.
The contract with the BHM association of university-educated professionals will run until 2017, and the contract with the Association of Icelandic nurses will run until 2019. Wage increases are in line with increases made in other recent collective bargaining agreements.
The tribunal lengthened the current contracts which ensure nurses’ union members get a wage hike of 21.7 percent up to 2019 and BHM members get 7.2 percent more, backdated from March 1 this year, and a further 5.2 percent increase from June 2016. BHM members will also get a one-off ISK 63,000 (EUR 427/USD 474) payment in June 2017.
Though the contract with the nurses will run considerably longer, it includes a clause for re-opening negotiations if wage agreements with other unions go considerably above that which the nurses are now being offered.
The tribunal’s judgement states that the changes being made to BHM and nurses’ existing contracts are in line with general wage adjustments which have taken place in the wider economy since May 1, Vísir reports.
Þórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir, chair of BHM has indicated she is satisfied that the new contract has a relatively short life and that it represents a step towards properly rewarding high education with higher wages, which is the organization’s main demand.
Ólafur Garðarsson, chair of the nurses’ association, says he is also satisfied, because the tribunal’s wage increase is higher than the State offered during extensive and ultimately fruitless negotiations.
