Norway: International Labour Organization sides with education union against the use of compulsory arbitration to end teacher strike
In a victory for trade union rights, the International Labour Organization (ILO), reaffirmed the right to strike in a case brought on behalf of educators in Norway.
Upon reviewing a complaint filed by the Union of Education Norway (UEN) and Education International (EI), the International Labour Organization’s Committee on Freedom of Association has issued a set of conclusions and recommendations that support EI member organisation UEN against Norway’s use of compulsory arbitration to end a teacher strike in 2022.
The ILO Committee is critical of Norway’s use of compulsory arbitration to end lawful strikes, noting that the intervention in the 2022 teachers’ strike is similar to other cases for which Norway has been criticized by the ILO. The Committee describes this as a long-standing concern and expects the state — in consultation with social partners — to find solutions that can reduce the use of compulsory arbitration in the future.
“We are pleased that the ILO has given its support to the Union of Education Norway and our members,” says union leader Geir Røssvoll. “The right to strike is a human right and absolutely essential for the trade union movement.”
Right to strike reaffirmed
The Committee also states that the potential long-term consequences of a strike in the education sector do not justify interference with the right to strike. This is especially important to UEN, as the complaint emphasized that the government’s decision to impose compulsory arbitration was made without concrete knowledge of the actual consequences and was primarily based on vague concerns.
Moreover, the Committee’s statements reaffirm the broad right to strike in the education sector, which the UEN considers critically important going forward.
The Committee concludes that using compulsory arbitration in sectors that are not essential, such as the education sector, is hard to reconcile with the right to strike and the principle that collective bargaining should be voluntary. In the ILO jurisprudence, essential services are defined as those whose interruption would endanger the life, personal safety, or health of the whole or part of the population.
The Committee also reminds that, in the education sector, the Government should work with unions and employers, the social partners, to set minimum service levels during prolonged strikes.
Following the use of compulsory arbitration in 2022, the government set up a working group to examine ways to reduce the use of this measure. The Committee considers this initiative a step in the right direction and has noted that the Government has committed to continuing dialogue with the social partners to reduce reliance on compulsory arbitration, including resuming discussions on the introduction of minimum service agreements.
This outcome represents a significant success for the teacher unions. Another positive development is the timely release of the ILO recommendations, issued in less than 18 months after the unions submitted their allegations in October 2023. Given the nature of the ILO’s supervisory mechanisms, where social partners are invited to provide comments at various stages, this is considered a swift result.
EI has released a toolkit to help its member organisations file complaints with UN agencies and intergovernmental institutions. The ILO supervisory mechanism used by UEN is explained in Chapter 2 of the toolkit.
