OSLO, Norway — Striking workers in the hotel and restaurant industry mobilized for the May Day march here. They are part of an expanding nationwide walkout by over 4,000 members of the Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions and the Parat union.
Spirited picket lines and marches have marked the walkout here and in Bergen, Trondheim and elsewhere.
Among the lowest-paid section of the workforce, strikers say they are fighting for a living wage. “Without an offer of a real wage increase, we see no alternative to striking,” Dag-Einar Sivertsen, chief negotiator for the union, said when the strike began April 19.
Union member Jesper Bergesen proudly held up a picket sign at the May 1 march. A receptionist at the Scandic Go Hotel, he said both a wage increase and better sick leave payment system were important for him. “We are already low-paid,” he said, “so people have to borrow money to get by when they get sick.”
Many companies cover sick leave until government payments kick in, which can take time, but not employers in the hospitality industry. They refuse to budge, saying it is the government’s responsibility to pay for this. Union representative Sivertsen said this doesn’t match the reality, and “for a low-paid hotel or restaurant worker it becomes difficult to pay the bills in the event of long-term illness.”
Bergesen said they will strike “for as long as it takes.”