The health ministry is looking into options to replace nurses who resigned after an industrial dispute with foreign nurses. As reported in last month’s newsletter, an ongoing wage conflict was halted by political players who ordered all striking nurses back to work and forced the conflict into arbitration. After the Icelandic Association of Nurses (FÍH) and the State mediator signed an agreement as an outcome of that arbitration process, nurses’ resignations started flowing in. As the resignations have topped 300, the health ministry says it is considering recruiting nurses from abroad. In the meantime, the members of the nurses association have rejected a wage agreement that was finally made on 23 June between representatives of the association and the state negotiator after almost thirteen hours of negotiations with 1677 votes against 219.
English: http://grapevine.is/news/2015/07/16/health-minister-looking-into-hiring-foreign …
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/politics_and_society/2015/07/15/nurses_reject …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.