Labour leaders attack workers under the banner of discipline

In a column published by mbl.is, Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir argues that calls for greater discipline in the labour market are being used to weaken workers’ rights and shift attention away from inequality.

Recently, a Social Democratic Alliance MP and one of Iceland’s leading advocates of European Union membership appeared on the programme Spursmál alongside the mayor of Kópavogur. They disagreed on the EU and most other issues, but agreed on one point: greater discipline is needed in the labour market. When politicians such as them, along with the finance minister, the director general of the Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise and other prominent figures, agree, it is time for workers to have serious concerns, Jónsdóttir writes.

She says that discussion of a supposedly dysfunctional labour market model is useful for conservative forces. Instead of discussing workers’ living conditions, class divisions and inequality, attention is directed towards workers’ behaviour. Wage demands are portrayed as excessive and strikes as too frequent.

The debate creates an unclear picture that leaves out important questions, including who benefits from society’s prosperity and who does not, she writes. In order to weaken class consciousness and cast resistance in a suspicious light, ordinary demands for decent living conditions are described as irresponsible, and those making them as dangerous.

Jónsdóttir argues that people in positions of power have united around the key task of moving collective bargaining from the democratic arena of the workforce into the halls of the educated classes. There, capital and the middle class meet at the table of the economic council, where workers’ representatives are never seen.

The stated goal at that table is to improve the country’s competitiveness, including by consistently negotiating percentage-based wage increases. Although workers’ labour is the foundation of society’s creation of value, they have no real involvement in the bargaining process, she writes.

Iceland’s workforce has now been forced to accept that its labour market model is the best and, in the current climate, its only defence. Politics has abandoned workers and is competing for the support of the prosperous middle class and those higher up the country’s economic hierarchy. The workforce’s position is no longer treated as legitimate and understandable, but as the greatest problem of the age, Jónsdóttir writes.

She says workers can only force their demands to be respected by firmly defending their labour rights and joining together in radical class struggle.

Page 30 of a new report by the Wage Statistics Committee states that the Icelandic Confederation of Labour and the Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise estimate that 58 per cent of workers in Iceland are paid according to wage scales.

In the world of Dagur B. Eggertsson and Ásdís Kristjánsdóttir, these workers are apparently doing too well, Jónsdóttir writes, adding that stronger tools are needed to keep them down. Lower real wages, persistent unemployment and a limited welfare system would force the workforce to accept humiliation and marginalisation in the name of reason and responsible economic management, she argues.

Change is needed in Iceland, she writes, among people such as Dagur, Ásdís and their class peers. They should abandon their demands for high wages and stop taking more for themselves. They need to recognise that workers are indispensable.

A good society and a strong welfare system do require discipline, Jónsdóttir writes, but that discipline should be demanded of capital and privileged groups. This would help create balance and sound economic management for the benefit of society as a whole.