VR trust council authorises board to terminate agreements

The board of Icelandic trade union VR has been given unrestricted authority to terminate its collective agreements on Thursday if nothing changes in the meantime, mbl.is reported.

VR chair Halla Gunnarsdóttir told RÚV after a well-attended meeting with the union’s trust council that the next move was up to the Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise (SA). VR had outstanding demands, concerns and requests, chiefly aimed at preventing large groups of its members from continuing to experience wage cuts, she said.

“We cannot accept another year and a half of wage cuts,” Halla said.

SA executive director Bjarni Benediktsson told RÚV that the organisation believes it is best for the current agreements to remain in force. He said there was no room for further cost increases during the agreement period because value creation had not covered the costs already included in the agreements.

Bjarni also said the government was proposing tax increases of more than 20 billion krónur on companies, and that he was surprised the labour movement had not spoken out more about them. Income taxes on workers are also being raised, he said.

“The outlook for businesses in the country is simply not very bright. We can see that redundancies are taking place far too often. There is little economic growth ahead, and value creation has been lacking,” Bjarni said.

SA’s board met on Monday and will meet again on Tuesday, he said. The organisation has not ruled out further talks with the labour movement before the deadline for terminating the agreements.