Faroe Islands wage deal awaits Finance Ministry approval

A three-year wage agreement between the Health Assistants’ Association of the Faroe Islands and the Municipal Employers’ Association has not yet been approved, and the Finance Ministry says the review may take longer than usual, KVF reports.

The ministry’s Wage Division received the agreement on Friday. Its director, Jan Sjóstein, said approval normally takes a few days, but he could not say how quickly this agreement would be processed. Agreements for municipal employees must be approved by the finance minister, Aksel V. Johannesen.

The agreement was signed on Friday after difficult negotiations, with help from the Conciliation Institution. The previous agreement expired on October 1 last year. The two associations are not among the 12 public-sector unions that agreed a shared wage framework with the Finance Ministry on February 5. However, Sjóstein said the ministry considers overall public-sector pay when reviewing municipal agreements.

The shared framework applies only to those 12 unions. It says a higher wage framework can be agreed only under certain conditions and with adequate calculations. The Health Assistants’ Association’s chair, Mary Antonsdóttir, said on Friday that the new agreement was not within the 12 unions’ framework. Sjóstein said the Municipal Employers’ Association can negotiate agreements at any level, but they must be approved by the Finance Ministry.

The new agreement runs for three years. Monthly wages are set to rise by 3.87 percent from January 1 this year, by 1,000 kroner for all employees from October 1 this year, and by 3 percent from October 1 next year. It also changes the calculation of evening and night hours: from April 1 next year, each hour worked after 5 p.m. will count as one hour and eight minutes, and each hour worked between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. as one hour and 16 minutes.