Fishmeal, fish feed industry reaches framework wage agreement in Norway

NORWAY – After two days of intense negotiations, players in the fishmeal and fish feed industry have successfully reached a framework wage agreement for Norwegian fishmeal and fish feed industry workers. 

This agreement involved the Norwegian Seafood Federation (Sjømat Norge), the union Industri Energi, and the Federation of Management and Technology (IE&FLT), gearing towards creating better terms for workers in the industry. 

“This is an industry that is doing very well. Therefore, it was important to ensure that the workers in this industry get their rightful share of the value creation,” Ommund Stokka, the union’s negotiating leader, said.

Key points of the agreement

General wage increase

Fishmeal and feed industry workers will receive a general hourly wage increase of NOK 7.00 (EUR 0.61 / USD 0.66).

Minimum wage rates will also increase by NOK 13.64 (EUR 1.19 / USD 1.30) per hour.

The trade certificate supplement will rise by NOK 0.80 (EUR 0.07 / USD 0.07) to NOK 13.30 (EUR 1.16 / USD 1.26).

Additionally, Minimum wage and overtime rates will be raised by 6.5%, while shift rates will increase by 6.3%.

Shift workers’ benefits

“This agreement involves a lot of shift work. Therefore, we also wanted to increase the rates for shift work this year, and we succeeded,” Stokka continued. 

Shift workers will benefit from an extended rest period provision, increasing from 8 to 11 hours before returning to work. This change aligns their conditions with other shift work agreements.

After the agreement was reached, the union’s negotiating leader, Ommund Stokka, said there had been constructive negotiations in which they had solved the most important of the series of issues the tariff conference had asked them to.

The new shift work supplements will be NOK 29.85 (EUR 2.62 / USD 2.85) in the afternoon, NOK 44.22 (EUR 3.88 / USD 4.22) in the evening, NOK 114.97 (EUR 10.10 / USD 10.98) on Sundays and public holidays, and NOK 206.73 (EUR 18.15 / USD 19.75) on public holidays.

The new protocol for fishmeal and fish feed industry workers also includes text concerning vacation planning, pay for meetings in industry cooperation committees, seniority supplements, or new provisions in the agreement regarding, among other things, the right to breastfeeding breaks, text about dyslexia-friendly workplaces, or local negotiations. 

As Sjømat Norge, Norway’s largest seafood organization, noted in its statement, now that the IE & FLT union adopted the agreement after the negotiations concluded, “local negotiations can begin.”

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