Norway's Unions Confront Neoliberalism
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- Published on Tuesday, 10 May 2016 22:30
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1255 .... May 11, 2016
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Norway's Unions Confront Neoliberalism:
A Country Report from a Meeting of Left Trade Unionists in European
Asbjørn Wahl
For a long time, Norway has represented an exception in Europe and the word. The main reason has been the abundance of oil revenue, which has made Norway the only country in Europe without net state debt. Quite the opposite, the Norwegian government has a huge surplus -- most of it in the form of the so-called "Government Pension Fund -- Global." Until recently, Norwegian workers have therefore not felt the effects of the financial and economic crisis as strongly as most other workers in Europe. For example, unemployment rates have mostly been between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent over the last ten years.
However, since... the dramatic fall of oil prices started in 2014, the situation has also changed in Norway. Unemployment has increased, particularly in the oil and oil servicing industries. It is now close to 5 per cent -- and still growing.
At the parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2013, the red-green government (consisting of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party) lost after 8 years in power, and a right wing government took over. This change of majority was partly due to a well-known phenomenon in Europe over the last 20 years, where centre-left governments have lost power, with socialist left parties as the biggest losers. This is what happens when left parties surrender to more or less neoliberal policies -- and even participate in U.S./NATO led war adventures. After the defeat, the Norwegian Socialist Left Party has thus been in a deep political crisis, fighting to come over the 4 per cent electoral threshold (while it had 12-13 per cent support in the period before the election in 2005).