News
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WELFARE
Vaasa wants to attract more people by making them the world’s happiest
Nov 11, 2020
The Finnish city of Vaasa was at the very start of a campaign to make it the happiest city on Earth. Then corona hit. Now it remains to be seen whether the city and its inhabitants can create greater happiness in the depths of a crisis and a pandemic.
Editorial
Life-saving communication
Oct 07, 2020
The Corona pandemic continues its impact on Nordic citizens, who so far have supported their own governments and other authorities. In Iceland’s second city Akureyri, party politics have even been put aside and all political parties have joined forces on the city council.
tema
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HSE
New challenges for work environments as technology and humans come together
Oct 07, 2020
The work environment of the future will be here sooner than we think, and it will be different from the one labour inspection authorities have been monitoring until now. A new Nordic report considers some threats that look like science fiction. Others are already a reality for many workers, yet we know little about these threats’ long-term effects.
tema
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HSE
Video conferences – from added bonus to necessity
Oct 07, 2020
You need more than Zoom or Teams. That has become obvious to many businesses as the pandemic has forced most meetings online. As people are getting used to the technology, newly gained experience becomes useful knowledge.
tema
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HSE
Extra power with robot gloves
Oct 07, 2020
The Stockholm-based company Bioservo marries medical research with new technology with their robot glove. It gives extra muscle power to people with reduced hand function and for those whose jobs put a strain on their hands. This summer they won NASA’s invention award.
tema
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RETIREMENT
Danish state pension reform aims to help worn-out workers
Oct 07, 2020
The Danish government believes people should have the right to retire early on a state pension if they have been working since they were teenagers. Trade unions are rejoicing while employers and others have their doubts.
tema
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RETIREMENT
I will work for as long as possible
Oct 07, 2020
64-year-old Jan Hansen has been working since he started out as an apprentice for a carpenter at 17. He has been through a knee operation and is waiting for another one, but does not long for the day he retires.
tema
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RETIREMENT
I should have retrained
Oct 07, 2020
60-year-old Lone Høgh has been on painkillers for years in order to handle her physically demanding agricultural job. She has now retired in order to enjoy her time with her husband and dog.
News
Akureyri’s “unity government” to tackle the crisis
Oct 07, 2020
All five political parties on the city council of Northern Iceland’s largest city, Akureyri, have formed a coalition. Until the next election, they must work together to tackle the crisis created by the Corona pandemic and the loss of tourism income.
News
Anti toll road party came third in Bergen
Oct 07, 2020
Old political parties which spend years gathering too few votes fail to engage generations, while new one-issue parties are emerging. Political constellations change while we are waiting to see who might gain some power.
News
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WELFARE
Norway's richest are richer than we thought
Oct 07, 2020
Top leaders on dizzyingly high salaries who pay little tax. A small elite who takes home a big chunk of the national income. No, we are not talking about the USA or the UK – this is Norway in 2020, according to Statistics Norway.
Editorial
Collective agreements important for people's trust in the future
Sep 09, 2020
It has been trying times for everyone participating in the Nordic exercise known as collective bargaining. The social partners deciding, between themselves, how wages should develop, is one of the pillars of the Nordic model.
tema
Finnish employers signal backtracking on wage agreements
Sep 09, 2020
Not all businesses can afford to pay the agreed wage increases in Finland, warns the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries. Yet the trade unions will not tear up any collective agreements. The corona crisis rises many questions for Finnish labour market politics. Some say Finland’s competitiveness could be under threat. Employers argue the Prime Minister’s vision for six-hour days makes matters worse.
tema
Collective bargaining with face masks
Sep 08, 2020
Nordic employers and trade unions have spent spring and summer in collective bargaining efforts, except in Sweden where negotiations have been postponed until 1 October because of the corona pandemic. How has sharply rising unemployment impacted on the process? Will certain groups, who have been working even harder during the crisis, get their reward?
tema
Hot spring and summer for Iceland’s collective bargaining
Sep 08, 2020
Iceland’s newly appointed state mediator Aðalsteinn Leifsson had no easy task when he started work on 1 April 2020. The corona pandemic had a brutal effect on Iceland’s economy. Challenging mediating tasks included wage negotiations for cabin crew, nurses and upper secondary school teachers.
Portrait
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TRADE UNION LEADER
Susanna Gideonsson: We must defend the Swedish model
Sep 08, 2020
Swedish LO’s new President, Susanna Gideonsson, has deep roots in the trade union movement. At 16 she started getting engaged in work against unfair conditions at work, and now she represents 1.4 million LO members across 14 unions. Her current main challenge is to protect the Swedish model against political interference in labour law reform.
News
Would-be exchange students losing out
Sep 07, 2020
International experience is important in a lot of occupations, but for many, the corona pandemic has left the dream of a colourful CV in tatters.
News
Which student cities do students prefer?
Sep 07, 2020
What are students most and least happy with in 10 Nordic student cities? Statistics Norway have used data from the Eurostudent VI survey to compare students’ situations in different countries.
Portrait
Danish Presidency: The Nordic cooperation passed the Corona test
Sep 03, 2020
Closed borders, economic confusion in Nordic cooperation forums and hundreds of millions of kroner for environment and climate work. These are some of the issues on the agenda for Nordic Ministers for Cooperation when they meet face-to-face for the first time since before the pandemic.
News
A silver lining for working life during corona
Aug 14, 2020
Improved gender equality, less stress and more people who feel they have a meaningful job with positive challenges. Those are some of the surprising results found in the 2020 Norwegian working life barometer.
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