HAUGESUND: Thick fog and hail cover the yard in Haugesund. Symbolically, the staffing industry has long been in stormy weather – on this particular day, that is literally true.
Norway’s trade union leaders have welcomed the government’s efforts to restrict agency hiring. “Agency hiring leads to poorer working conditions and is bad for business,” LO leader Peggy Hessen Følsvik has said, and LO marked the 2022 restrictions on agency hiring by serving hot dogs.
That is why it is fair to call it a rare meeting when the staffing agency Publiq and Fellesforbundet together visit the union office at the Aibel yard in February 2024. At the same time, it is far from rare that these two actually meet: chief shop steward Sigvald Skogen and union organiser Thor Åge Christiansen of Fellesforbundet, and Bjørn Viken, HR manager at Publiq. Their cooperation has become a kind of pilot – a staffing agency with a collective agreement, praised by both the employer side and the union movement. At least parts of it.
Not unique at all
So Magasinet asks the trio: how did such a unique cooperation come about? The answer comes promptly – that this is not unique at all. On the contrary, there are several staffing agencies with collective agreements. Many of them operate responsibly. And historically there have been good relations in the industry, the three believe, especially before the 2000s.
There are plenty of people in the staffing industry who want to play as a team with the labour movement, rather than against it, says Bjørn Viken of Publiq.
We see it as a matter of course to comply with labour laws and regulations. If you want to survive, you have to operate responsibly. And our employees are our greatest resource.
Bjørn Viken, HR manager at Publiq
He believes an unfair picture has been created of staffing agencies as an evil in the labour market. Viken claims a few have ruined it for the rest, especially in the construction industry. Fellesforbundet’s experienced union organiser Thor Åge Christiansen refuses to accept that the entire staffing industry operates responsibly, but believes Publiq deserves credit for showing the way.
There has been war in this industry. We want to put an end to it, because operating responsibly should pay off.
Thor Åge Christiansen, union organiser at Fellesforbundet
Difficult and necessary
Initially, the union organiser was, to put it mildly, sceptical the first time Publiq asked for a collective agreement. The solution became a series of demands from Christiansen, which the employer agreed to in writing. Now he believes the experiment with Publiq has become an example for others to follow.
Christiansen makes no secret of the fact that dialogue requires effort from both sides, but believes it is absolutely necessary if you want to bring back the responsible part of the staffing industry.
It is not only Fellesforbundet’s representative who praises Agder-based Publiq. In December 2023, NHO Agder awarded them the “Company of the Year” prize. The reasoning was, among other things, that in just a few years they had grown from one small business to around 250 employees – and probably partly because NHO is keen to speak well of the staffing industry.
They are not alone in that. Chief shop steward Sigvald Skogen has many years behind him at yards such as Aibel’s in Haugesund. Now he says he is very satisfied working there via a staffing agency.
I have worked a long working life and seen a lot of strange things. Here we are taken care of.
Sigvald Skogen, chief shop steward at the staffing agency Publiq
The yards depend on agency workers
Can offshore yards like Aibel not manage with permanent, full-time employees, as the trade union movement wants across the labour market? Ideally, yes, says Rune Eriksson, union leader for Fellesforbundet at Aibel. But not in the real world.
Why not? There are simply not enough skilled workers in Haugesund and the surrounding area to cover the need when the order books are full. And in any case not enough money to keep them all during periods of low activity. Eriksson points out that within a single month Aibel had to go from 20 to 260 hired-in operators on a project – and then back down to 30, all in the same month.
We need agency workers. But we require every agency we use to have a collective agreement, and the companies must be approved annually.
Rune Eriksson, union leader for Fellesforbundet at Aibel
This is how responsible conditions and relative equality at the workplace are secured. That matters, because those who cover the need live in the same barracks – regardless of whether they come from Romania or Agder, the union leader points out.
Text and photo: Erlend Tro Klette, Magasinet 2/2024
