State settlement: – Salaries must increase more than prices

On Thursday, April 16, this year's wage negotiations in the state sector kicked off. This year is a main settlement, which means that the parties will negotiate both finances and the content of the main collective agreement. It regulates, among other things, working hours, leave arrangements, various salary supplements and how local negotiations are to be carried out. Unio has 36,643 members in the state. The largest groups are researchers and police employees.

Unio state's chief negotiator Steinar A. Sæther is clear that the economy is the most important thing in this year's settlement.

– Our members have higher education and correspondingly high student loans, and are well aware of high prices and increased interest rates. Our most important requirement is that they should have more to spend after this year's settlement, he says.

Unio stat demands real wage growth, which means that wages increase more than prices. So far, price growth is estimated at 3.2 percent in 2026. Recently, the parties in the front-line industry agreed on a framework of 4.4 percent.

– Last year, annual wage growth in industry ended up a full 0.8 percentage points above the front-line industry, and over time we have seen that the wage differences between the private and public sectors are only increasing. The wage settlement in the state must address this wage gap. If not, the companies in the state will lose the expertise they need, says Sæther.

Recently, there has been a brain drain from the police, because police officers are offered significantly higher salaries in, among other things, banking and insurance.

Demands real negotiations

In addition to the financial framework, the parties will negotiate the provisions of the main collective agreement. In the previous main settlement, the negotiations were overshadowed by the question of one or two collective agreements, which eventually ended in strike and victory for Unio in the National Wage Board.

This year, Unio expects real negotiations on the content of the collective agreement.

– State employees are not very concerned with the number of collective agreements. They are concerned with pay, working conditions and co-determination at work. We owe it to the state employees to address small and large challenges in their everyday work, and to develop the collective agreement for their benefit. Since 2022, we have developed a number of good demands for improvements, and we expect constructive negotiations on them this year, says Sæther.

The deadline for negotiations is midnight on April 30. If the parties do not agree before the deadline, the negotiations will go to mediation. The mediation deadline is set for midnight on May 28.

Here you can read Unio's first demands in the negotiations (in Norwegian)