Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.06.2015, Side 18

Striking A Blow
To Healthcare
Labour legislation and mass
resignation of Icelandic nurses
News | bad...
With a possible strike of many of the
skilled and unskilled labourers that keep
tourist services functioning, as well as of
airline ground service crews, bus drivers
and others in the works, the tourism in-
dustry in the country—which has quickly
become the backbone of the economy
over the past years, with roughly one
million travelers passing through the is-
land annually—was concerned, to say the
least. And tourists were, as well.
As many readers can surely em-
pathise, to have travel plans cancelled by
ongoing labour negotiations when you’ve
been excitedly looking forward to expe-
riencing a country that has consistently
been making the “must see” lists of noted
travel publications over the past years is,
to put it lightly, a bummer.
Luckily for all those traveling to Ice-
land and for the workers fighting for a
basic living wage and fearful that a work
stoppage would hinder their ability to put
food on the table, a deal was brokered in
the eleventh hour, and a new employ-
ment agreement is just about a done deal.
Not so fast
While many unions negotiated new con-
tracts by the end of May and feasted on
waffles, as is tradition, the Icelandic As-
sociation of Academics (BMH), were in
their ninth week of strikes. As part of this
action, 2,100 nurses in Iceland went on
strike as of May 28, with many patients
being discharged, and treatments being
postponed as a result. Sufficient excep-
tions to the strike were made to ensure
that emergency services at Iceland’s
national hospital, Landspítali, would re-
main operational, but many aspects of the
country’s healthcare system have been in
a state of crisis. No outpatient services
have been operational, and a long waitlist
for tests and treatments has developed.
“I did not support the strike at first,
because I felt that it was wrong to let sick
people suffer for things which are re-
ally not their fault,” explains Anna Von
Heynitz, a nurse in Landspítali’s tho-
racic surgery ward, with eleven years of
experience in her field. “But I voted to
strike because it was obvious from the
atmosphere amongst the nurses that that
would be the outcome, and I was hop-
ing that the threat of a strike would be
enough. None of us could possibly imag-
ine that the strike could go on for so long.”
She continues: “Even though I don’t
approve of the strike as a medium of pro-
test in healthcare, I agree that the wages
of nurses are too low. In Iceland nurses
must study for four years. Many nurses
also have a postgraduate degree. But the
wages hardly change in response to in-
creased education and
training.”
The primary de-
mand of nurses has
been to receive wages
comparable to their
peers in other Nordic
nations, and more in
line with the wages
being earned by other
university-educated
professionals in Iceland.
Anna works 80%, which she says is
the unofficial full-time for nurses on ac-
count of the strain and demand of the job,
and makes 301.231 ISK per month (at time
of writing, roughly 2275 USD, 1500 GBP
or 2020 EUR), from which taxes and fees
are then deducted.
“Since the crisis in 2008, there have
been constant budget cuts in healthcare,
which means that healthcare has to be
more efficient in order to work,” Anna
laments. “Patients are dismissed as early
as possible, nurses and other healthcare
professionals have to work faster. A regu-
lar day of work is very busy. It is difficult
to work all shifts.
“I feel that my personal life gets af-
fected by the working hours and my gen-
eral health is affected by it too. Nurses
have a lot of responsibility, a lot more
than most people assume I guess. The
training is not really enough to be a good
nurse, a lot of experience is needed in or-
der to learn the job.”
In lieu of continuing ongoing negotia-
tions, the state introduced legislation that
would force nurses to cease all strike ac-
tion through July 1 and stipulated that if
negotiations are not
successful by that
time then an arbi-
tration committee
would settle a con-
tract on the nurses
behalf.
The legislation was
debated in Alþingi
12 June—while both
Prime Minister Sig-
mundur Davið Gunnlaugsson and Minis-
ter of Finance Bjarni Benediktsson were
sitting in the stands at the UEFA football
game between Iceland and the Czech Re-
public—and passed on June 14.
Ahead of the legislation being passed,
Ólafur G. Skúlason, the director of the
Icelandic Nurses’ Association, told state
broadcaster RÚV that ordering nurses
back to work would only “add fuel to the
fire.”
Burn baby burn
In response to the back-to-work legisla-
tion, which essentially strips nurses of
their constitutionally protected right
to strike, healthcare workers have re-
signed en masse. Just one day after the
legislation was passed, an entire shift of
ICU nurses at Landspítali have resigned.
Roughly 120 hospital staff, including 91
nurses, tendered their resignations fol-
lowing the legislation’s passing. More-
over, more than one third of radiologists
at the University Hospital have also quit.
Says Anna, who tendered her regis-
tration on Monday: “The government’s
decision to ban the strike is understand-
able on some level, since something had to
be done to ensure the patients’ safety, but
it was a very short-sighted move, since it
was obvious that the nurses would not ac-
cept that their only weapon in the nego-
tiations—their constitutionally protected
right to strike—is taken away from them,
without giving them anything close to
what they asked for.
“Nurses felt that they were treated
totally different than the doctors when
they opted to strike. The doctors got what
they wanted, otherwise they might have
found new work in the Nordic countries
and not come back to Iceland where they
are really needed. Somehow this argu-
ment doesn’t seem to apply to nurses even
though we can find work abroad as well.”
In fact, many nurses are seeking work
abroad, with one staffing agency in Nor-
way having received more inquiries from
Icelandic nurses over the past month
than in all of 2014.
“I feel offended by the way the gov-
ernment has dealt with our claim to be
paid better for a difficult job with re-
sponsibility over sick people’s lives,” says
Anna.
“I think that the only thing that could
solve the problem is to give the nurses the
salary they are ask for. Only then would
some of the nurses come back. When the
pay is bad and the job is so difficult, its
unlikely that competent nurses are will-
ing to do the work in the future.”
Residents of this country, as well as visitors to it, followed
the news closely throughout May and into the early days
of June, as talks of rolling work stoppages and an indefi-
nite general strike loomed.
Words by Catharine Fulton
Photo by Sigtryggur Ari Johannsson
18 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 8 — 2015
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“I think that the only
thing that could solve
the problem is to give
the nurses the salary
they are asking for.
Only then would some
of the nurses come
back. When the pay is
bad and the job is so
difficult, its unlikely
that competent nurses
are willing to do the
work in the future.”