The Nordic Trade Union Confederation SUN board held its board meeting in the Efling building in Reykjavík on the 21st and 22nd of last October. Efling became a full member of SUN earlier this year, after being an audience member for six months.
Many of the largest trade unions in the Nordic countries’ general labor market are members of SUN. The alliance is a platform for consultation and information regarding the issues of workers in security, cleaning, and property management. Efling is a member of SUN’s cleaning and security departments.
The main purpose of SUN is to promote consultation and information on the interests of workers within the member unions. At the board meeting, representatives exchanged i.a. to deliver reports on the state of collective bargaining and the state of politics in their home countries, which is a regular agenda item at the meetings of the board and SUN’s departmental groups. Viðar Þorsteinsson, director of education and social affairs in Eflinger, sat the entire meeting for Efling, but he has also attended other board and faculty meetings at SUN over the past year.
The chairman of SUN is John Nielsen, who is also the chairman of the Danish union Serviceforbundet. The chairman of the SUN cleaning branch is Ewa Edström, who is also the national secretary for the cleaning sector in the Swedish union Fastighetsanställdas Forbund. The chairman of the SUN security guard branch is Terje Mikkelsen, who also is the national secretary for security guards in the Norwegian union Norsk Arbeidsmandsforbund.
Also present at the meeting in Reykjavík were representatives from Service-och Kommunikationsfacket (Seko) in Sweden, 3F in Denmark, PAM in Finland, Norsk Tjenstemannslag in Norway, Fagforbundet in Norway and Havnar Arbeiðskvinnufelag in the Faroe Islands.
“It is very gratifying that Efling has become a full-fledged participant in Nordic trade union cooperation through SUN. By consulting with these sister associations, we strengthen Efing member’s bargaining position. We now have access to the right information and direct experience of these associations with the Nordic wage environment, which is of great value to us in light of how much reference is made to the Nordic countries in the discussion in Iceland,” said Sólveig Anna Jónsdóttir, Efling’s chairman, at the end of the SUN board meeting.
