The state financial aid that was ruled by an arbitral tribunal to improve the working conditions for nurses in Iceland will not be enough to adjust their salary.
The tribunal had been appointed in July to oversee the wage dispute between the Association of Icelandic Nurses and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. They had announced their ruling that the state is to provide Landspítali hospital with 900 million ISK per year, as well as 200 million ISK per year to other health institutions in proportion to the average number of full-time nurses.
The board of the Association of Icelandic Nurses has released a statement however, calling the agreement disappointing, as it “does not take into account various arguments presented in the court’s report that could have been used to improve the salaries of nurses and significantly increase the salaries of this important female profession within the health system.”
The report is said to state that there are indications that nurses are underestimated when it comes to wage settings, but at the same time, their salaries are not being paid in accordance with their responsibilities. The Association does not consider the funds, which would be distributed among nearly 2,700 nurses working for the state, to be sufficient to correct the salaries.
Additionally, a large portion of the funds are already tied to specific measures that individual institutions employed last year.
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