On a cloudy September afternoon, a string quartet plays the protest song Bella Ciao outside Oslo’s parliament as a trade union demonstration gets under way. Protesters brandish placards reading: “Demand permanent employment” – a reference to a recent European Free Trade Association (Efta) ruling that has put a question mark over a recent union victory.
It is a small gathering to mark a seemingly obscure piece of legislation, but one with serious ramifications for the country’s migrant workforce. For years, Norwegian trade unions lobbied the government to limit the exploitative potential of hiring agencies. Once rare in the country, these proliferated with the influx of eastern European immigrants in the past couple of decades.
This year, the Labour government obliged, introducing a law that prohibits the use of hiring agencies by construction businesses in Oslo and the surrounding regions of Viken and Vestfold, and significantly limits the ability of all employers to use such agencies. But Efta – an association between Norway, Lichenstein, Switzerland and Iceland, which operates parallel to the European Union – has said the law breaches the EEA agreement in place to create homogeneity with the EU.
Efta’s response has the potential to undermine the new law, which migrant workers say has already drastically improved their life.
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