Long term wage agreement signed

The Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise (SA) and the broad coalition of unions, the Federation of General and Special workers in Iceland (SGS), Efling, and Samiðn, have signed a new wage agreement. It is a long-term agreement that runs from February 1, 2024, to January 31, 2028.

The agreement includes a minimum wage increase of ISK 23,750 per contract year, with wages generally increasing by 3.25% in the first contract year, followed by 3.5% in the following contract year, or the second, third, and fourth contract years.

The agreement was signed at the offices of the State Conciliation and Mediation, Karphús, going on 6 pm yesterday, and is titled the "Stability Agreement". The agreement is intended to increase economic predictability and stability, to reduce inflation and growth.

Bonuses and productivity bonuses

To support stability, the focus was on a long-term agreement for four years with a wage policy based on proportional wage changes and a minimum wage of ISK 23,750.

In addition to the wage policy, there can be payment of productivity bonuses during the contract period.

The increase in the wage rate means that, during the contract period, the increase in the wage rate is calculated from the minimum wage rate of the collective-bargaining agreement due to wage developments on the general labor market, subject to certain conditions.

The productivity increase is based on the development of productivity and implies that employees will receive a share of value added if productivity increases more than expected.

Salaries of cleaning workers get a special increase

The agreements put special emphasis on vocational training and work protection, as well as changes to the payment of holiday allowances.

Similarly, wages of workers in the cleaning industry will receive special increases during the skills analysis of jobs in the industry and because of the special working conditions of workers in the cleaning industry.

In this way, the workers in cleaning will go from wage step six to eight in the wage category during the skill analysis and will receive a paid recruitment bonus of 19,500 ISK per month in full-time work because of the working conditions of the recruitment workers.

In addition, the arrangements for the payment of shift-time allowances for workers in the travel industry will be changed so that shift-time allowances will be paid to shift workers for all work outside the day-time period until full-time.

In addition, it will be possible to make agreements at the workplace on other shift-time payments than those under the wage agreement.

The industrial workers also receive their share, but the five-year increment of the bachelor and master's salaries is added to the wage tables and instead of a time-based benchmark, the wages of industrial students at Samiðn are determined by their skills according to the career guide.

Contractual grounds reviewed regularly

As regards the preconditions of the collective bargaining agreement, a special committee will be set up to strengthen the preconditions and the objectives of the collective bargaining agreements. This committee will have the task of monitoring the progress of the economic factors affecting the objectives of the agreement.

If the terms of the collective wage agreements do not meet, the committee shall decide on a response. Accordingly, the terms of the agreement will be reviewed by the committee twice during the negotiation period, on the one hand on September 1, 2025 and on the other hand on 1 September 1, 2026.