July conflict
The Julussa conflict was a labor dispute between raftsmen that took place in the spring of 1927 on the Julussa River near Elverum in the province of Innlandet . It is one of the largest labor disputes in Norwegian history .
procedure
Around 150 raftsmen worked together on Julussa and were organized in a local union in the hope of improving their financial plight. However, there were no collective bargaining agreements for forest workers at that time, which is why the influence of their union was limited. The raftsmen organized in the union participated in 1927 - led by Martin Halstensen - as a team of 103 people in a tender for an order. However, believing that their supply was too high, the forest owners brought in 73 non-union workers, some of whom had no experience in rafting. The offer from this group was 15 percent cheaper, which led Halstensen to cut his offer by ten percent. The unorganized workers got the job anyway.
When the work specified in the tender was to be carried out on Julussa in May 1927, large demonstrations against the strike breakers took place on the border between the municipalities of Elverum and Åmot . For example, the strikers blocked the raftsmen used at Brattveltdamm in their work. On May 13, armed police from Oslo and soldiers were sent to the area at the behest of the Ministry of Justice to protect the unorganized workers. Two days later, on May 15, 1927, a total of around 200 people demonstrated on Brattveltdamm, around a third of whom were armed with firearms. The police forced those present to leave the place and go home.
A total of two trade unionists were arrested, but there was no major conflict between the strikers and the gunmen. The presence of the officials, however, led to a worsening of the conflict, so that the issue was also discussed in the Norwegian parliament, the Storting . The two left-wing parties Arbeiderpartiet (Ap) and Norges Kommunistiske Parti (NKP) suggested that parliament should excuse the government's behavior. However, they did not get a majority for this proposal.
Effects
The workers did not manage to stop the other group's work on Julussa. However, the conflict led to the founding of the Norsk skog- og landarbeiderforbund , a union for forest and agricultural workers , in autumn 1927 .
Later, between 1930 and 1936, a similar conflict arose again, the Randsfjord conflict, in which around 2000 raftsmen advocated that the problematic tendering system should be abolished and instead paid according to tariff.
Web links
- 90 years since the July conflict Article on nrk.no (Norwegian)
- The July conflict in the store norske leksikon (Norwegian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tallenes continued Ellinger: Tømmerfløting 1871-1999: Siste slep for "Axel". Statistisk sentralbyrå , September 27, 2000, accessed December 23, 2019 (Norwegian).