Cynthetiq

Unions are a diffferent problem all together.

There are strict regulations as to being able to fire someone "at will", since most everyone is contracted.

One of the things that I don't know about Iceland, is are the food service workers also "union"? (this includes the new Subway franchises from the past several years, and the rest of the lower waged tiers such as cashiers at the mall.) I think that that cashiers like Hagkaup and Bonus are unionized, but the owner of the little general store/video rental place in the small town of <1000 I don't think is. From this I gather that the Unionized people are well protected and get protected salaries. Those that are let go "at will" are purchased out of their contracts or the contract has terms for dismissal and severance typically 6 months salary even if tenure is <1 year. This creates some interesting hardships for the employer and can sometimes favor outside the unionized labor pool for a couple of reasons. First because "outside" must be better an interesting fallacy since there is such a good joke about Icelanders being xenophobic. Secondly, employers have the burden of paying an employee that isn't providing labor, so my friend worked without contract for several months probationary, so this "union" protection doesn't happen. Here in the US the union hall knows of the jobs and assists in the tooling and training, I don't think that happens in Iceland that I know of.

Offesetting this I union system believe (again from anecdotal observation and discussions) is the socialized governement programs from the Icelandic government. If you never get gainfully employed or work a unionized job, you still enjoy some protections from the social systems in place. I know this works for the original Icelanders and I believe is fair to them. I don't know how this affects the influx of people emmigrating to Iceland as temporary workers since no government wants the burden of more people using services than needed.

But a couple of things to note, Iceland only has c. 300,000 Icelanders. Each of those people have fish stocks as part of their natural birthright. The country and people utilizes those stocks since there is a value to the community. So while they may not be doing any physical labor, just by birth they are allocated X amount of fish. I'm not sure where this original allocation comes from, what treaty, conservation, etc. Taking care of 300,000 people doesn't have the same ramifications of taking care of millions.

In some ways I know that if I lived there I would always be jealous of natural born Icelanders since they always have a safety net that catches them. As an outsider, I don't believe I am afforded those same protections, unless I'm married to an Icelander.

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