Claims for quarantine compensation will be dealt with in the Labor Court and ordinary courts this autumn
Our claim for compensation for imposed quarantine stay in connection with offshore work will be processed this autumn both in the ordinary courts as an ordinary wage claim and by the Labor Court for the understanding of the collective agreement, explains Karianne Rettedal, lawyer and head of the legal department in IE&FLT (former Industri Energi).
IE&FLT believes that it is the employer’s circumstances that have meant that some people had to sit isolated in quarantine for large parts of their time off during the corona pandemic.
– The employer has managed the free time, organized the journey and required the individual to attend the quarantine. This intervention in the agreed free time is due to the employer’s order and is their risk. The quarantine and restrictions placed an extraordinary burden on these members and their families. It follows from the employment contract and collective agreements that lost free time must be compensated, says Rettedal.
In the first trial, against Transocean in December 2023, the district court found that there was no basis for the claim in the employment agreement or collective agreement. This case has been appealed and will be heard by the Court of Appeal (lagmansretten) in the last week of October.
– We believe the district court’s judgment is wrong. The employer has imposed quarantine obligations on the individual in advance of the working periods and lost free time must be compensated.
The Norwegian Confederation of Business (NHO) has also brought the case before the Labor Court with the claim that compensation cannot be anchored in the collective agreement. The Labor Court will deal with this collective bargaining dispute 9-16th September.
In total, IE&FLT has 678 claims for quarantine compensation in the conciliation council. Most of these have now been agreed to be put on hold pending the legal processing of the pilot cases.
– The agreements to put the cases on hold mean that we do not bring claims before the District Court as of now, but the claims are preserved and do not expire while the courts and the Labor Court deal with the cases that have been brought. We will have to decide on the way forward after the decisions in these cases are made, Rettedal explains.
