One in ten without employment contract

– It is not uncommon for students who are working without employment contracts to be paid 100 kroner an hour, with no overtime pay or set working hours, says Olav Andresen from the worker’s organisation LO Youth.

According to Statistics Norway (SSB), seven per cent of the population was working without a written employment contract in 2006. Among young workers between 16 and 24, the percentage was 13.

«Line» was one of them. For six months she was working behind the counter in a shop without a contract. She does not want to give any names since her employer is a good friend of hers.

– I thought it was very uncomfortable and I worried about my rights, for instance if the shop were to go bankrupt. I felt that something that was supposed to be my employer’s responsibility became mine, and I had to make a great deal of fuss to get a contract.

Ultimatum

Olav Andresen explains that the most common reason why students get in touch with LO is that their employers pressure them to work more than they want to.

– Students without a contract who refuse to take on more work than they want to, are facing the possibility of being met with an ultimatum that either they work or they lose their job. This is especially tough during exam periods, when students often feel that they have to choose between their studies and their part-time job.

Andresen believes that a lot of students accept too much from their employers because they need the job to get by.

According to the Working Environment Act, employers are instructed to give their employees a written employment contract. Kim-André Åsheim is working at the LO student centre, and he believes that a lot of students simply don’t know what their rights are. The centre receives two to three calls concerning employment contracts on a weekly basis.

Knut Elkjær at the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority is certain that more young people would have demanded to get a written contract if they knew more about their rights.

– That a lot of young people work part-time and only for short periods can explain why so many are without an employment contract.

Still, the number of young people without employment contract has been reduced considerably over the past few years. In 2003, there were 21 per cent young workers without employment contract. In 1996 the number was as high as 33 per cent.