Meetings will be held today and over the coming days to break the deadlock. Runar Oskarsson, the chairman of the symphony orchestra members’ union negotiating committee, says he is neither positive nor negative about the prospects of a deal before Thursday. He would not be drawn to say more than that, RUV reports.

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra is an independent public institution under the Ministry of Education and its members are, therefore, technically public sector employees. The Icelandic state has subpoenaed the orchestra union over whether or not the threatened strike has been organised in a legally-accountable manner.

It is expected that the labour court will make its decision before the strike is due to begin.

The idea of a symphony orchestra going on strike may seem almost humorous to some; especially in comparison to strikes by fire fighters, teachers or air traffic controllers. But the Iceland Symphony Orchestra is central to musical culture in Iceland and it was a core reason for the construction of the brand new Harpa concert and conference centre. It is also considered one of the best orchestras in the entire Nordic region. Against this backdrop of investment and pride in the orchestra it is noteworthy that its members have been out of contract since March 2009. Their goal going into the current negotiations is to receive a 36 percent pay increase.

The municipalities’ association points to the fact that teaching assistants outnumber teachers and that they are regularly in charge of children without the supervision of class heads (who are usually trained pre-school teachers, while their assistants usually are not). Pre-school assistants are not in the same union as pre-school teachers and will, therefore, not be on strike.

The Icelandic Teachers’ Association lawyer disagrees, claiming that pre-school classes are not allowed to operate without their class leaders. The Association of Pre-school Teachers is closely linked to the teachers’ association and its head agrees with the lawyer.

As a result, Haraldur F. Gislason told RUV that come Monday, if the strike is still scheduled, pre-school teachers may need to resort to personally turning children and parents away from pre-schools which attempt to ignore the strike.

Read more about the proposed strike and the pre-school teachers’ demands here (30th June) and here (15th August).

(Photo: Alëx Elliott // IceNews)

One of the stranded tourists says that there is a good mood among the castaways, who are now due to return home on Thursday.

“Here we are in nearly 30-degree heat and we found out last night through the internet that all flights here would be cancelled today — naturally because of the general strike taking place here in Greece,” tourist Jon Oli Sigurdsson told Visir.is from his Corfu hotel. He said that the travel agency had tried to get a plane out to them yesterday and get them home ahead of the strike; but that the effort failed for some reason. He said they are relying on the holiday rep at the hotel for information now, but that the rep has an awful lot to do right now.

The general strike has been called to last two days and it began shortly after Prime Minister George Papandreou called on the Greek parliament to vote in favour of sweeping austerity measures. Huge crowds of protesters are expected today in Athens and other major cities to call on parliament to reject the painful measures.

If the parliament does not vote in favour of further austerity, Greece will in all likelihood not receive more emergency financial aid from the EU and the IMF. The Greek parliament is expected to vote on the measures tomorrow.

This year women are being encouraged to stop work at 14.25 today (Monday) because the actual women’s day fell on a weekend. Different events are planned in towns all over Iceland.

An umbrella organisation of 20 Icelandic women’s groups held a conference yesterday in Reykjavik about domestic violence and has been collecting charitable donations as well.

Among the speakers at the conference was the UN representative for domestic violence and representatives from several other international organisations against gender-based violence. The Norwegian justice minister also attended, as he is one of 14 male world leaders who has signed a contract that says he will keep the fight against domestic violence at the fore in all his political work.

When the fire fighters go on strike, it means that Akureyri Airport has to close, due to the fact that essential fire cover is provided by the local paid fire brigade. To get around the problem, Air Iceland has been routing its Akureyri flights to Husavik.

However, yesterday for the first time, Reykjavik fire fighters decided to block the 14.00 plane’s access to the runway at Reykjavik Airport; thereby preventing it from taking off for Husavik and circumventing the strike, RUV reports.

The contract talks between the National Association of Fire Fighters and Ambulance Drivers and the Local Governments’ Pay Committee have been ongoing for around a year without agreement. The negotiation has twice been sent to state mediators, but the discussion was formally ended yesterday after a long meeting with no agreement.

Valdimar Leo Fridriksson, head of the National Association of Fire Fighters and Ambulance Drivers told RUV that the negotiations were brought to an end due to the local governments apparent lack of enthusiasm to reach a deal. He says the last offer from the employers amounted to a one percent pay increase.

A strike is now being prepared and is expected to begin on the 23rd July.

This means that 200 fire fighters and ambulance crews across Iceland will walk out a week from now – but emergency services will not be affected.

Fridriksson said that 95 percent of union members had voted in favour of the strike and that member participation in the vote was high.

The Swedish boundary town of Haparanda has seen a marked increase in trade since the strikes began, and is currently preparing itself for a further flood of Finnish shoppers as the situation intensifies. Supermarkets ICA Max and Coop Extra are filling their cold stores to capacity with meat in anticipation of the rush. ”At present, the most sought-after sales article is minced beef,” said ICA Max worker, Ulf Myllymaki.

The prolonged dispute that has caused havoc in the Finnish food industry has created a significant vacuum in the supply of meat and processed foods, but hungry customers are not willing to wait for the situation to be resolved, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

“I have heard from Finns that the shelves of Finnish stores are beginning to be empty. The impact of the Finnish industrial action can already be seen as an increase in our sales,” said Greger Gard from Coop Extra.

“The management of this enterprise ordered that we will have to increase the volume of orders. Next weekend could turn into a real high season, resembling those during skiing holidays, when our store alone sells roughly as many as 3,000 to 4,000 kilos of meat products per day,” said Kristiina Lehtonen from ICA Max’s fresh goods department. She added that Haparanda stores would not run out of stock for Swedish shoppers.

Rapid business fluctuations mean that cross-border shopping is not unusual along the Swedish and Finnish boundary. ”We are prepared for the arrival of Finnish customers every weekend, even when there is no strike, but now the demand for food is exceptionally large,” noted Lehtonen.

National labour mediator, Councillor Esa Lonka, presented the negotiating parties with a proposed concessions plan on Monday afternoon just after 16.00, instructing the representatives that they had three hours to approve the new deal. Retail shop employees have been threatening action over what they see as poor wages and unreasonable working conditions.

After initially requesting more time to review the deal, PAM then rejected the offer, claiming that the proposed pay rises were insufficient. The union confirmed that a one-day walk out will take place on Friday, starting at 06.00. Lonka said that further talks before the industrial action were unlikely, reports YLE.

Lonka’s proposal came at the start of the resumption of talks between management and staff employed in retail, including security guards. Negotiations regarding the security sector were continuing in the wake of the call from PAM to ban all overtime employment in the security and commercial sector.

The strikes will not prevent most business from running, according to Ann Selin, PAM President: “We do not expect the strike to close all shops, since many of them will remain open with the help of entrepreneurs and their families”.

In response to the lack of an agreement, Air Greenland activated its strike hotline on 19 July. The carrier said it will attempt to contact affected passengers directly and place them on other flights if possible, according to Sikunews.

If the strike happens, Air Greenland will be forced to cancel virtually all of its flights until things are resolved between the airline and its cabin crew. Nearly 50 per cent of those affected will be travelling within Greenland, which only has a handful of helicopter flights available to compensate for the disrupted domestic travel.

It is expected the strike will cost the airline around one million kroner per day. Christian Keldsen, Air Greenland’s vice-president for sales and marketing, said even though the carrier had offered its cabin crew significant improvements in their work conditions, it was not enough for the employees’ union.

“We have stretched ourselves very far in view of the financial crisis and declining passenger numbers,” Keldsen told Sermitsiaq. “While other airlines negotiated a wage freeze or direct wage cuts, we have offered the cabin crews what amounts to at least a 10 per cent increase in their current salary.”

The demonstrators were irritated by the enforcement of the new monetary policy in Iceland and also by the unfortunate statements of the present Director of the Central Bank, David Oddsson. The crowd called for his resignation.

The protestors were holding banners with slogans ‘where is our money?’ and ‘stop playing with our future’ and promised to gather again next Saturday if their demands are not met.