Henrik Asheim has the gift of audacity – Dagsavisen

Right-wing deputy leader Henrik Asheim is trying to make political money on the workers’ international day of struggle. “More people should have gone on the May 1st train” was the headline of Henrik Asheim’s column in E24, published on the morning of May 1st. The right-wing deputy leader emphasized that Norwegian working life is largely safe and orderly. “But on Workers’ Day, a record number are still completely out of work,” he points out.

“On a day when work and workers’ rights are in the spotlight, the most important thing for me is that more people get the opportunity to experience working life,” adds Asheim. He points out that record numbers are out of work. Over 600,000 people. And the number is growing. According to Asheim, the increase in young disabled people is particularly worrying.

There is no room for Right-wing slogans.

So far, everything is very good, and most people can probably agree with Asheim’s description. But Asheim is not content with the fact-based. He also engages in polemics with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who boasts that 150,000 more Norwegians have found work while he has been in power. The flip side of the coin is that there will be more disabled people in this country. Here, Høyre’s leadership should shut up, because the arrows pointed upwards also during Erna Solberg’s reign. The number of disabled young people doubled on her watch.

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Henrik Asheim claims that the Støre government only talks about the work line at the same time as it has been a sport to close doors to working life. He regrets that the government has tightened access to temporary employment. Since such working conditions, according to Asheim, the path to a permanent job is for many. The government thinks the opposite and prioritizes permanent positions, completely in line with what was the message of many slogans in the 1 May trains during the eight years of bourgeois government. And this is just one example of the crash course.

The right is in short and on a collision course with the 1 May trains. I share the wish that more people should have gone on this year’s 1 May train, but there is no room for Right-wing slogans here. Asheim has the gift of audacity when he tries to give the impression of something else. Asheim & co. feel free to go on a train and proclaim Conservative politics on the other 364 days of the year.

Also read: Lars West Johnsen writes about work and capital.

“I grew up in a family where we always flew the flag on 1 May, and I still think that the day is relevant to mark,” wrote Conservative leader Erna Solberg exemplary on her blog last year. In this respect, it is worth noting that Frp leader Sylvi Listhaug answered no when she was asked on May 1 this year if she flew the flag.

Listhaug, on the other hand, used the opportunity to speak in Drammen with a clear attack on the current government. It should also be mentioned that the leader of the Progress Party’s youth, Simen Velle, will remove May 1 as a public holiday. If he gets his way, there will surely be fewer people taking the train on International Workers’ Day. Here, Henrik Asheim obviously has a challenge in his own camp.

The value of an organized working life is a keynote when 1 May is marked. A high degree of organization, among both employees and employers, is the success factor in the Norwegian social model. One good tool here is the tax deduction for trade union dues, which has now been doubled under the current government. To strong opposition from the Conservative Party, FRP and Liberal Party.

Also read: Undemocratic gifts of money.

It is appropriate to recall that Erna Solberg’s government spoke with two tongues on this issue. On the one hand, the policy was to “facilitate an organized working life and well-functioning tripartite cooperation”. On the other hand, it was said that the government “recognizes that many workers choose to be unorganised”. The latter means that if there are enough unorganized people, organized working life will wither away.

Work for everyone is job number one. The more people who support such a policy, the better. But it is a misunderstanding to think that there is only one way there. The costs are as different as the results. The 1 May trains have set out a course where togetherness and solidarity give strength. The right follows a different course. It’s that simple. Henrik Asheim goes under a false flag.

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