Employees
Meet the employees
of the State Conciliation and Mediation Officer
The SCMO employs a team of highly committed individuals.
Appointment as SCMO
Mr. Ástráður Haraldsson was appointed State Conciliation and Mediation Officer (SCMO) in 2023 for a five year period. His term of appointment began on July 18th 2023.
Operating under the Ministry of Social Affairs, the role of the SCMO is to mediate in wage disputes, monitor the situation and outlook in industry and in the labour market and keep a register of collective bargaining agreements in force. The position is grounded in the Act on Trade Unions and Industrial Disputes, No. 80/1938, as amended. According to the Act, the SCMO is to be appointed for terms of five years at a time. The person appointed must be an Icelandic citizen, financially solvent and with an unblemished criminal record, and must be seen as having a perspective conducive to impartiality in matters concerning employees and employers.
Mr. Ástráður Haraldsson was appointed State Conciliation and Mediation Officer (SCMO) in 2023 for a five year period. His term of appointment began on July 18th 2023.
Operating under the Ministry of Social Affairs, the role of the SCMO is to mediate in wage disputes, monitor the situation and outlook in industry and in the labour market and keep a register of collective bargaining agreements in force. The position is grounded in the Act on Trade Unions and Industrial Disputes, No. 80/1938, as amended. According to the Act, the SCMO is to be appointed for terms of five years at a time. The person appointed must be an Icelandic citizen, financially solvent and with an unblemished criminal record, and must be seen as having a perspective conducive to impartiality in matters concerning employees and employers.
Education and experience
Mr. Haraldsson completed his law degree at the University of Iceland in 1990. He qualified as a district court lawyer in 1991 and became an attorney at the Supreme Court in 1995. He worked as a lawyer for over three decades before taking up the post of district judge in January of 2018. He worked part-time as an assistant mediator from 2019.
ACMOs and conciliation committees
According to the Act on Trade Unions and Industrial Dispute, No 80/1938 the SCMO may nominate an Assistant Conciliation and Mediation Officer (ACMO) to assist in the resolution of industrial disputes or to work independently on resolving an individual dispute. It is a civic duty to accept the role of ACMO.
Where it is sufficiently well established that an industrial dispute is liable to have serious consequences, the Government may appoint a special conciliation committee to work on the resolution of the dispute. The SCMO and the parties to the dispute are to be consulted before a conciliation committee is appointed. The ACMO and the members of the conciliation committee assume the rights and obligations of the SCMO when they are engaged in their duties.