Good point on cut in working hours, not cut in pay/hour. Though training is somewhat a grey area as training during workhours (not un-paid, in addition to) is common in Sweden. I know for a fact that Metall has locally entered into this type of deals before, though I think the scale of it is new.

To further clarify, this is the Metall union deal. They organise anything related to metallproduktion. The Paper union - organising paper mill workers - has rejected a similar deal.

Though it is big enough that other unions, like the forestry union and the printers union has come out to say that they reject the notion of it:

"Vi gör en annan bedömning"		"We make another assessment"
"Vi gör en annan bedömning än fack och arbetsgivare inom verkstadsindustrin". Det skriver Grafikerna och Skogs- och Träfacket i ett gemensamt pressmeddelande rörande IF Metalls krisavtal.		"We make another assessment then unions and employers in the engineering industry." This writes the Printers union and the Forestry union in a joint press release regarding IF Metall crisis agreements.
Meddelandet skickades ut i dag. Det beskriver fackens syn på dagens kris som, enligt dem, inte beror på för höga kostnader (löner till exempel) för företagen. Problemet är snarare brist på efterfrågan.		The message was sent out today. It describes the trade union view on the current crisis, according to them, not due to too high costs costs (like wages for example) for the companies. The problem is rather a lack of demand.
I det läget hjälper inte sänkta löner, menar facken. De pekar också på regeringens ansvar för den ekonomiska krisen.		In this situation it does not help with lowered wages, says the unions. They point also to the government's responsibility for the financial crisis.

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Most people would call this a cut in working hours, not a cut in wages.

That's what I said.

Most unions does not have a millitant attitude against cutting working hours in times of crisis.

That's - also - what I said. Or well, I said industrial unions. The unions who are not exposed to international competition are freaking out completely. Let me quote an official from the Transport union: "The employer want to kill us [literally "beat us to death"] and our highest union management today has joined in and killed us..."

I shit you not. Some of these people are batshit insane.

It becomes even more tasteless when one consider what this is about: solidarity, sharing the available jobs during the crisis of the century. It's the same principle that supports our solidaric high-tax welfare system: everyone skips desert to make sure the least productive member of the family gets enough food not to starve to death.

But when these people are the ones who might have to skip the desert, solidarity is thrown in the bin.
 

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.