Short background on The Association of War Academy Trained Officers trained union

The Association of War Academy Trained Officers (AWATO) is a membership based union in the traditional Northern European style, in a country where over 90 % of State employees are unionised. The Association was founded in 1909, the root of the association being the same as the founding of Oslo Military Society. The Association organises officers and civilians with higher degree education, bachelor or equivalent and higher, under the umbrella of The Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations (Akademikerne). In addition to AWATO, Akademikerne organises doctors, dentists, lawyers and the like. For AWATO this naturally also includes the cadets at the force academies; Army, Air and Navy.

AWATOs main purpose is to work for the advancement of their members with regards to pay and working conditions. As AWATO considers the Armed Forces as needing a highly skilled and competitive workforce, we strive to ensure that the Armed Forces have a workforce compromised of highly qualified personnel.

To ensure that we manage to do this is to work with the Department of Defence, the General Staff and the Armed Forces in general with regards to questions on working conditions and the direction of the Armed Forces in general.

AWATO is politically engaged, but not affiliated with any political party. At the moment we are organizing about 1500 service members and reservists.