Government proposes legislation to implement EU Directives on part-time and fixed-term work
In May 2001, proposed legislation to implement the EU Directives on part-time work and fixed-term work was soon to be put to the Swedish parliament. The new law, which will ban discrimination against workers in these forms of employment, should come into force in April 2002. Trade unions would rather have implemented the Directives through collective agreements, but employers were opposed to such a move.
In a memorandum issued in March 2001 (Ds 2001:6), the Swedish government proposed new legislation banning discrimination against part-time workers and workers on fixed-term contracts, in terms of pay or other employment conditions. The proposed law will apply to the relationship between employers and employees and ban both direct and indirect discrimination. Worker who claim discrimination are required only to present facts that give reason to believe that there has been direct or indirect discrimination - thereafter the burden of proof passes to the employer.
The new law seeks to transpose EU Directives (implementing European-level social partner agreements) on part-time work (97/81/EC) (EU9712175N) and fixed-term work (1999/70/EC) (EU9907181F). The government considers that legislation must be used in order to guarantee the principle of non-discrimination set out in the two Directives, though it believes that other provisions in the Directive are already covered in Swedish legislation. These include: the provisions that a worker's refusal to transfer from full-time to part-time work or vice-versa should not in itself constitute a valid reason for termination of employment (clause 5.2 of the part-time work Directive); the measures aimed at preventing abuse arising from the use of successive fixed-term employment contracts (clause 5 of the fixed-term work Directive); and the provisions on information and consultation (clauses 6 and 7 of the fixed-term work Directive).
The government's proposals were preceded by a thorough and long-lasting discussion - the part-time work Directive should have been implemented by January 2000 - between the social partners and the government over whether or not it was possible to implement the Directives through collective agreements. The discussions reached no conclusion and the government decided to use legislation. The employers were strongly opposed to using collective agreements to implement the Directives on the grounds that: part-time workers are not discriminated against in the Swedish labour market; and it is not possible to implement EU Directives through collective agreements, as the latter do not apply to all workers in Sweden.
The trade unions' general attitude was that there should be rules in Sweden forbidding worse conditions for part-time and fixed-term workers than for other employees. There are examples of discrimination, such as part-timers working under 40% of normal working time being excluded from occupational pension schemes based on collective agreements. Furthermore, the implementation of bans on discrimination is best achieved through collective agreements, the unions argued.
The trade union confederations, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) (formerly SAF- SE0105199N) and other bodies were consulted on the government's proposal and submitted their opinions to the Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications (näringsdepartementet) by the end of April 2001. All the union confederations - those representing blue-collar workers, white-collar workers and university graduates - accept the proposal for legislation, if not with enthusiasm. However, they criticise the fact there is no proposal for measures to regulate successive fixed-term contracts. It is currently possible to conclude successive contracts over many years, with no limitation. The unions would like the government to add to the final proposal for legislation a limit on the conclusion of successive fixed-term contracts - for example, allowing a maximum of five renewals over a period of three years.
It is expected that the proposed legislation will be put to parliament and adopted in the near future, and the aim is that it should come into force in April 2002.