Parliament orders changes in redundancy rules

In April 1999, the Swedish parliament voted for a change in the "order of priority" rules used in cases of redundancy. A majority in parliament, including the Green Party, voted against the government, which will now have to produce a proposal on the issue.

On 28 April 1999, a parliamentary majority consisting of the Conservatives, the Liberals, the Christian Democrats, the Centre and the Green Parties, on the initiative of the Green Party, outvoted the Social Democratic government by 158 votes to 157. The issue was a bill, drawn up by the Greens, to change the "order-of-priority" rules for redundancies in the Employment Protection Act (lagen om anställningsskydd). Following its defeat, the government will now have to produce a proposal of its own along the lines proposed in the bill. The change will involve a reversal of the basic principle of "last in, first out" in a redundancy situation.

The present rules set out in section 22 of the Employment Protection Act state that the order of priority in a redundancy situation shall be determined on the basis of employee seniority, so that those workers with a longer length of service should have priority in keeping their jobs over others with a shorter length of service. In the event of equal employment times, priority shall be given to the older employee. The parliamentary opposition parties argued that in companies with fewer than 10 workers, it should be possible for the employer to exclude any two employees from the "last in, first out" rule when drawing up a list of redundancies. In this way, the employer would be able to retain some of the younger, more skilled and "key" personnel.

The Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO) has been campaigning vigorously against this change in the "order of priority" rules and has even visited Members of Parliament from the Green Party. LO's main argument of the LO is that the proposed change would open the door to arbitrary decisions on the part of the employer.

Two days after the vote, Minister Mona Sahlin, at the Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communication (Näringslivsdepartementet) stated in a parliamentary hearing that the government felt that it was important that particular vulnerable groups, for example pregnant women, should not be adversely affected by the change in the rules. The government therefore, would have to subject any change in the rules to further study. This would mean that an alternative proposal would not be laid before parliament until the first half of 2000.