Pay settlement preserves summer ice-cream for Swedes

With the conclusion of a new pay agreement for stock-room workers and distributors in the ice-cream industry, a planned strike in the middle of the ice-cream season was called off in July 1998.

The collective agreement on pay for stock-room workers and drivers in the ice-cream industry expired shortly before the beginning of the summer ice-cream season. The Commercial Employees' Union (Handelsanställdas förbund, Handels) and the Employers' Association of Swedish Food Industry (Livsmedelsbranschens Arbetsgivareförbund, LAF) had been negotiating a new agreement before the previous one was due to expire, but when the employers refused to accept the union's claims, Handels walked out of the talks and gave notice of a strike in 21 workplaces and an overtime ban in eight other workplaces with effect from 7 July 1998.

Handels claimed the same pay increases and unsocial hours bonus for its ice-cream industry members as it had obtained in the collective agreements for its members in other sectors. LAF objected, as this would mean that the stock-room workers and the drivers would receive higher increases than the workers who produce the ice-cream and who are covered by an agreement between LAF and the Swedish Food Workers' Union (Svenska Livsmedelsarbetareförbundet, Livs). However, with the help of mediators the parties managed to reach an agreement on 5 July, two days before the industrial action was due to commence.

The agreement is of three years' duration and gives an average worker a pay increase of 2.7% per year. One of the affected companies, Hemglass, which sells ice-cream in the evenings directly from mobile ice-cream vans to peoples' homes, also undertook to increase the unsocial hours bonus to the same level as in the retail trade. Thus the costs for Hemglass's workers and for workers in shops and ice-cream stalls have been equalised, which was an important issue for Handels.