Working life country profile for Sweden
This profile describes the key characteristics of working life in Sweden. It aims to provide the relevant background information on the structures, institutions and relevant regulations regarding working life.
This includes indicators, data and regulatory systems on the following aspects: actors and institutions, collective and individual employment relations, health and well-being, pay, working time, skills and training, and equality and non-discrimination at work. The profiles are systematically updated every two years.
Legal aspects
The Employment (Co-Determination in the Workplace) Act regulates collective agreements, an employee’s right to trade union representation and their right to join a trade union; it also regulates an employer’s right to join an employer organisation. There is no law that governs the type of industrial action that is allowed.
Industrial action can take several forms. Trade unions usually used blockades (blockad) to initiate industrial action. In such cases, employees refuse to perform certain duties, such as working overtime. If the conflict continues, more severe forms of industrial action can be used, such as strikes (strejk) and lockouts (lockout). The trade union, rather than the employer, is responsible for paying an employee during a strike or lockout, but the pay is usually less than the employee’s normal salary. Finally, members of a different union can take industrial action in support of the disputing union (sympatiåtgärd). Since the National Mediation Office was established in 2000, the number of strikes per year has never been over 20.
Developments in industrial action, 2017–2022
2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
| Working days lost per 1,000 employed people* | 0.5 | 0.01 | 1.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.1 |
| Number of lockouts | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Number of legal strikes | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Number of illegal strikes | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Notes: * According to the National Mediation Office, the total number of working days lost was 2,570 in 2017, 50 in 2018, 7,577 in 2019, 0 in 2020 and 11 in 2021. According to Statistics Sweden’s Labour Force Survey, the total number of employed people (aged 16–64 years) was 4,822,200 in 2017, 4,900,900 in 2018, 4,926,900 in 2019, 4,852,100 in 2020 and 4,381,500 in 2021 (there was a break in the series between 2020 and 2021), and 4,502,600 in 2022
Source: National Mediation Office, 2022a.
Collective dispute resolution mechanisms
The National Mediation Office is the public authority that provides mediators for collective agreement disputes, promotes efficient wage formation processes and provides public statistics on wages. Yet the main principle of mediation is that it is voluntary, in terms of the social partners themselves taking responsibility for bargaining and collective agreements. In the case of disputes regarding the risk of a strike or lockout being a danger to society, there are special committees that can settle these disputes. These conflict resolution bodies include representatives of the social partners involved, at times in cooperation with independent experts.
Although dispute resolution is voluntary in principle, specific circumstances can make it compulsory. The National Mediation Office can, in some situations (for example, in the event of industrial action being taken), appoint mediators, even without the approval of the social partners involved. In addition, the government may decide to implement compulsory arbitration for contracts related to the public interest, for example those for civil servants. A paragraph was added to the Employment (Co-Determination in the Workplace) Act in 2013 reinforcing the National Mediation Office’s role as a negotiator concerning collective bargaining between social partners, and not between individuals.
In the case of legal disputes regarding how to interpret or implement a law or a collective agreement, the Swedish Labour Court functions as the final arbiter if the parties involved are (or are usually) bound by collective agreements. In fact, collective agreements commonly include provisions for certain types of disputes to be settled through arbitration.
Individual dispute resolution mechanisms
The main dispute resolution mechanism for individuals is the Swedish Labour Court, which hears and rules on all labour-related disputes between employers and employees.
Use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms
Use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, 2017–2022
2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Number of mediations | 15 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 2 | n.a. |
Notes: Local conflicts are not included. n.a., not available.
Source: National Mediation Office, 2022a
The table above shows that the number of mediations conducted by the National Mediation Office between 2018 and 2021 ranged from 0 to 8.
