Kullander, Mats

In the last 10 years, social partners in Sweden's white-collar sectors in Sweden have increasingly concluded collective agreements, allowing greater flexibility for wages to be fixed at local level and by individual workers.

The Swedish government has asked the National Mediation Office (Medlingsinstitutet) to carry out research on collective agreements, as part of its work to help close the gender pay gap.

Three recent reports investigate the issues faced by workers with disabilities in Sweden. Their findings indicate that people with disabilities who lose their jobs are likely to suffer much greater income loss than people without disabilities who are laid off. Although participation in labour market programmes can lead to a higher income, it can also result in the recipients being stuck in such programmes.

The impact of the Laval ruling regarding posted workers and the subsequent amendments to Swedish law have been far-reaching. This article gives a short overview of the political developments in Sweden, as well as the social partners’ views on different ways of handling the new circumstances for industrial relations resulting from free movement and tougher competition.

Employers' organisations and trade unions agree that the Swedish model needs to adapt to meet changing conditions on the labour market, but have different ideas on what needs to be done. The arguments used by the social partners and an account of how the negotiations to revise the system are evolving are presented.

Trade unions in Finland have put forward proposals for a new high-level organisation which would represent all workers’ groups.

A new study examines Sweden's wage formation process and how different types of collective agreement affect it. It concludes that wage formation in practice is often less localised than collective agreements allow for and that the norm-setting ‘cost mark’ set by the industrial sector is still important for determining the level of wage increases.

The effect of earlier retirement on health outcomes is examined in a new report that looks at the retirement plans of different two age groups of Swedish army officers. The study finds that earlier retirement positively affected health: those who retired earlier had significantly fewer days of inpatient care and reduced mortality than those who retired later.

The municipal council of Gothenburg decided in April 2014 to enact a one-year experiment where they would reduce working hours to 30 hours a week with full pay in at least one city department to evaluate the effects of working time reductions on health, employment and quality of work.

Tripartite discussions started in Sweden in 2011 on reducing barriers to the labour market for young people. The discussions between employers, unions and the government have focused on those without any higher education and little or no work experience.