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WORKING IN SWEDEN

Sweden’s tech workers launch push for union deal with Spotify

Three of Sweden's leading white-collar unions have sent a formal request to the Spotify music streaming service, calling on them to start negotiations over a collective agreement.

Published: 12 April 2023 16:34 CEST
Sweden's tech workers launch push for union deal with Spotify
Spotify's headquarters in Stockholm. Photo: Magnus Hjalmarson Neideman/SvD/TT

Engineers of Sweden, Unionen, and Akavia submitted the request to Spotify on Wednesday, April 12th, saying that they hoped to strike the first collective agreement with the company “as soon as possible”. 

“Spotify’s technical solutions have revolutionised how sound is consumed. Now it’s high time for the company to break new ground as an employer by signing a collective agreement,” Ulrika Lindstrand, president of Engineers of Sweden, said in a press statement. 

She said that the increased influence for employees and opportunities for collaboration with the relevant unions would be positive for the streaming service’s business, strengthening its ability to handle difficult business changes and take on challenges. 

“This is our second negotiation request in the tech industry in a short time. It is both a way to extend a hand and at the same time give a clear push in the right direction,” Lindstrand said. “More fast-growing technology companies need to take the step and join the Swedish model of employee participation. Now is the time.” 

Ulrika Lindstrand, chair of Engineers of Sweden. Photo: Engineers of Sweden

Under Sweden’s Co-Determination in the Workplace Act, or Lag om medbestämmande i arbetslivet (MBL), companies are required by law to start negotiations over a collective bargaining agreement as soon as possible after receiving a request. 

In the press release, the unions said that the agreement would apply only to the company’s employees in Sweden, both at its offices in Stockholm and in Gothenburg where a large proportion of the company’s Swedish engineers are based. 

The approach to Spotify comes two weeks after the same three unions submitted a request for collective bargaining to the payments company Klarna. Public formal negotiations have not yet begun with Klarna. 

Spotify in January announced plans to reduce its global workforce by about six percent, which Martin Linder, the chair Unionen, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper had led to increased interest in a collective agreement among the company’s Swedish workforce. 

“We are convinced that the Swedish labour model is fundamentally a competitive advantage for Swedish companies and not a handicap,” he said. “We hope to be able to convince Spotify about that.”

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WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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