EU & Labour Law

Does the Uber driver have an employer? Is the ‘self-employed’ actually an employee? And what will the zero hours worker live from if he or she does not get to work enough hours?

Employers who have signed a collective agreement should be able to trust that the peace obligation still stands. So argue the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise and the trade union confederations LO, TCO and Saco.

The European Commission is moving at pace to make the European Pillar of Social Rights a reality. In March it presented what it called a ‘Social Fairness Package’, where it proposed that the EU should establish a European labour authority to make sure EU rules on issues including the posting of workers and the coordination…

Is the EU about to take over member states’ prerogative to regulate employment and working conditions? Yes, this is what may happen if the Commission’s proposal for a directive ‘for more transparent and predictable working conditions in the European Union’ is passed, warn both trade unions and employers in Sweden.

After nearly ten years of quarrelling, the Swedish trade union for construction workers (Byggnads) and their counterparts at the Swedish Construction Federation (BI) have agreed what the “minimum rates of pay” for constructions workers posted to Sweden should comprise. The parties think the same conditions should apply for public procurement of construction projects.

A long-running conflict in the port of Gothenburg has made the Swedish government consider changes in regulations covering industrial action. The reason the conflict has lasted for so long is a seemingly unsolvable fight for positions between two trade unions which both represent dockworkers.

Swedish trade unions will again be able to take industrial action in order to get foreign companies to sign collective agreements for their posted workers. That is what the Swedish government proposes, arguing the limitations introduced through the so-called lex Laval go too far. In practice the difference might not be quite as dramatic as…

We urge that the proposed European Pillar of Social Rights takes into account the special features of our labour markets and respects the role played by the social partners in the Nordic Region. That is what the Nordic countries’ labour ministers write in a joint declaration to the European Commission.