So say the heads of the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union and the
employers’ organisations the Transport Group and the Swedish Road
Transport Employers’ Association, who are planning a joint trip to
Norway and Finland to study their systems of universal applicability.
But other trade unions and employers’ organisations are resisting. In
Sweden and Denmark, collective agreements are only binding for
employers who join them voluntarily. The other Nordic countries, as
well as most EU/EEA countries, have so-called universally applicable
collective agreements. This means that all employers within the scope
of the agreement are obliged to pay wages and fulfil any other terms as
defined in the collective agreement, whether they want to or not.
For a long time there has been nearly deafening agreement between
the social partners in Sweden that the country should not go down that
road. It would be alien to the Swedish model. During 2013, however,
cracks have begun to show in that consensus.
At a seminar during the so-called politics week in Sweden’s
Almedalen last summer, the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union’s leader
Lars Lindgren noted that the collective agreement’s position was
becoming so weakened that you would have to start thinking about
introducing universally applicable collective agreements in Sweden. It
is not surprising that he of all people was the first to bring this
issue to light. The transport sector has been the worst hit of all
industries by unhealthy competition. Trade unions and employers’
organisations agree on what is happening, and they highlight two core
challenges.
Against cabotage rules
One is the fact that foreign transport companies are permanently
running domestic routes within Sweden with drivers who are paid in
accordance with the rules in the country where the transport company is
registered, although this is in breach of the so-called cabotage rules.
These rules allow foreign companies to run domestic routes to a certain
extent so that they don’t have to return home with empty trucks, but
they don’t allow for this to carry on permanently.
Cheating with cabotage rules can not be dealt with by making the
collective agreement universally applicable, however. What is needed
here is more effective sanctions and for the police to take breaches of
these rules seriously and to act, say trade unions and employers.
The other challenge is found within the taxi trade. For a taxi
company it is a real coup to secure contracts with a municipality or a
county council to run publicly funded transport of citizens who are ill
or physically handicapped. But since these contracts are only awarded
to the lowest bidder it is no longer possible to secure the contract if
you pay your drivers according to the collective agreement. Which in
turn means fewer and fewer taxi firms want to join the collective
agreement. This is the problem universally applicable collective
agreements could help solve.
Great resistance
During the Almedalen seminar Lars Lindgren got some support from the
leaders of the Swedish Union for Service and Communications Employees
(SEKO) and IF Metall, who agreed universally applicable collective
agreements could represent a solution for some unions. As the debate
progressed throughout the autumn, however, it became clear that there
is still great resistance among trade unions and employers. Other trade
unions have far fewer problems defending the collective agreement’s
position than the transport union, and there is fear trade union
membership will fall if collective agreements become universally
applicable.
Yet the parties within the transport sector stick to their guns. In
the new year the leaders for the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union, the
Transport Group and the Swedish Road Transport Employers’ Association
will travel to Norway and Finland to see how things work there. The
Norwegian and Finnish systems are very different from each other. In
Norway universal applicability is only used when a trade is especially
exposed to what is called social dumping, and in that case there are
only certain parts of the collective agreement – usually those
concerning wages and working hours – which are made universally
applicable. In Finland, however, all national collective agreements
with a certain degree of coverage are made universally applicable, and
in reality nearly all of the labour market is covered by such
agreements.
The debate over how things should look in Sweden is set to
continue.
