Response to interpellation 2023/24:279 on staffing of the Swedish Work Environment Authority and the centers against work-life crime
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L believes that combating crime in the workplace is a priority 1. L argues that Arbetsmiljöverket has higher appropriations in 2024 than in 2023, intends to recruit inspectors, perform more unannounced inspections 1 2 and that the government is making historical investments in the justice system 1 2. L claims that the government is making a historical investment against workplace crime, removing secrecy barriers 3 and increasing the appropriation to Arbetsmiljöverket by 40 million kronor in the budget for 2024 4. S argues that the government is not financing more inspections but is taking from other parts 5, that more resources are needed for more inspections 5 and that measures are needed so that companies that want to do the right thing are not pressured by competition from companies that take shortcuts. S argues that the government has had difficulty incorporating knowledge from the parties 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! Patrik Lundqvist has asked me what I and the government intend to do to ensure that Arbetsmiljöverket can resume the recruitment of the inspectors the authority needs as soon as possible to fulfill the missions it has.
I would like to start by thanking you for the question and saying that I share the commitment. One of the most prioritized issues for the government is to combat crime in society. This fight against crime also naturally includes crime in the workplace. A central starting point for our policy is furthermore that no one should die or be injured as a result of their work.
Crime in the labor market is a societal problem and leads to many negative consequences. Not only is competition distorted so that serious entrepreneurs are competed out by unscrupulous companies, but labor market crime is also a source of income for serious organized crime. Furthermore, labor is exploited in various sophisticated ways so that insecurity in the labor market increases, not least through human exploitation which is the most serious form of labor market crime. It is therefore important to combat crime, fraud, and abuse linked to the labor market.
We will work to continue the development of, among other things, the joint agency controls and the work with the regional centers against crime in the labor market. It is already clear that the joint inspections provide added value compared to if the agencies were to only conduct the work against crime in the labor market within their own line organizations. To further increase the efficiency of the measures against crime in the labor market, work is currently underway in the Government Offices regarding a referral to the Council of State in connection with the departmental report Expanded information exchange (Ds 2022:13).
The government is working jointly and on a broad front to achieve the shift that is truly needed so that we can reverse the development regarding the crime that we see in far too many areas, not least in the labor market. The Swedish Work Environment Authority's supervisory activities are an important part of this work. The fundamental purpose of the Swedish Work Environment Authority's supervision is to ensure that employers comply with the work environment legislation. According to the agency's instructions, supervision should primarily be planned based on analyses of work environment risk and the risk that actors deliberately break the regulations. How this work is carried out and which categories of employees shall perform the supervision is, however, something that the Swedish Work Environment Authority itself has to plan and decide on. In this context, I want to highlight the work currently underway to build up and develop centers against labor market crime and to strengthen the inspection activities.
One task for the government is to provide the authorities with the best possible conditions to carry out their assignments in a good way. According to the budget bill for 2024, which the government has submitted to the Riksdag, the administrative grant for Arbetsmiljöverket is higher in 2024 than in 2023. This grant may be used for, among other things, work environment inspections regarding crimes in the working life.
I assume that the Swedish Work Environment Authority fulfills its duties in an efficient, well-balanced, and purposeful manner, not least in the area of supervision. The question of inspections within the area of work-life crime is important, and I will, of course, continue to actively follow the issue.
Patrik Lundqvist (S)
Madam Speaker! It sounds absolutely excellent that the Minister shares the commitment and the view that we have quite large problems in this area. We have had a terrible week behind us, starting with a construction lift that collapsed with five deaths as a result. We have also seen more deaths, including at Northvolt and one death when a machine went through the ice. Today, a lift collapsed in Gothenburg, which fortunately was without any injuries, as I understand. Several lifts of the same model have been stopped in Western Sweden - for some reason however not in all of Sweden, which feels like an odd solution, I want to say. But it is naturally not the Minister's personal responsibility.
It is true that the appropriations to Arbetsmiljöverket are higher in 2024 than in 2023. The basis for the question I asked here, however, is that a major investment was made in 2023 so that staff could be hired to properly man the akrim centers, but it was stopped due to the high inflation last year. This has not been compensated for.
In the budget for 2023, the government estimated that the appropriations for 2024 would amount to approximately 858 million. In the budget bill now, it is 855. It is clear that it is more than in the budget for 2023, but it is also less than what was forecasted for the coming year in the 2023 budget. Of this, furthermore, 22 million are price and wage increases, so there will not be much left for expanded investments in this area.
The question remains: How does the government intend to compensate for the loss created by inflation, which has resulted in not being able to hire as much as was planned?
The A-crime center is a very good initiative that we brought here during the previous parliamentary term from, among other places, Norway, where they have worked with good results in this way. We naturally would like to see this continue, and I understand that the new government shares that ambition.
In this issue, there are also a lot of other things. Among other things, it concerns contractor chains - there were 19 companies on the construction site when the elevator in Sundbyberg collapsed, and probably more were involved in the construction in total. The fact that there are so many companies in the same place makes the distribution of responsibility a bit blurry. One can point at each other to a very large extent and say that it is their responsibility and not ours. All companies can do that. We also see this when investigations stall or take an enormous amount of time because one doesn't quite succeed in untangling this.
Something needs to be done here. I really hope that the government will turn away from the stance that the governing parties had during the last parliamentary term when they blocked attempts at such changes.
Today we have also heard a proposal from Jessica Löfström that companies that have used illegal black labor should be barred from public procurement. I think that sounds like a very good step forward to solve such problems, at least a small step. This, together with increased penalties for those responsible and reduced contractor chains, I believe is the long-term solution that we can politically develop in these issues.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Madam Speaker! It is difficult to have this debate in the chamber today without mentioning the fatal accidents that have occurred during the past week. It is so horrific and inconceivable and so totally unacceptable. At the same time, it is incredibly good that it is being highlighted, that it is coming up on the agenda and that it is visible in the media - that it is visible, mentioned and puts pressure on these issues, because it is so incredibly necessary.
What happened last week is not a coincidence. It is so many people who die every year at their work - because they go to work. This is a development that we have seen in the Swedish labor market for a longer period. That was why we in the Social Democratic government appointed and started the work to get the a-krim centers, because we needed to see an agency cooperation.
It is good that this government continues this. But I still have questions about what this government intends to do to continue to maintain the work against crime in the labor market. In combination with our desire for these centers to emerge across the country, we had also simultaneously commissioned an inquiry to assess the need for labor immigration, which is also an important part of the work to get order and clarity on the Swedish labor market.
That means-test, however, threw this government into the wastebasket quite quickly. I truly regret that this government did that, because it would have been important that we had had it by this point and that it had come forward with proposals in this area.
We Social Democrats see that more inspections are needed. This government says that it also wants them, but it is not financing more inspections. You are taking from other parts, but I do not know which part of the work environment and the Swedish Work Environment Authority you are supposed to take it from. We think that more resources are needed to carry out more inspections.
At the same time, as my colleague previously said, recruitment has been stopped because there was no money to have more inspectors. I also think that is incredibly unfortunate. I truly hope that this government reviews this moving forward.
This is a development based on deeply criminal networks where people cheat to earn more money – for that is ultimately what it is about. It requires major efforts from society to get this right, and it requires that it is prioritized very highly. It is therefore good that it is on the agenda and that it is made visible. I hope that we continue to ensure that it becomes equally visible.
Madam Speaker! I have had my father in the construction industry for over 35 years, and this morning I told him to work carefully. I have said that for many years. He has seen much of the development that has occurred over a long period of time.
My question to the Minister is: Are you prepared to give Arbetsmiljöverket more resources so that they can carry out more inspections?
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! When the interpellation and its answers were written, none of us knew how burning and acute this issue would unfortunately become. I can only agree with what others have expressed here: Last week was an incredibly dark week during a year that has also been incredibly dark.
It is important that we take all possible measures to reduce the death rates. We can never accept it as a normal situation that people go to their jobs and never come home again.
If we are to come to grips with the fatal accidents, we naturally need to ensure that it becomes easy for those who want to do the right thing: the vast majority of employers in Sweden who want to have a solid safety effort. We must make it easier for them to do the right thing, but we must simultaneously focus on exactly what we are talking about here today: occupational crime. We must see that we also have employers who make conscious deviations from, for example, safety regulations and who make a profit at the expense of the employees' safety and health. We must take a firm stand against this.
The government has during the year continued the expansion of the so-called serious crime centers. We now have one in place in every police region. In response to the question regarding the staffing of the serious crime centers, I can say that the Work Environment Authority currently has seven regional coordinators for the mission of cooperation against serious crime. There are also two national coordinators, and in addition to this, we have resources from other agencies that are also part of the initiative.
If we are to tackle crime in the workplace, we cannot place the entire responsibility on Arbetsmiljöverket. We will not get all the way there; instead, what we need are investments in more agencies, not least in the law enforcement agencies, where we unfortunately have had a major lack of resources for a long time.
Despite having had a crime development that has been completely skyrocketing, in 2022 we had the same number of police officers in relation to the population size as we had in 2012. This means that we have had difficulty breaking the gang crime that plagues our society, but also breaking other forms of crime in our society. Last year, not a single indictment was filed against human trafficking in Sweden.
The government is making historical investments in the justice system to be able to combat crime in the workplace from several different angles. At the same time, we have increased the appropriation to Arbetsmiljöverket, which has announced that they intend to continue the recruitment of workplace environment inspectors. In recent years, we have also increased the number of workplace environment inspectors, and the plan is to continue even during next year.
At the same time, the Swedish Work Environment Authority has stated that they intend to increase the number of inspections, which I am very pleased about because the government this week will make a decision to mandate the Swedish Work Environment Authority to perform not only more inspections but also more unannounced inspections. This, we believe, is an important key. It is absolutely not the entire solution, but it is a key in continuing this work.
Patrik Lundqvist (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank you very much for the answer.
It is true that it will be a few extra kronor even to Arbetsmiljöverket, but it does not quite correspond with the increase in ambition that I believe we would all like to see just for that part.
The trick when one says that one wants things is to ensure that money accompanies them so that they can also be implemented properly. Arbetsmiljöverket is naturally recruiting – that is what one does all the time – but not at the rate that would be needed and not at the rate that one had the ambition to do a year ago, before inflation ensured that the money that had been allocated was not enough for any increase in ambition.
It is this that is the core of why we are standing here today: Something extra needs to be done to ensure that one reaches the ambition that existed at one time and which I perceive that we all still have, even if the resources do not exist just today.
It is correct as the Minister says that we cannot expect the inspections alone to ensure that the problems in the labor market regarding the working environment disappear. A key in the activity that the a-krim center works with is, however, that Arbetsmiljöverket and its inspectors constitute the authority that can enter workplaces and carry out inspections without major suspicion.
They can also do this together with others because they have an inspection responsibility that others do not have. Therefore, it is important that they have resources so that they can keep up with and lead the other authorities when they go out to do their jobs at the workplaces.
In addition to this, I want to once again highlight that we need further legislation in this area. It is high time to ensure that the contractor chains are limited so that we gain control over who is present at our workplaces.
What I understand is that at least two of those who died in Sundbyberg did not have an approved ID06, which is the industry's own identification to show who has the right to be on the construction site and who does not. This is, of course, serious.
Measures are also needed to ensure that the rules are followed and so that the companies that want to do the right thing, as the minister pointed out, have the opportunity to do so without competition from companies that take shortcuts and that skimp in order to make extra profits with people's lives and limbs as the stake.
Even though the majority of the companies on a construction site want to do the right thing, this means nothing for those who work at these companies if they happen to stand in an elevator that a fly-by-night and fraudulent company has installed and said is okay. For them, it doesn't matter.
We must, for everyone's sake, ensure that everyone can do the right thing and that one is not pressured by others who do wrong to try to find their own shortcuts to cut costs a bit and manage the harsh competition within the construction sector.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Madam Speaker! During the last half-year and year, we have had a number of debates in this chamber that shed light on these problems in order to try to draw the government's attention to them even further and to set such an agenda. Today is another such day when we have the opportunity to have this debate.
I want to be very specific with my question to the Minister: Why did you scrap the inquiry on means-tested labor? Why has it been quite difficult for the government to incorporate the knowledge that the parties possess in a number of issues? You appoint a labor market policy council without a single party from the labor market, where perhaps the absolute greatest competence exists regarding what the Swedish labor market looks like, not least concerning crime in the working life.
I completely agree that it is not only Arbetsmiljöverket that needs to act. That is why I am now mentioning the parties. But other authorities are also needed in this work. We show this with, among other things, these a-krim centers.
There may be an opportunity now, given that the Minister says that this government wants to take decisive action. I do not quite know what "decisive action" means in that sense. But we may be able to see it in the regulatory letters that are now being written to a number of agencies and that one also points out the crime in the working life in these regulatory letters. But I can only stand here and hope, and then we will see after Christmas and New Year what these regulatory letters contain.
My questions are: Why did you shut down the inquiry on means-tested labor? Will we see more resources for Arbetsmiljöverket? And will we see anything in the regulatory letters?
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! Yes, this government is raising the ambition when it comes to the work against crime against the working life.
It becomes a bit strange when I hear what both the interpellor and Sofia Amloh say when they criticize the government for not investing in this. But the Social Democrats have sat in government for eight years and let shadow societies spread throughout Swedish society, not least in the Swedish labor market. Crime has taken hold in all parts of the Swedish social body, and crime in the working life is no exception.
This government has made a historic investment specifically in tackling crime. It is visible in our budget, in the Tidö Agreement, and in all the policies we implement.
That the Social Democrats took the initiative for a center against workplace crime was positive – absolutely. That is what this government thinks. What was not so positive was that the Social Democrats, during the time they were in power, missed the detail that if we are to have a functioning agency cooperation against workplace crime, it also presupposes that these agencies can talk to each other and can share information with each other. The Social Democrats forgot that detail that for this to work, we must tear down the secrecy barriers between our agencies. This government does that.
We have established these centers against crime against working life. But we know that it will not become truly effective until we have dismantled the secrecy barriers, and we are doing that at full speed in this government.
We also need to focus in this work on the industries that are particularly affected. And there, the construction industry is one of the industries that stands out. The Government will therefore continue to place a focus on this. When we see this widespread shadow society, we also know that it becomes harder and harder for all those employers who want to do the right thing and who suddenly have to compete more and more with unscrupulous actors.
This is a question that is even more relevant now that we find ourselves in a recession where we see that there are fewer and fewer construction projects and that the competition for the construction jobs that do exist is becoming harder and harder. The risk obviously increases then that more and more companies want to compete with a low price and thus take shortcuts when it comes to safety. And the price for that is paid by the workers.
Regarding the question from Sofia Amloh, I can say that this government is looking at how we can access the labor in Sweden that is brought here simply to be exploited here. We have taken a different path. Instead, we are proceeding with a low-wage floor which we believe will become an effective measure against this issue. Our goal is absolutely the same, namely to eliminate the shadow society and to eliminate the import of labor where workers are exploited and abused on the Swedish labor market.
Patrik Lundqvist (S)
Madam Speaker! It is very pleasant that the right-wing parties in the government finally seem to have woken up and now think they are making historical investments that should have been made a long time ago. The fact is that when we previously have tried to create unity and, for example, limit entrepreneur chains or ensure that regional chief safety representatives can get into workplaces to do their jobs and curb this activity, the right-wing parties have been against it and have struck it down.
Now they are beating their chests and saying: Now, damn it, we are going to do what you have not done.
If they had been involved from the beginning, we might not have needed to have this situation today. Then we could have come much further.
We have also done quite a lot to break down the secrecy barriers. But Paulina Brandberg may well have to go back and take a look at what previous governments have done to break down the secrecy barriers, as it seems that she has not read up on this area.
Once again, the Minister does not quite answer the question: How do we manage to achieve the increase in ambition that existed at one point in time but was eaten up by the inflation that ensured that Arbetsmiljöverket was forced to stop the recruitment and the increase in ambition? We still stand there without an answer, and I find that a bit disappointing. But I can also understand that the Minister cannot, here and now, provide information on increased budget allocations. There is, of course, an order for how that is handled in the government. So I suppose I must be satisfied with this.
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! As I said earlier, the government is increasing the appropriation to Arbetsmiljöverket by 40 million kronor in the budget for 2024.
It is also important to ensure that Arbetsmiljöverket is given the right conditions to truly carry out effective work. If one looks at 2022, Arbetsmiljöverket returned 9 million kronor of the administrative grant they had received. We are increasing the grant, and we will also take measures to ensure that Arbetsmiljöverket can be given the best possible conditions to carry out its incredibly important operations.
With this said, I am glad that we have had this debate here today, for this is an issue that deserves to be highlighted. And unfortunately, we have been extra reminded of how important it is to move forward with these issues.
I will in the near future call upon representatives from the labor market parties and other relevant actors to find the measures that can actually work to push down these death tolls.
In the situation we find ourselves in, we can never accept that so many people lose their lives at work. And I exclude no measures in this work to move forward. It is a matter of life and death for workers in Sweden. And it is not worthy of our labor market that so many should lose their lives.
Thank you for this debate, and I hope that we will have reason to debate these issues in the future as well.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.