Response to interpellation 2023/24:392 on measures to reduce deaths in the workplace
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that the government shares the commitment to reduce deaths in working life and that the employer has the responsibility for the work environment 1. L emphasizes that the government has taken measures by asking Arbetsmiljöverket to increase the number of unannounced inspections and that secrecy barriers will be removed to streamline the work against crime in working life 1 2. L argues that one must listen to the parties in the labor market before specific measures are taken 1 2. L believes that the government is ramping up the work against organized crime 2 3 and is allocating resources to Arbetsmiljöverket for more physical and unannounced inspections 4. S argues that the government is passive and that the political responsibility for the deaths lies with the sitting government 5. S believes that the government has not allocated sufficient resources to Arbetsmiljöverket 5 6. S argues that concrete measures should be taken, such as a crisis commission for the construction industry 5 7 6. S argues that the government is not acting on proposals to limit subcontractors or conduct needs assessments for labor immigration 7.
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! Teresa Carvalho has asked me whether I and the government will stand behind the proposal for a crisis commission for the construction industry and what measures I and the government intend to take to reduce deaths in working life.
I would like to start by thanking Teresa Carvalho for the commitment to these important issues, a commitment that I and the rest of the government fully share. It is important that we, across party lines, have a fundamental consensus on these serious issues, and it is a prerequisite for being able to set clear demands on all actors in the working life.
Every fatal accident is a tragedy for those involved and unacceptable for a modern working life. No one should have to die at or because of work. In 2023, with a total of 65 dead at our workplaces, it meant a very heavy and sad result, and a shocking reminder to all actors.
It deserves to be repeated that it is the employer who has the responsibility for the working environment according to the occupational health and safety legislation. During Arbetsmiljöverket's inspections of fatal accidents, it can often be established that there have been deficiencies in the systematic work environment management, that proper risk assessments have not been carried out for the work task to be performed, or that safety measures have not been taken or have been deficient.
Employers must prevent both fatal accidents and the occupational health risks that lead to ill health in the long term. In this work, it is very important to have knowledge about the work environment and where the risks exist, as well as how these can be prevented.
The government has taken a number of measures to reduce the number of fatal accidents in working life.
It can be mentioned here that the government has asked Arbetsmiljöverket to report back on what measures they have taken to increase the number of physical unannounced inspections, in order to increase the possibility of detecting employers who have deficiencies. I can add that the Agency for Work Environment Knowledge is to deliver an evaluation of the use of sanction fees to the government in March. I look forward to receiving that evaluation.
Regarding the specific question about what Teresa Carvalho designates as a crisis commission for the construction industry, I mean that the strength of the work on the work environment is to first and foremost listen to those who possess a broad and comprehensive knowledge of how work environment issues are handled in practice and close to the operations. I have therefore called in representatives for the labor market parties in the affected industries to listen to what they see as important to do, in both the short and long term, to reverse this development.
Teresa Carvalho (S)
Madam Speaker! The year 2023 became a pitch-black year when it comes to deaths in working life. Every death is, of course, a great tragedy. This misery must come to an end. This means that occupational health and safety policy must be sharpened and re-evaluated, and it is urgent. No one should have to die at or because of work.
That many fatal accidents occurred, more than in a very long time, last year is obviously not the government's fault. I want to be very clear about that. But with that said, I must also state that there is a political responsibility here, and the ultimate political responsibility is obviously borne by the sitting government. I am not saying that it is the government's fault that people die at work, but I am saying that the government must take measures to reverse the trend, especially now when the curves are pointing in the wrong direction.
I can unfortunately state that the government, despite the increased number of deaths, has been astonishingly passive, which in itself is not surprising. One can look back in history and see how it usually turns out when the right rules.
The last time we had a conservative Minister for Employment, the work environment policy was slaughtered. Massive cuts were made, for example, to Arbetsmiljöverket. After the Alliance government's cuts, we Social Democrats gradually increased the resources. We adopted a national work environment strategy that contained a zero vision for fatal accidents, which the right-wing parties first voted against. We established the Agency for Work Environment Knowledge, and we launched a heavy offensive against cheating and crime in the working life. We also put forward a bill to give the regional safety representatives access to more workplaces, which the right-wing parties unfortunately used their majority in the Riksdag to vote down.
Despite everything that we Social Democrats did, there is clearly much left to do. This is a responsibility that now rests primarily on Paulina Brandberg and the Sverigedemokraterna, who also sit in Rosenbad. But it is obvious that this government has been taken by surprise by the fatal accidents.
In response to my one question about what the government is doing to counteract the fatal accidents, we are told that the government has done two things. They have tasked Arbetsmiljöverket with increasing the number of unannounced inspections, and they have called the parties together to listen to what ideas they have.
Listening is of course very good, but the time has come. Listening will not help either; that is something one must realize. Now it is about us having to move from listening and analyzing to taking concrete actions. Had the minister listened, she would have heard that, for example, Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet demands that the government appoints a crisis commission so that something happens now against the fatal accidents, in accordance with what we Social Democrats have also proposed.
It is obviously very good that there will be more unannounced inspections, but it becomes toothless when the government does not provide the resources that are needed.
Unfortunately, I can state that Arbetsmiljöverket was forced to cancel necessary recruitments of more inspectors last year due to exactly a lack of resources. Instead of ramping up, the government is actually telling the agency that it must now reprioritize, which very well may mean that other planned inspections that are more effective in addressing deficiencies in female-dominated industries with high stress issues will have to be scrapped.
The answer to my second question, regarding whether the government will stand behind our proposal to establish a crisis commission against death in the construction industry, I interpret as a clear and distinct no. If there will not be a crisis commission, I wonder: What does Paulina Brandberg intend to do more than listen?
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! This is also an issue that we have discussed previously in the chamber. But it is absolutely an important issue, so I am happy to continue discussing it.
When it comes to the work of reducing deaths in our Swedish workplaces, we must see what this appalling development is due to. That is where the core lies somewhere.
We see that we have challenges. It is, among other things, about that we must make it easier to do the right thing. Most employers in the Swedish labor market want to do the right thing. They want a good and healthy work environment for their employees. We must see how we can facilitate that work for them in different ways. We do this, among other things, through the assignment we have given on how we can get more local safety representatives, which we talked about in the previous debate.
We must also see that there are employers who do not want to do the right thing, who deliberately cheat and commit crimes. They make concessions from the safety work in a deliberate way at the expense of the workers' lives and health.
If we analyze why it looks the way it does right now, we can see that we have a strained economy. We have a construction industry in crisis. It is not difficult to imagine that it affects the death rates that we suddenly get a tougher situation for our construction companies. It becomes harder and harder for the serious employers to compete with the unserious employers.
The government is significantly ramping up this work. I must say it was positive that the previous government took the initiative for centers against work-related crime. Such a center managed to open before this government took office, and we have now established such centers in all police regions in Sweden.
What the previous government did not do, despite being in power for eight years, was to tear down the secrecy barriers that exist between authorities and which cause the joint work of the authorities to falter in these matters. This is urgent and completely decisive. If we are to have effective work against our labor market crime and if we are to reach the unserious actors, it is not enough to have the desks next to each other in these centers against labor market crime. One must also be able to exchange information with one another. The government will in the near future tear down these secrecy barriers so that we can ramp up the work in a way that is truly effective.
Speaking of the crisis commission, I will have a meeting next week with the labor market parties to truly listen to what they see as necessary measures. I have had contacts with them also earlier during the parliamentary term, but now we are going to focus specifically on the issue of fatal accidents. When it comes to what measures we take moving forward, I can say that the government sees that this is an acute situation. We rule out no measures moving forward, but I will first listen to what the parties see as necessary measures - both on the employer side and on the employee side.
Teresa Carvalho (S)
Madam Speaker! We seem to agree that it is no coincidence that many fatal accidents occur primarily in the industries that are heavily affected by cheating and crime in the working life. This includes the fact that the working environment is cheated on wildly, simply in order to make money. Therefore, it must become harder to cheat, easier to get caught, and more palpable to be punished.
I think it is very good that the current government says it stands behind the strategy that we Social Democrats developed specifically against fraud and crime in the labor market and that they are completing part of the work that we started, but I can simultaneously observe that the pace of reform has stalled and that there is significantly more talk than action in this area. Labor market crime is actually somewhat of a blind spot in the Tidö Agreement, where otherwise there is a great deal of talk about combating crime.
One might have to conclude that it is perhaps not primarily about this crime, as, after all, not particularly much has happened since the Tidö government took office. We Social Democrats began the work with several proposals, but for various reasons, we did not manage to complete it. Paulina Brandberg claims here that we did nothing to break the secrecy barrier, but that is not true. On the contrary, we left behind a finished proposal specifically to break the secrecy barriers linked to crime in the working life. One might wonder why the government has not yet presented the finished proposal on the floor of the Riksdag.
Will there be any increased sanction fees or any joint authority supplier control in public procurement? That is also what we are waiting for.
I also wonder if the government has intended to act on our proposal to limit the number of subcontractors who today are lined up in such long chains that the responsibility for the working environment tends to disappear along the way.
Why did the Sweden Democrats and the government throw our proposal on means-testing for labor migration into the wastebasket? The uniquely liberal regulatory framework that the previous Moderate-led government introduced enabled unscrupulous employers to trick people here and force them to work under completely despicable conditions that most Swedes would never ever accept.
And it is not only these things that the government is not acting on. We see that the list of government bills is empty and the budget tables are meager.
I can, however, inform the Minister that there is no copyright whatsoever on our proposals. They are welcome to take them directly. One such proposal that we are fighting hard for right now is that the government should appoint a crisis commission for the hard-hit construction industry. A cleanup is needed to address all the problems beyond the individual elevator and the lifting crane. Every stone must be turned over. It is about long chains of subcontractors, language barriers, and the fact that the working environment is cheated wildly to make money.
We have, however, understood that there will not be any crisis commission. Besides the Minister's rather evasive answer to the question here, it became apparent in the Committee on the Labour Market this week. The Sweden Democrats and the government parties have now chosen to delay and postpone the decision until the future to avoid having a specific debate on this. They do not dare to stand by that they will say no to a crisis commission. It is not only a betrayal of the workers who build Sweden; it is also cowardly, I believe, not to stand by one's policy.
I wonder how the government justifies to the country's construction workers that a crisis commission has not been appointed to counter the fatal accidents in the hard-hit construction industry.
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! I cannot help but think it is a bit absurd of Teresa Carvalho to claim that work-related crime is a blind spot in the Tidö Agreement and that it is a forgotten part of the government's policy. This is a government that in every way is ramping up the work against organized crime. This is visible, not least in our budget.
Madam Speaker! In 2022, we did not have a single indictment in Sweden regarding human trafficking. I worked as a prosecutor in 2022 with a focus on human trafficking, and I can tell you that it was not because we had no human trafficking to Sweden. We have extensive human trafficking to Sweden specifically within the industries that are most vulnerable to labor-related crime, so one might ask why we have no indictments. Yes, it is because we have skyrocketing crime that has put the justice system under enormous pressure.
Madam Speaker! In 2012, we had the same number of police in proportion to the population size as we had in 2022. Despite the skyrocketing crime development, the Social Democrats did nothing to ensure that the justice system could adapt to this development and ensure that both gang crime, which is the focus of much of the debate, and also other crime linked to the development we have, were pushed back.
The government is ramping up that work, because precisely to tackle the crime in the labor market, if we are talking about that issue, is absolutely crucial to reverse the development and remove the unserious actors who both expose their employees to enormously large risks and compete out the serious actors on our labor market.
Madam Speaker! Otherwise, I want to repeat what I have said previously, namely that the government does not rule out any measures moving forward. However, there are things and matters in motion. I will meet the labor market parties next week. We also have a mandate to Mynak, which is currently conducting an evaluation of the system of sanction fees. It is a report that I will receive in March this year. I will, of course, not anticipate it in any way, but I will carefully take it in when it finally arrives to see if there is anything we need to address in that regard.
Madam Speaker! Since I am not only the Deputy Minister for Employment but also Sweden's Minister for Equality, I would like to take the opportunity to point out that now that we are talking a lot about fatal accidents, it is very important that we do not forget those who die and become ill from work. In that case, we have a majority of women, while the majority of those who die at work are men.
There is a clear equality aspect here, and it is important that in our work moving forward with the measures we take, we do not miss those who become ill and die from their work. It is easy for that to fall into the shadows here.
Teresa Carvalho (S)
Madam Speaker! I want to start by thanking Paulina Brandberg for taking this debate with me today. I want to particularly thank her for what she concluded with. It is a very important perspective, and it is also the basis for why we are concerned that the toothless mandate that the government has given to Arbetsmiljöverket to increase the proportion of unannounced inspections risks occurring at the expense of the announced inspections, which can more accurately detect deficiencies in the working environment in the female-dominated industries. It is therefore important that we take that with us.
I would like to conclude by bringing the debate back to what it is about, that is, the fatal accidents and that no one should have to die at or because of work. Here, I unfortunately have to state that my feeling that the government is somewhat taken aback by the fatal accidents still remains, as both concrete measures and resources for Arbetsmiljöverket are conspicuously absent.
We Social Democrats demand that the government act so that 2024 does not become a year as pitch-black as 2023. We want the government to immediately appoint a crisis commission for the construction industry, which is the worst affected. I truly expected that the Sweden Democrats and the governing parties would gratefully comply with this proposal and move forward with it in broad agreement here in the Riksdag. But to my surprise, we were informed this week that the Tidö parties instead choose to delay the issue and postpone the decision until the future to avoid taking responsibility for it. It is obvious that there will be no crisis commission – that is also what we hear from the Minister. It seems mostly to be an administrative filibuster to avoid taking responsibility for their reckless attitude toward death at work.
I mean that it is a betrayal of the workers who build Sweden, and I urge the government to rethink this issue. Listen at least to the Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet, which also wants this crisis commission. Now enough is enough with death at work!
Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)
Madam Speaker! If we are to begin with the resources for the Swedish Work Environment Authority: The Government has added resources, and I have also received notification from the Swedish Work Environment Authority that they intend to hire more work environment inspectors in order to be able to carry out the assignment they have received from the Government, which is to carry out more physical and unannounced inspections.
Regarding the resource issue, I can also state that within the Social Democrats' government base, there are both parties that want to increase the appropriations and parties that want to decrease the appropriations to Arbetsmiljöverket. The result of what would happen if the Social Democrats were in government is therefore written in the stars.
I would, however, like to thank Teresa Carvalho for the debate. I hope that we will be able to continue the discussion moving forward. There is a lot happening in the near future in connection with the discussion with the parties and the various assignments that will be reported both from the Swedish Work Environment Authority (Myndigheten för arbetsmiljökunskap) and from the Swedish Work Environment Authority (Arbetsmiljöverket), and the government will, as said, not rule out any measures. We can, in fact, never accept as a normal situation that so many people both die and are injured and fall ill at and because of work.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.