Response to interpellation 2023/24:395 on the safety representatives' connection to the trade unions

Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! I have been asked whether I and the government intend to change the current order for how local safety representatives are appointed as a rule.

I would like to start by thanking Teresa Carvalho for her commitment to the issue. I am convinced that we both share the view that safety representatives play a very important role for effective work environment work for safe and secure workplaces.

The Government tasked Arbetsmiljöverket on 14 September 2023 to submit proposals that could lead to more employees wanting to engage in the role of safety representative. The assignment shall be reported by 30 April 2024 at the latest.

The background to the assignment is the worrying development that involves more and more employees working at workplaces that lack safety representatives. An important link in effective local work environment work is therefore that more people take the step to engage as safety representatives and that more people want to stay longer in the role of safety representative.

There are today too many workplaces that lack safety representatives. It also follows that there are too many workplaces where there is a high risk that there are deficiencies in the important work of identifying risks for work-related ill health, fatal accidents, and other serious accidents.

From the complete assignment, which can be read on the government's website, it appears that it is not included in the assignment to submit proposals for constitutional amendments. The assignment therefore does not involve any change to the employees' organizations' right to appoint safety representatives with the support of the Work Environment Act. The assignment also does not involve any shift that implies that safety representatives should be able to be appointed by the employer.

According to the Work Environment Act (1977:1166), safety representatives are in principle always appointed by the local workers' organization, which is or usually is bound by a collective agreement in relation to the employer. However, it also explicitly appears from the Work Environment Act that safety representatives in certain cases can be appointed directly by the employees. There is no legal requirement that a safety representative must be a member of a workers' organization.

According to the assignment, the Swedish Work Environment Authority shall, during implementation, engage in dialogue with the parties in the labor market and other social actors that the authority deems relevant. I look forward to taking part in the results of this work and the Swedish Work Environment Authority's reporting on the assignment.

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Teresa Carvalho (S)

Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by thanking the Minister for the answer. The background to my question is that the government has tasked the Swedish Work Environment Authority with submitting proposals for measures so that more people will want to engage in the role of safety representative. That sounds good. Safety representatives are vital; they literally save lives. We naturally share the view that more people are needed who are willing to engage in the work environment at the workplace and to take on the role of safety representative.

But in this assignment to Arbetsmiljöverket, there is a formulation that has caused many to react. It is truly not just me and the Socialdemokraterna who have reacted, but also the trade union central organizations, which collectively represent 3.5 million wage earners, and additionally some of the country's more distinguished occupational health experts. It concerns this formulation: "The Government considers that measures need to be taken so that more employees than today will want to engage as safety representatives, regardless of whether the safety representatives or the employees have a trade union affiliation or not."

One could say that it is on good grounds that many of us have interpreted this as the government now opening up to decoupling safety representatives from the unions, not least against the background that the Liberal Party, but also the other Tidö parties, have previously championed precisely this issue. The Liberal Party wrote, for example, as follows in their motion to the Riksdag shortly before the election: "The regional safety representatives should be replaced by a new and more purposefully designed function. The main rule for the local safety representatives should no longer be that they shall be appointed by the local workers' organizations."

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Liberals have so far pushed the issue of decoupling safety representatives from the unions. This would mean that we get more non-unionized safety representatives, and that is serious. Non-unionized safety representatives mean clipped-wing, lonely, and weaker safety representatives. And weaker safety representatives would lead to more dangerous workplaces. Safety representatives, for example, cannot pursue legal disputes on their own or are not even expected to be able to stand their ground when the boss does not do what is required for a good working environment. It is not for nothing that many are already afraid of reprisals when deficiencies are pointed out to the employer.

The dependency becomes naturally even more tangible if one has an insecure employment. It is therefore clearly no coincidence that there are also fewer safety representatives in trade unions in industries with many insecure employments.

That is also why the regional safety representatives are incredibly important, because they have access to more workplaces where there is no safety committee. That was also why we Social Democrats in government submitted a bill proposing that the regional safety representatives should be granted access to even more workplaces, but the right-wing majority in the Riksdag, as is known, voted no.

I note that the Minister says that it is not part of Arbetsmiljöverket's mandate to propose constitutional amendments, but that does not exclude it either. Therefore, I actually want to know two things: Have the Liberals changed their opinion on this issue? And can Paulina Brandberg promise not to do anything that results in a change to the unions' priority right to appoint local safety representatives?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! To begin with, I want to clarify that I stand here in the role of Minister and speak for the policy that the government is pursuing. This interpellation concerns a government decision that the government made in September. It is also an issue that we have discussed here in the chamber. I answered an interpellation from Ciczie Weidby on precisely the same subject in October last year, and I have also had discussions with Teresa Carvalho about exactly the same issue when we had a special debate here in the Riksdag about the fatal accidents, but I am happy to clarify again what the mandate that the government has given concerns.

This government sees it as incredibly worrying that more and more workplaces are left without local safety representatives. We believe that the local safety representatives have an important role in the daily work environment work out at our workplaces. The government has therefore seen it as necessary to take measures so that more people will want to engage as safety representatives.

As Teresa Carvalho is well aware, we have today an arrangement where we have two ways in which safety representatives can be appointed. There are non-union safety representatives and there are union safety representatives. The Government has not wanted to make any limitations in the assignment, but we think it is important to see how we can, above all, get more safety representatives. It is against this background that we have given the assignment. We have explicitly written that there should be no limitations, but that it shall concern both the union and the non-union safety representatives.

I, as a minister, and the government are, of course, aware that there are different regulatory frameworks for the union and non-union safety representatives. They are protected by different laws - the union safety representatives are protected by the förtroendemannalagen, while the non-union ones have their protection in the arbetsmiljölagen, which provides a weaker protection. That is entirely correct.

However, we believe that this situation is urgent, and the issue of workplace accidents and safety in the workplace has also become even more relevant since this assignment was given. I therefore want to clarify what the assignment entails. We have not commissioned a change to any existing regulation, but it is an assignment that solely aims to see how we can get more safety representatives in our workplaces.

I can bounce the question back to Teresa Carvalho. Do the Social Democrats drive the issue of changing the current regulations and removing the non-union safety representatives? What consequences do you see this would have, given that we would then have even fewer local safety representatives at our workplaces?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Teresa Carvalho (S)

Madam Speaker! The Minister shall have another turn. Can the Minister promise not to do anything that results in a change of the unions' priority right to appoint local safety representatives - yes or no?

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Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! The Government has no policy where we in any way attempt to drive a wedge between the unions and the local safety representatives.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Teresa Carvalho (S)

Madam Speaker! I suspect here that the Minister is trying to dismiss our concern that what the government is doing with this assignment is precisely to separate the safety representative from the unions. But if there is no such concern because this is not explicitly what the assignment entails, it should also not be a problem for the Minister to promise that nothing will be done that results in a change of the current order, where the unions have the right of priority to appoint the local safety representatives.

We have no proposals for changes in this area at all. But we Social Democrats, like the three central trade union organizations, which together represent 3.5 million wage earners, fear that it is precisely this that the mandate aims for, in accordance with what both the Liberals and the Sweden Democrats and other Tidö parties have clearly pushed for in this chamber, namely that one wants to decouple safety representatives from the unions.

The Minister shall be given one last chance. Can Paulina Brandberg promise not to do anything that will result in changing the unions' priority right to appoint local safety representatives? It is a fairly simple question: yes or no, Paulina Brandberg?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! I am a bit perplexed. One can read just before what the government has given the mandate, and it explicitly states that it shall take place within the framework of the current constitution. Nevertheless, it is claimed in the debate that this cannot be interpreted in any other way than that we actually mean something completely different than what is stated in the government decision.

I would like to remind Teresa Carvalho that it is we in the government who hold the government power. If we had wanted to decide something other than what is stated in the decision, we would of course have written that. We do have the power to do so. But now, we have not done that.

If one wants to know what the government's intention is with its decision, it is sufficient to read it. It is what is written in the decision that is the government's policy and what the government has tasked Arbetsmiljöverket with. I look forward, as I have said, to receiving the result of this work from Arbetsmiljöverket on April 30 this year.

I thank you for today's debate.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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