Response to interpellation 2023/24:51 on workplace accidents

Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! Jim Svensk Larm has asked me if I intend to provide an update of the work environment strategy and when we can expect an update in that case, what measures I intend to take to stop the fatal accidents, and what concrete proposals I see as the most important to reduce the number of those who die prematurely due to illnesses and injuries as a result of work.

I want to start by thanking Jim Svensk Larm for the commitment to this important issue. No one should have to die as a result of their work. Every fatal accident is a tragedy for those involved and unacceptable for a modern working life. For the government, this is an important issue. It is the employer who has the responsibility for the working environment according to the occupational health and safety legislation. With knowledge and a systematic work environment process, the vast majority of fatal accidents and work-related deaths can be prevented. The Swedish Work Environment Authority has an important mission to carry out inspections at the country's workplaces to, among other things, see if there are deficiencies in the working environment. The authority has received large additions to its budget over the recent years. A reinforcement of the Work Environment Authority's inspection activities contributes to creating safe and secure workplaces.

In Arbetsmiljöverket's inspections of fatal accidents, it often appears that there have been deficiencies in the systematic work environment management and that the risk assessments for the work task to be performed were missing or were deficient. Often, safety measures were missing or were deficient.

Employers must prevent both fatal accidents and the occupational environment risks that lead to ill health in the long term. In this work, knowledge of the occupational environment and where the risks are, as well as how these can be prevented, is very important.

To handle occupational environment crimes, there is a structured cooperation between Arbetsmiljöverket, Polismyndigheten, and Åklagarmyndigheten. The cooperation has contributed to the investigation time regarding accidents with fatal outcomes having decreased and the number of employers and companies prosecuted for occupational environment crimes having increased in recent years. In the budget bill for 2023, major investments were made in the justice system, including more police officers and prosecutors.

The initiative on agency cooperation against crime in the working life continues and contributes to creating a safe working life where one does not need to risk life and health or be affected by crime and fraud.

Safety representatives also have an important role in creating safe and secure workplaces. Cooperation with safety representatives is important to reduce the risk of serious accidents.

The Work Environment Act stipulates that accidents and mishaps at work shall be prevented and that a good work environment shall be achieved. In the work environment strategy for 2021-2025, the government's long-term political direction for the area is specified. The implementation of the work environment strategy, which was developed by the previous government and which we are now continuing to work on, is an important part of strengthening the work to achieve the goal for work life policy. How the current strategy shall be evaluated and potentially updated, and how the development of the next strategy will look, we shall return to. The strategy applies, as is known, until 2025.

In the work environment strategy, one finds an expanded zero vision. No one should have to die at their work, but no one should also have to die from their work. It is about a zero vision against workplace accidents leading to death but also against work-related mortality due to, for example, long-term illness, cancer or suicide. Nothing other than a zero vision can apply for deaths as a result of work.

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Jim Svensk Larm (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer and the opportunity to debate the issue. When I submitted the interpellation, 36 people had lost their lives during 2023 as a result of an accident at their workplace. It is the highest figure during the same period in the last ten years. Last year, it was 49 people who did not come home from work.

Every death is a failure that could have been prevented. But all too often, risk assessments of the work to be performed are missing. Constantly working to improve the work environment is extremely important and something that must not be deprioritized. Every incident shall be reported and investigated, so that an accident does not occur next time. Through systematic work on the work environment, we prevent accidents in the best way and take all measures to avoid accidents in the future. That was why I submitted this interpellation to the Minister and asked if she intends to update the work environment strategy that we Social Democrats drew up during the last parliamentary term, as well as how we are to put a stop to these fatal accidents.

The Minister often thanks us members for our commitment to the issues, but what does the commitment look like for the Minister himself? Minister Brandberg has consistently refused to meet with the parties. However, we understood from the previous interpellation debate that it may be in the agency's regulatory letter to maintain that contact. Despite this, the three largest LO unions have tried to contact the Minister but have consistently been refused. The Minister has invited the parties and agencies to the Work Environment Forum to discuss measures within the work environment strategy, both on March 20 and on October 2. On both occasions, the Minister chooses not to be present.

Now, the Minister cannot even give an answer as to whether the work environment strategy will be updated when it expires in 2025. Will we even have any work environment strategy when the government is changed in 2026, or will the work environment strategy, like the government, be a thing of the past?

A year ago, the Minister was interviewed by Dagens Arbete. At that time, the Minister said that the work environment must be prioritized and that she was shocked by how many people die in accidents at our workplaces. Just a few weeks after the interview, it was time for the government to update the regulatory letters. One would then think that the Swedish Work Environment Authority's regulatory letter should certainly receive significant reinforcements regarding the work against fatal accidents. But that was not the case. Instead, Minister Brandberg chose to remove the assignment to report and analyze fatal accidents, work-related accidents, and occupational diseases from the Swedish Work Environment Authority's regulatory letter.

How is all of this to be interpreted? Should we listen to what the Minister says or look at what the Minister does? What commitment does the government and the Minister actually have for issues in the work environment area? Based on your actions, the feeling is that there is no direct commitment.

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Adrian Magnusson (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank both Jim Svensk Larm and the Minister Brandberg for a very pressing debate. We had a grim development during the summer; it is even to the point that children have died at their workplaces. It is extremely important that we in the legislative assembly discuss these types of issues. We as politicians can make a difference in many different ways.

I want to mention another dimension which, although it may not lead to people dying at their jobs, affects health extremely negatively and can lead to people eventually dying because of their job. It is a question of stress in working life. The other day, figures were released from Försäkringskassan showing that a record number of people are signing in for sick leave due to stress. It is, of course, women who are affected to the greatest extent. Försäkringskassan also confirms what most of us probably already knew, namely that it is women in welfare professions who are affected to the greatest extent.

Madam Speaker! Stress in working life caused by work is like a fog that hangs thick over quite a few workplaces in this country: in the elderly care homes, in the schools and in the offices. Civil servants are in many ways privileged. In few cases do you work as a civil servant with a large machine that can chop your arm off or end your life in a few seconds. But the stress, Madam Speaker, is very palpable for many civil servants.

I myself have a professional background from the public administration. Constant demands for efficiency, new public management, and a strong focus on various metrics drove people into a fog of stress. The physical symptoms were quite common, and in some cases, it went as far as sick leave.

The Swedish Association of Public Service Employees ST describes, for example, in the report Insufficient State – N, how the authorities' mandates and conditions do not align, how the so-called productivity deduction pressures employees within the state and is a clear workplace environment problem. For these people, my colleagues, who are often very loyal civil servants, the stress leads to ill health, both mental and physical, and deteriorates the quality of the very important work that the public administration engages in. It wears people out prematurely and causes the joy of work to wither away. Free time often suffers when work is taken home or large parts of free time are spent reflecting on work tasks.

Madam Speaker! I believe the Minister recognizes this description, as she has also worked within the civil service. Both the Minister and I are lawyers. I am sure that she, just like me, has seen friends and classmates suffer greatly from stress and perhaps even become burnt out. That is not how we create a sustainable working life.

For my fellow students, friends and colleagues and for all those who toil in the civil service and live with a sense of stress caused by work life, there is not that much to be thankful for just for now. The government is going to save even more money on the country's agencies. 1.1 billion kronor are to be saved next year. In a state budget that covers very much more, it can be perceived as very little. But I believe that there are many civil servants out there who would not agree with that when they receive those five cases on Friday from their group manager and then lie there on Sunday evening wondering how they will manage to finish them by Tuesday afternoon. Furthermore, the government seems to be on the verge of closing the Agency for Occupational Health Knowledge, which is also worrying.

We should not have to have it this way in the Swedish state administration, in the Swedish civil service, and in the country's workplaces. I expect more from a government.

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Johanna Haraldsson (S)

Madam Speaker! Not even one in ten deaths at workplaces between 2017 and 2021 led to any legal action against the employer. In 220 deaths, the investigations have been dropped in a large majority of the cases.

The employer has full responsibility for a safe and secure workplace and shall prevent accidents and ill health at work. In the Work Environment Act, it states that the employer shall take all measures necessary to prevent the employee from being exposed to ill health and accidents. Now that the responsibility is so clear, why is it then that so few are actually considered to have the responsibility when someone has an accident at the workplace? Why is it then that so few convictions or even cases go to court?

Relatives I have spoken with who have lost someone in a workplace accident argue that the investigations are simply not good enough and that they are all too often discontinued without even having heard enough people at the workplace. The investigations of the site are deficient, and the responsible person at the workplace, who is often the one directly responsible for the accident, is rarely held accountable.

It is obviously rarely a matter of intent from the employer, but it is often a matter of not having made sufficiently good risk assessments - just as the Minister is highlighting here in the debate. It can also be that one has simply ignored the whole thing or refrained from addressing the deficiencies that the risk assessment has exposed.

As the Minister, perhaps you understand that there is very low trust remaining for the authority among the relatives I have spoken with, and they implore us in politics to do what we can to ensure that the investigations improve and that someone takes responsibility.

We Social Democrats, in a government position, tasked the police, the Prosecution Authority, and the Work Environment Authority with improving the coordination in the investigations. This has resulted in an improved way of working and that the investigation times have been shortened. More cases have gone to court. But when it comes to the fatal accidents, it does not look like that much is happening, at least if one looks at the figures that I raised at the beginning of my speech. It is still all too few who, above all, get to take any responsibility whatsoever for these people's deaths.

We Social Democrats are submitting a proposal during this parliamentary year to review the legislation with the aim of ensuring that more people are prosecuted. I want to ask the Minister if she also sees the problem and if she would consider reviewing the legislation.

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Ciczie Weidby (V)

Madam Speaker! We return to how important safety representatives are. In the spring, I had an interpellation debate with Paulina Brandberg regarding precisely fatal accidents in working life. There are surely those who believe that people do not listen to debates here in the Riksdag, but that is really not the case. I have received quite a lot of response, both via telephone calls and emails, from people who are relatives of people who have been injured at work. Often, it has been due to stress or negligence at the workplaces, that is to say that many of the accidents could have been foreseen.

This is something that unfortunately often recurs. It is young people, one was not ready for the task, one cut corners, one was in a hurry, the client wanted the work to be finished by a set time - otherwise the company would risk a penalty, and so on. That must be truly addressed. It cannot be that profit and money are more important than people being able to perform dangerous jobs without risking not coming home the next day.

In the fantastic year 1974, Dan Berglund wrote a song called De mördades fria republik. I take a small quote: "We were murdered in the Swedish industry. We are five hundred per year who are slaughtered like pigs." It was perhaps not exactly 500 people per year who died in the Swedish industry, but nearly. What happens in the middle of the 70s, besides everything else, is that many of our rights laws arrive. We get work environment laws, shop steward laws, and so on.

Since we took on this work, the fatal accidents have also decreased. They have decreased steadily for a long time, but so far this year, an unreasonably large number of people have died at the workplace. I don't remember exactly, but I believe that during one week in August, three people died at their workplaces. So, of course, that cannot be allowed.

As a previous speaker has said, it is difficult to bring charges and difficult to reach this. It is the employer who has the responsibility. But it is therefore very difficult to reach this, because there are subcontractors and side suppliers. That is why it is difficult to know exactly who it is that has the responsibility.

Vänsterpartiet has previously, for quite some time, said that there should be state crisis commissions every time someone dies at work in order to truly get to the bottom of why someone died at a workplace and how to prevent it from ever happening again.

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Sofia Amloh (S)

Madam Speaker! One dead in an accident in the port of Gothenburg. One dead in a workplace accident in Lysekil. One dead at a sawmill - inhaled smoke. Several injured in an explosion at Sahlgrenska. Four people have been injured in a workplace accident near the university hospital. One dead while working with a log splitter. Dead after a fall from a scaffolding. Murdered at his first job - 19 years old and alone.

These are just a few headlines that we witness. It also usually only becomes headlines, and it is not even all cases that are highlighted in a headline.

My own anxiety has been constant throughout my entire upbringing because I have had a father in the construction industry. I have received news that stairwells have collapsed or other things. Every single time I have been able to breathe a sigh of relief, because it was not exactly my father. But I have many times heard that it was colleagues of my father. It was the son or father of someone who was the victim these times. Dad has still not retired, so I still have the anxiety.

One might think that the tone is solemn or perhaps even somewhat over-exaggerated. But I still think it can be justified, because these are people who perish while earning their own livelihood. They do not come home because they have gone to work to do their duty and claim their right. It is not worthy of a country like Sweden, but it should not occur anywhere else either. We must take it with the utmost seriousness every time it happens.

My question is about the fact that I think the Minister is invisible. There has not been a single press conference. There has been no reaction from the Minister where she emphasizes the seriousness when several fatal accidents occur during the same week. Where is the Minister where she reacts and acts? She has not called in the trade union movement, the employers, or other actors to emphasize the seriousness.

The only thing I see is that the Minister says this is important and that she is following the issue. But where is the responsibility? Where is the reaction to what actually happens when people die at our workplaces?

After the record highs of recent years, the number of workplace accidents is back at approximately the same level as before the pandemic. Despite this, the number of workplace accidents with a fatal outcome is the highest in twelve years in Sweden - 33 cases, according to Arbetsmiljöverket in August. In Skåne, as many deaths as usually occur in an entire year had already been reported by August.

The least I request is that the responsible minister reacts. I hope that we can take this further. As the minister says several times, it is the employer who has the ultimate responsibility. Despite this, the proposals are invisible and the demands are very few. I hope that we can see more.

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Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! To begin with, I want to confirm that we share the problem. Even though it was not exactly member Amloh's father who was killed in an accident, it has been someone else's father or brother. Every such fatal accident is a complete tragedy.

We know that the majority of the fatal accidents that occur in our workplaces in Sweden could have been avoided if there had been systematic work environment work and if the safety risks that exist had been identified. It is incredibly important to have proper risk assessments and solid safety work in our workplaces.

Before this interpellation debate, we had a debate about safety representatives. Here, I also want to emphasize the very important role of the local safety representatives in the daily work environment work that takes place at our workplaces. I am therefore very pleased that the government has given a mandate to the Swedish Work Environment Authority so that we can get more safety representatives to engage at our workplaces.

The role of the justice system was also addressed here. If someone dies at their job, it is naturally important to resolve the question of responsibility. It is very important for relatives to receive redress. These are very complicated investigations. There are special police and also special prosecutors who work with exactly these crimes. We have a special unit within the Prosecution Authority, the National Unit for Environmental and Occupational Environment Cases, which works with these investigations precisely because they are very complicated. This requires resources.

I am very pleased that this government has invested heavily in the justice system. We have a situation in Sweden with many parallel crises, and I am worried that our entire social structure and our justice system will not be able to cope with that situation. We have Quran burnings, gang crime, and major security crises. At the same time, this crime, which continues year after year, must also be prioritized. What do we do when everything must be prioritized? We must allocate resources, and I am pleased that this government has done so in its budget.

It is important that we speak broadly about work environment issues. Therefore, I am very pleased that Member Magnusson raises the issue of stress. It is easy to stare at the appalling death figures, but on the one hand, it is only the tip of an iceberg of all physical injuries that occur in our workplaces, and on the other hand, it is only part of the problem.

Stress is an incredibly important issue that is not visible on the surface and which also has an important gender equality focus. We know that it is men who die at work, but at the same time we see very many women who are affected enormously by stress in a way that even sometimes also takes their lives.

I see now that my speaking time is about to expire, so I will keep it brief and hopefully continue talking about stress in the next speech.

When it comes to stress, it is important that we not only have clear guidelines for our physical work environment but also that we, in our strategy, address the risks that cause people to become overstressed and to be signed off sick from their workplaces. I will return to that question.

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Jim Svensk Larm (S)

Madam Speaker! The Minister mentioned in his first contribution a bit about crime in the working life, another area that I have focused a bit extra on during the past year. In that area, we know that the work environment is unfortunately very vulnerable. Fraud within the work environment part belongs to the most common crime in the working life. To cut corners on the work environment and deliberately break rules and laws is almost ruthless. Workers who are in a position of dependency are forced to work in a work environment where they risk their lives every day. Reducing fatal accidents and other serious accidents in workplaces is therefore closely linked to the work against crime in the working life.

Now, this debate is about the working environment, but I still want to take the opportunity to briefly touch upon work-life crime – specifically secrecy. It has come up several times in previous debates with the Minister and the Minister's colleagues that secrecy causes enormous problems. There has been a finished proposal on the government's desk since they took office, but when we look at the autumn's list of government bills, it does not look like anything is coming. The government is therefore continuing to let the cheating companies talk to each other while the authorities are not given that opportunity.

But back to the discussion on the work environment. Something needs to be done so that more people can have a safe and good work environment. It is about cooperation in the workplaces but also about more those who break the laws must be prosecuted. Therefore, the time for investigations needs to be shortened, the quality of the investigations improved, and the knowledge regarding work environment crimes strengthened generally.

Madam Speaker! I also want to take up some of what my colleague Adrian Magnusson spoke about, the increased stress. This is a constantly recurring problem. Record numbers are on sick leave, which Adrian Magnusson also pointed out here. This is noticeable, not least within the welfare sector, where resources are insufficient. There are no resources to increase staffing, and therefore one has to stress even more. Here, the government has a great responsibility in that it does not prioritize the welfare sector. We see once again through actions that the working environment for the heroes of the welfare sector is not so highly prioritized by the government.

Does the government intend to take any measures so that no more people become ill as a result of the increased stress, whether it is within the agencies that the government is reducing funding to or among the heroes of the welfare system who are forced to run faster when healthcare does not receive the resources it needs?

Madam Speaker! Next week is Work Environment Week across the entire EU to draw attention to work environment efforts. Will the government then realize that something needs to be done and demonstrate through action how important the work environment is, or will it be another week where the Minister does not meet with the parties and where the Swedish Work Environment Authority is not commissioned to analyze the fatal accidents? How will it turn out?

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Adrian Magnusson (S)

Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer.

Just as the Minister pointed out, I have chosen perhaps a slightly different perspective than my colleagues have. I thought it was important, because I have seen people, both from my student days and at my old workplace, change in a way that I do not think one should have to change in when one is in their 20s - because of stress, because of having unreasonable demands on oneself, because of constant demands for efficiency, because of constantly increasing work tasks and so on. It is an issue that needs to be raised in this type of assembly. I really appreciate the Minister's positive attitude towards this issue being raised.

It is important with reforms and that we produce reforms to reduce stress. It is important that we give the authorities the resources that are required. It is important that we ensure that authorities and welfare function. But I do not believe that one should underestimate the importance of raising this type of issue and showing people out in the country that we are at least trying to understand their everyday life, that we are trying to understand their problems in everyday life.

Just as the Minister pointed out and as I also stated, it is often women who are affected. It is often women who have been employed at an agency for many years who are affected by stress, also late in their working lives. We must also try to move away from that. It is not worthy.

I look forward to more discussion on the issue. I am sure that we will return to it. I also look forward to taking part in the proposals in the question that I hope will come from the government. Otherwise, we will have to discuss this here in the chamber again.

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Johanna Haraldsson (S)

Madam Speaker! According to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, most workplace accidents are due to deficient risk assessments or to such assessments not being made at all. If risk assessments had been made, more or all workers would be alive today.

Inadequate or non-existent preventive work environment work can have enormous consequences for the employees. But the consequences for those who do not follow the rules regarding the preventive and systematic work environment work often remain completely absent.

I have many times heard the minister speak about how important preventive work in the work environment is to prevent accidents and ill health at work. But if I am to be honest, it seems to be mostly talk. I have, in fact, not noted any initiatives from the minister. And on the list of the proposals that the government plans to submit to the Riksdag, it is desolately empty; not a single legislative proposal on the work environment area is planned from the minister.

Ever since the minister took office, there have been proposals on her desk. If they were to be implemented, they could actually put weight behind the words. The proposals are a result of the work environment strategy that the minister says she wants to follow. For a year, the minister has had time to take a position on whether to introduce, for example, more sanction fees and consequences for employers who do not work systematically with work environment work. It is one of the proposals that currently seems to be gathering the most dust on the minister's desk.

It is no longer sufficient to push it forward. It is time for the minister to take a stand on the proposals and say what she wants.

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Ciczie Weidby (V)

Madam Speaker! This government speaks very often about how we must tackle crime and that it is important to toughen the penalties for those who commit crimes. In that case, I have a few tips. I and the Vänsterpartiet believe, in fact, that it would be good to introduce a work environment code, where one gathers different work environment crimes, and to, for example, conduct a review of among other things corporate fines.

At a mattress factory, a young woman was injured two years ago while she was working alone during a night shift. Various deficiencies that caused the accident were pointed out. But the company did not take all the measures that were needed. It is simply because the fine one receives if they break the rules is so much lower than what the production itself yields when the machines are running around the clock. It is very skewed.

I therefore think that the government, which often talks about wanting to combat crime, really must tighten various legal requirements and try to do everything to achieve the zero vision; no one should have to die at work.

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Sofia Amloh (S)

Madam Speaker! It is exactly as we all, including the Minister, have begun by saying: No one should have to die at or from work.

Today, there is much that lays the foundation for the ultimate consequences being that one becomes ill or is signed off work because of the job when many factors at work and in the work environment are fundamentally poor. It does not work. The systematic work environment work does not work. The risk assessments that are needed are not being made. It can be about everything from asbestos remediations that do not go right or about stress and everything in between. The ultimate consequence becomes, as said, that one becomes so ill that one cannot work at all anymore or that one does not come away from it with one's life intact.

We want to work towards having a zero vision. No one should have to die or become ill from work.

We have asked a number of questions to the Minister during the debate. I have personally asked if she is prepared to consolidate forces and take action on this to emphasize the seriousness, given how many people are even dying. But we in the Social Democrats have also presented proposals that show that we want to do more. We are prepared to review the legislation so that more people can be prosecuted.

The Minister has not answered that. It would be appropriate for the Minister to still give us some kind of answer, some indication of what she wants in the area. So far, we have not received any proposals. The proposals are invisible, and the requirements on the employers have not been tightened. Why?

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Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! When it comes to the importance of having regular conversations about these issues, I would like to point out that the government continues with the occupational health and safety forums that have been ongoing during the 2021-2025 strategy period. It is a forum where both previous and ongoing planned measures within the framework of the occupational health and safety strategy are discussed together with the parties in the labor market, the Swedish Work Environment Authority, and the Swedish Agency for Work Environment Knowledge. It is a forum for those measures and something that the government continues with.

I want to go back to where I stopped my previous speech. We know that at the workplaces where fatal accidents occur today, it is often due to carelessness, as one of the debaters pointed out. It is not about deliberate deviations or risks. It is due to carelessness and the fact that things are moving fast. This is, of course, connected to what we talked about regarding stress.

When looking at these issues, I think it is important not to get stuck in silos. We must lift our gaze. We can absolutely have strategies. It is very important to have strategies to manage even the psychosocial work environment. But we must also look at the underlying causes.

Something that concerns me very much is the competence shortage we have in Sweden. In many professions, it is incredibly difficult to get enough employees to be able to manage the work.

At the same time, we have in Sweden an enormous untapped resource in the form of people who have come here from other countries but who are far from the Swedish labor market, not because they lack competence or because they would not be able to perform a job, but because they have not been admitted. They have not been integrated and have not been admitted into Swedish society and into the Swedish labor market.

If we are to solve the problems we are talking about here, we cannot look through a narrow straw; instead, we must look at our society as a whole and see how we use that resource to produce competent and good labor for our labor market as a measure to address this issue.

I also want to be clear that even though it is the case that most employers want to do the right thing, there are also those who do not want to. There are those who take shortcuts at the expense of the employees' health and well-being and sometimes even lives. This is something that we must take extremely seriously in our work with crime in the working life.

I also see that some industries are more affected than others. I have, among other things, spoken in the media about the berry picking industry, where I have seen that in large parts we actually have a modern form of slavery.

I can assure the debaters that there is intensive ongoing work at the Government Offices regarding these issues. In the near future, we will proceed with that work at full speed while we continue the work of establishing a-krim centers in several parts of Sweden.

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Jim Svensk Larm (S)

Madam Speaker! I think this debate shows that the work environment deserves more focus from the government. Many important contributions have been made here touching on a breadth of different things, each of which affects the work environment and ensures that people thrive at work and get home from work.

A good working environment should not be something that is taken for granted, but something that everyone deserves and everyone has a right to. But then, trained safety representatives and trained managers who understand the importance of systematic work environment management are needed. Then, good knowledge of how we prevent both accidents and other ill health is needed. Then, the right resources are needed for our authorities to investigate and prosecute those who cheat with the working environment.

Then, apparently, a new government is also needed. Today's SD government is happy to talk about the importance of a good working environment, but in reality, they prioritize away meetings with the parties, skip meetings on the work environment strategy, and do not react to the large number of deaths occurring in the Swedish labor market.

No, Madam Speaker, I do not have much confidence in today's SD government. It will not make Sweden's workplaces safer. For Sweden's workers, Sweden has become both poorer and more dangerous. One year with the SD government has made both the workplaces and society poorer and more dangerous, and unfortunately, I have no confidence that it will change over the next three years.

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Statsrådet Paulina Brandberg (L)

Madam Speaker! To begin with, I want to address the claim that I have had no contact with the parties in the labor market. That is not correct. I have had several meetings with the central organizations on a number of occasions. As recently as last week, I visited Unionens kongress, and I have previously met Unionen, Saco, LO, TCO and several other trade unions. I have done so on a number of occasions. That information is therefore not correct.

As I have said, I appreciate this debate, and I share the interpellant's view that these are issues that should receive more focus in our society, not least media focus, so that people will open their eyes to these issues. Unfortunately, that is not something I control. I control the government's actions in the area, and I can assure both the interpellant and other debaters that there is active work ongoing at the Government Offices that we will eventually see the results of.

The important thing is that we find the right measures - that they become the right measures, evidence-based measures, that truly have an effect. It is better that it is right than that it goes fast, and it will be clear to both the interpellor and other debaters that the work is ongoing.

Finally, I would like to thank the interpellor and the debaters for this important debate. I am sure that we will continue to discuss these issues here in the chamber on further occasions ahead.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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