Hök24 Sineva Ribeiro, President of the Healthcare Association. Photo: Ulf Huett and Getty Images
On Wednesday, the Vårdförbundet received new contract proposals that apply to SKR and Sobona. The federal board has refused, and at the same time the Swedish Healthcare Association has made a counter-offer. “We have chosen professions that we love, but we hate our conditions. Now is the time for the employer to show that they want to protect our groups,” says Vårdförbundet’s president Sineva Ribeiro. The employers have announced that they say no to the Vårdförbundet’s counter-offer.
April 24 Updated April 26
The employer parties SKR and Sobona have until Thursday morning at 11:00 a.m. to respond to the Vårdförbundet’s counter-offer.
The negotiations concern the collective agreement for nurses, midwives, x-ray nurses and biomedical analysts in regions, municipalities and companies in the municipal sector such as Capio St. Göran’s hospital in Stockholm and the ambulance operations within Aisab.
Vårdfokund’s chairman Sineva Ribeiro tells Vårdfokus that the new contract proposal that came from SKR and Sobona on Wednesday did not contain any major changes and was far too far from the Vårdfokund’s requirements. According to Sineva Ribeiro, the reductions in working hours that SKR and Sobona proposed, linked to NATO entry, still remain.
– There is nothing in the employers’ bid that changes the fact that the working environment is so difficult that our members either have to pay with their own health or have to reduce working hours. Nor that we are too few and work so much overtime that it corresponds to 1,800 positions. It’s amazing, you can’t build healthcare on this. It’s serious now, says Sineva Ribeiro.
SKR believes that they tried to accommodate you on some points, including shortening working hours for some full-time employees who work at night. What do you say about that?
– The proposal applies to a small group, a few. There was nothing in that to change the fact that 30 percent of our members are reducing their working hours because they cannot bear to work full time.
Why are you making a counter offer?
– The employer side thinks that we have not been clear enough about what we want. Therefore, we made a counter-offer in which we are very specific. We also want to give them one last chance to comply with our demands before the notice comes into effect
SKR and Sobona believe that you have submitted claims that go further than your original claims. What do you say about that?
– That is not true. We have only clarified the demands that we have had all along. They asked for more clarity and we have given suggestions. Among other things, we have made a calculation about how, in three years’ time, it is possible to get down to the working time measure that our members are asking for and which allows you to go up to full-time, without it requiring as much replacement recruitment as SKR claims. We have also specified how experience should be valued, what the work environment and sustainable schedules need to look like.
What is required for you to say yes to an agreement?
– If they accept our counteroffer, we will sign immediately.
Is there any room for compromise?
– When we look at a final bid, we look at the whole. We say flatly no as long as you keep your demand that we should work more with reference to NATO entry. We already work millions of hours of overtime, they can’t put on any more.
Can you imagine an agreement where working time reduction is not included?
– Right now it feels unthinkable. It’s about the fact that we can’t build future healthcare on our groups working themselves to death.
If the employers refuse your bid and the blockade breaks out, what support do you feel the union has?
– Right now we have great support both among the public and members. Since we posted the notice, we have increased by approximately 150 members per day. And we will continue to engage our members. We have chosen professions that we love, but we hate our conditions. Now is the time for the employer to show that it wants to protect our groups, says Sineva Ribeiro.
Vårdfokus has asked SKR for a comment. They refer to a press release where negotiation manager Jeanette Hedberg says:
— We have already signed five collective agreements with our other unions in the sector, which together comprise over one million employees. We have offered the Vårdförbundet the same changes that other unions have accepted as well as some additional conditions and solutions that are specific to the Vårdförbundet.
Late on Wednesday evening, April 24, SKR sent out a new press release in which they wrote that they say no to the Vårdförbundet’s counteroffer and want to continue the negotiations. Sobona has also said no to the counter offer.
If the parties do not reach an agreement before 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, the Vårdförbundet’s notice of overtime blockade, overtime blockade and new employment blockade comes into force.
