Newsletter June -21

On 19 May, the Saco-S association held a members' meeting with about 40 participants, in which Michael Svedemar from SULF’s head organisation participated and the topics for the meeting were salary-setting talks and their application in colleges and universities - as well as working conditions and workload. Below you can reach the power point presentation.

Presentation member meeting 2021-05-19 (In Swedish only.)

For the fifth time, salary-setting talks have now been conducted with virtually all Saco-S members at Lnu. According to the schedule in the agreement between the employer and the Saco-S association, the payroll manager had until mid-June to complete his payroll. According to this schedule, a dispute process then will begin where collective bargaining will be carried out for members who have declined the employer's proposal for a new salary. In the event that you have refused the employer's proposal for a new salary, your salary will be determined in collective bargaining. Before we from the Saco-S association enter into this collective bargaining it is important that we are informed about the most important arguments for you refusing the salary offer, i.e. why you think your salary is wrong. Based on the university's salary policy and salary criteria, we need to have a good picture of your responsibility and your performance for the period on which the 2021 salary revision is based - namely the period 2019-10-01 - 2021-03-31. It is therefore important that you who have refused a new salary contact someone in the Saco-S Association's negotiating delegation for salaries, see below.

If you have any thoughts or questions in connection with salary and salary setting, you can contact the Saco-S Association's negotiating delegation for salaries. Either contact Karina Petersson (karina.petersson@lnu.se), Gunilla Gunnarsson (gunilla.gunnarsson@lnu.se) or Jan Andersson (jan.andersson@lnu.se).

Below is a link to the agreement that applies to the 2020-2022 wage setting process. A timetable can be found on page 2 of the document.

Agreement RALS 2020-2022 (In Swedish only.)

During the month of May, the Saco-S Association's negotiating delegation for salaries, had meetings with the deans at Lnu to give our picture of the joint agreement and what we think should to be central to consider in future salary revisions. We emphasized that the salaries of Lnu employees - especially lectures and senior lecturers - are very low in relation to other higher education institutions in Sweden and that this should be adjusted. We also showed the results of the in-depth salary survey within Lnu, which we compiled in spring 2021 together with the employer. The survey shows that there are differences in wages between men and women, usually to the advantage of men. Some of the motivations given for differences in wages where men have higher wages than women are that men have more advanced work tasks, increased responsibilities, historical wages or market-adjusted wages. Similar motives can also be given for women having a higher salary than men, but this occurs to a much lower extent.

Salaries for doctoral candidates and teaching assistant are usually adjusted from 1 January each year and negotiations for the new salaries that apply from the turn of the year 2020/2021 are ongoing and can at best be completed during the month of June. Salaries for hourly-employed technical and administrative staff are also being reviewed, as well as supplements for inconvenient working hours for teachers.

During the latter part of spring, the Saco-S association, together with other trade unions, participated in recruiting heads of department. Interviews with now existing heads of department taking over a new period at the turn of the year as well as those who run for the first time have been conducted.

The working time agreement for technical and administrative staff has not been upgraded since 2013. Some formulations in the agreement are incorrect - or at least not relevant anymore and there are also some issues that we as a trade union want to discuss in relation to this agreement. These include questions about time for skills development, flexibility not only in time but also in space (what opportunities there can be to work from home, and considering the post-pandemic situation, questions about the new normal are being raised), how practices apply regarding follow-up of working hours (where we perceive that it differs in different parts of the university), how are existing agreements regarding part-time work applied. In the past, there has been time for preventative health care at the university and it would in our opinion be desirable to add this in a revised working time agreement for technical and administrative staff.

Do you have questions you want to raise with us or do you want to join and work in a union – on the board or as a safety representative - then contact one of us on the board. You can find contact information via the link below:

https://www.saco.se/en/lokala-webbplatser/saco-s-foreningen-vid-linneuniversitetet/kontakt/

With a wish for a really nice and relaxing summer!

Jan Andersson and Gunilla Gunnarsson - and the rest of the board of the Saco-S association at Linnaeus University

During the holiday, you can contact either SULF's member counseling (https://sulf.se/om-sulf/kontakta-oss/) or us by emailing Jan Andersson (jan.andersson@lnu.se) or Gunilla Gunnarsson (gunilla.gunnarsson@lnu.se). We check our email at regular intervals - but not daily.