Newsletter June -22

According to the Newsletter March -22, a number of member meetings were held during the spring aimed at members of various departments / units at the university. The topics covered concerned the policy on published material at the university, the new working time agreement for TA staff, the issue of teleworking for TA staff, and the issue of salaries and wage setting. With regard to the policy on published material, we encourage you as a member to get in touch if you perceive that there are ambiguities when the employer refers you to the said policy. Regarding the issue of telework - we have informed that there are no guidelines for it at our university and there are still no guidelines for it. However, we have recently received information that some form of document is finally being produced, in which the employer will express how they view this issue, but that it does not intend to call it guidelines or policy. This document will probably take effect sometime in the autumn.

What has now happened in the process of salary and salary setting since March is that salary-setting talks have now been conducted for the sixth time for Saco-S members at Lnu. According to the schedule in the agreement that exists between the employer and the Saco-S-association, the manager must have completed these talks by the middle of May. Several have had these talks earlier than that and have been notified of a new salary, and perhaps received the new salary already paid with the May salary. Most of our members should have their new salary paid now in June. In any case, the new salary applies retroactively from 22-04-01 until 23-09-30. For those members who have declined the employer's proposal for a new salary, a dispute settlement with collective bargaining has begun. The forms of collective bargaining differ in comparison with how it has been conducted in previous years. This time, we have succeeded in adjusting the process of collective bargaining so that we negotiate directly with the managers. This is something we at Saco-S have been trying to get through for a few years now because we perceived that it has previously been a more complicated process. The HR partners involved then presented the individual manager's arguments for their salary setting, which meant that we often had to ask the HR partner to go back to the manager with the follow-up questions we had. Before we from the Saco-S association enter into the collective bargaining it is important that we are informed about the most important arguments that the members who have declined the salary offer want to put forward, ie. why they think the salary is incorrect. We have contacted the members concerned that we know at present and have then requested their arguments that are the basis for the disagreement, related to the university's salary policy and salary criteria for the period that is the basis for the 2022 salary revision (period 2021-04-01 - 22-03-31). If you have declined a new salary, we ask you who have not yet heard from us to contact someone in the Saco-S Association's negotiating delegation for salaries. Even if you have not turned down the employer's proposal for a new salary, you are welcome with thoughts or questions in connection with salary and salary setting. You do this by contacting someone in the Saco-S Association's negotiating delegation which consists of Karina Petersson (karina.petersson@lnu.se), Gunilla Gunnarsson (gunilla.gunnarsson@lnu.se) and Jan Andersson (jan.andersson@lnu.se).

During the first half of May, the Saco-S association held a membership meeting via Zoom with about twenty participants, where Git Claesson Pipping, SULF's executive director, raised a number of questions under the theme "collegiality". In addition to Git reporting on how forms of collegiality have emerged and developed over time, she highlighted collegiality in relation to the line management that new seems to be dominant in higher education. We also touched on the content of the latest issue of Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift (1/2022), which is a thematic issue on Swedish higher education institutions where there are articles that deal with the organization, governance and decollegialization of higher education. You can reach the said magazine via the link below (in Swedish):

https://statsvetenskapligtidskrift.org

The latest work environment survey at LNU shows that the workload is still perceived as high among employees, slightly higher among teachers and researchers than among other staff groups. Based on this, during the months of May and June, we at Saco-S have conducted discussions with service planners at most faculties about working hours related to the local working time agreement for teachers, Retendo and duty plans. The Saco-S association has internally appointed a working group on the issue of working hours and local working time agreements, and we plan to intensify this work during the autumn.

Before the autumn, we also plan to raise issues of equal pay. Previous wage surveys show that there are some differences in wages between men and women, usually to the advantage of men. Some of the justifications given for differences in wages, where men have higher wages than women, are that men have more advanced tasks, increased responsibilities, historical wages or market-oriented wages. Similar justification can also be given for women having a higher salary than men, but this occurs to a much lower extent.

During the spring, the Saco-S association, together with other trade unions, also participated in various management recruitments, mainly by conducting interviews with the candidates concerned.

The Saco-S association has also on several occasions during the spring represented individual members in various trade union issues.

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/lokala-webbsteder/saco-s-foreningen-vid-linneuniversitetet/kontakt/

With best wishes 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 the email at regular intervals - but not daily.