[gohbgl]

Thanks to strong unions and labor laws Sweden is the worker's paradise and everybody has a great job. If Amazon wants to entice people to work for them then they must make a better offer than all* existing employers. What is there for the unions to negotiate? Please don't bash me for the cynicism. I am trying to figure out the logic behind all of this.

* edit: What meant say is that Amazon must offer a job that's better than the jobs that people currently have for them to switch.

[xorcist]

Sweden hasn't got as many labor laws as you would imagine. There are no minimum wages, for instance. It's all "voluntary" agreements with the unions. Pretty standard things though, limits on wages, work hours and such.

These agreements are not so much voluntary of course, since without an agreement in place it's hard to do any business in the country at all. Some try out of stubbornness but it's just an expensive way to accomplish nothing.

The alternative would be meddling politicians and nobody wants that. Unions are expected to have a bit more domain knowledge, and these agreements are re-negotiated every few years to get rid of obsolete rules and introduce new ones.

It helps that the labor unions are centralized, professionalized, and has vested interests in the long term survival of the companies they regulate, because of the trust required to make it work. If it is a good system I do not know, but it does provide for a stable labor market with almost no strikes, for which an agreement is a small price to pay.

[CuriousSkeptic]

“The Swedish model” is to put laws like this in place mostly to level the negotiation positions of the parties. What rules to actually apply is expected to be negotiated between the unions and the employers on top of that.

(As a side note the current government is actually just about to abolish one of the corner stones of those laws (“LAS”, the law of employment protection). Due to a deal they cut with the opposition parties in order to be allowed to form government)

[oxymoron]

I’m not sure it’s really a corner stone. Saltsjöbadsavtalen and the Swedish model of collective bargaining came much earlier. Amuingly, LAS was introduced by a liberal goverment against the protests of the social democrats who felt that it infringed on the bargaining power of the unions.

[CuriousSkeptic]

Ok, I guess that makes more sense then. I was really surprised to see S (LO) agree to that deal.