October 31, the wage agreement in the industry expires.

New agreements were supposed to be signed this spring, but were postponed for seven months in the wake of the corona pandemic.

In the meantime, the agreement has only expired, but without any salary increases.

One of the big questions has therefore been: Should employers pay out retroactive wage supplements for the past six months?

Hard pressure

Employers have been tough.

Wage increases, when the economy has generally gone bankrupt and for some service industries has completely crashed, are not on the map.

Admittedly, industry has largely returned to more normal levels, but since industry has set the so-called wage mark for the rest of the labor market for the past 20 years, the pressure from employers in other industries is strong - "we can absolutely not afford any wage increases retroactively" .

And according to what TT experiences, there will also be no salary increases this year.

The mediators in the industrial negotiations, the so-called impartial chairmen (opo) will make a salary offer that only looks ahead.

And the unions have a hard time resisting, it's a lost year, in many ways.

Thus, few employees in the Swedish labor market who have central collective agreements to rely on can probably count on a few extra hundred bucks this year.

This will be a sensitive issue if staff in industries that have worked the hedge off should not receive anything at all, especially for the LO union Kommunal who has demanded extra pay, especially in the wake of the pandemic and the efforts made by staff in health and medical care. .

For other unions, such as nurses, it is not as crucial as they have numerical agreements where wages are negotiated locally.

At least 4.5 percent

But in any case, in the rest of the labor market and now most closely in industry, the focus is instead on the next two and a half years.

Last week, opo submitted a first bid of 4.5 percent in wage increases for 29 months, ie until the end of March 2023. Too little was the industry unions' answer, but okay according to the employers.

This weekend, a final bid is expected, which according to current rules of the game will be higher than the first bid.

And according to what the parties state for TT, the conditions are pretty good to reach an agreement, even though they are still a good distance apart.

Negotiations are ongoing until the end and opo will not make a final offer until they know that both parties will be able to say yes.