This dispute began in Skellefteå, where the battery factory is being built.
The company Fineweld stated that their 11 subcontracting companies had a collective agreement, which according to the union Byggnad's control was not true.
- Several contractor stages in long chains are becoming more common and if you hire a subcontractor (UE), it should be negotiated, but it has not been done, says Jesper Carlsson who is an ombudsman at Byggnads central in Stockholm.
Negotiations have stalled
When the union has called for negotiations, it has been stranded both locally and centrally, it has not been possible to agree.
Fineweld refers to its employers' organization Installatörsföretagen, which according to the union has claimed that there is no obligation to negotiate because Fineweld has no employees who are members of the union.
- I do not recognize this.
We have not had any disputes in this area of agreement and now all of a sudden it is said that we must report which members we have.
That is not what the employer can do, says Carlsson.
He believes that it is an attack on the freedom of association, but also on the very basis of the collective agreements.
Good that the question is being tried
Henrik Junzell, who is head of negotiations at Installatörsföretagen, gives a different picture.
- We are strong advocates for the Swedish model and that there are collective agreements.
This is not what the dispute is about in the legal sense, but whether there has been an obligation to negotiate or not, and there we think differently.
He therefore believes that it is good that AD can now try the issue and decide which interpretation of the law should apply.
"The whole collective agreement principle is at stake" - hear Pierre Pettersson at Byggnads tell more in the clip.