Learn more about the process behind the unique Swedish model with collective agreements for every sector which include many valuable workplace benefits that you perhaps take for granted: annual wage increases, overtime payments, extra payments in connection with parental leave and illness, occupational pensions and insurance schemes.
Unionens' collective agreements with the employer organisations that are in place in the private sector are valid for one or a couple of years at the time. Then it's time for re-negotiating the conditions with the employer organisations. This is called The collective bargaining process (" Avtalsrörelse " in Swedish). The aim of the process and the negotiations is to safeguard your interests, preserve and improve your terms and conditions and ensure salary development for all members.
The first thing that happens in such a process is that Unionen members give their opinions in various ways and say what they consider the most important things to pursue and prioritise in the negotiations. One of the most important demands concerns what collective salary increase level Unionen should demand.
Märket is an agreement that the level of cost increase in the first collective agreement signed in a collective bargaining process becomes the norm for the entire Swedish labour market.
Märket - meaning the percentage of salary growth - has given employees the best possible salary growth over the past 25 years or so while ensuring that Sweden has remained competitive. The result is clear: since then and up until 2023, real salaries in Sweden increased by 40 percent! (They increased by about 55 percent up until 2021, but temporarily high inflation caused them to fall over the last two years.)
It is important that we achieve the best possible level of salary development and contribute to stable development in this area in both the short and the long term.
Why doesn’t Unionen always demand much more? Well, it’s all about achieving a reasonable level.
When making financial assessments linked to the collective bargaining process and what salary increase level we should demand that both ensures real salary increases for employees and takes into account the competitiveness of the companies, there are more long-term factors than the current business cycle that we above all need to take into account. These concern productivity, inflation targets, cost development compared to other countries and international competitiveness.
It’s important that we don’t go too high or too low but instead achieve the best possible level, because we want to ensure stable salary development and to continue to have competitive strength in the international sphere.
