Collective agreement
The collective agreement is the most important tool we have to safeguard, look after and develop our position and our situation on the labour market.Svenska Målareförbundet works intensively with a wide spectrum of issues on several levels in order to affect legislation so that as many companies as possible introduce collective agreements which are as far-reaching and good as possible.
The union currently looks after the agreements and deals with negotiation activities: before a new period of agreements as well as during the periods, where conflicts or interpretation problems may occur. Usually, those kinds of things are solved on a local level, but sometimes efforts from the Centre are needed to safeguard the rights of the individual member.
Strategically it is the ambition of the Union to have agreements with all companies in the painting business, regardless of its size. It is no secret that there are quite a lot of smaller firms in our business who like to keep outside agreements and new developments. We keep them under surveillance and constantly try to minimize the harm they inflict.
For individual employees, the agreement is our main guarantee that the company is serious and reliable, that we will get those conditions of work and wages, which we have come to terms about in the agreement. Another important question of principle is that in the future we should have equivalent collective agreements for the painters, regardless of what kind of employers' organization their employers belong.
Text: Guideline
Translation: John Forward
