23 June, 2011Union organizers seek out agency workers to ensure they receive due wages. The work has resulted in substantial retroactive salary increases -- and new members.
SWEDEN: The IF Metall Gothenburg Department has during the first half of 2011 negotiated 1.4 million euros in back wages for agency workers in Gothenburg.
Six hundred workers have now had their wages corrected. The back pay ranges from less than 100 euros to a worst case of 39.000 euros. Negotiations are ongoing. The union is reviewing the salaries paid out by 15 agency labour firms in Gothenburg.
The collective agreement for the temporary agency sector says that the wage for agency workers should be on par with the average salary for other workers. Many of those who have had irregular wages are young people who don't know if they are paid less than others. "They are happy to have gotten a job and get maybe 11 euros per hour, while their colleagues earn 14," says Carina Cajander of IF Metall's department in Gothenburg.
If the time of employment is long, the accumulated difference can be substantial.
Reasons for the erroneous wages are both lack of awareness about the collective agreement, and the employers' wish to save money. "They discover that it is expensive to hire through temporary agencies - who charge a premium of 35 per cent - and try to compensate for that."
IF Metall will now send a checklist to all of its local branches in the country, says IF Metall's collective bargaining chief Veli-Pekka Säikkälä. This will make it easier to determine the average wage for different jobs. The unions have earlier opposed the concept of agency staff and it has taken a long time to sign a contract with the agency labour companies.
"But now, there has been a change of attitude," says Säikkälä. The goal now is to increase union density among employees in temporary employment agencies.
"We are seeking out the temporary workers, and as we correct their wages, we also recruit them into the union," says Carina Cajander.