Newsletter December -25
The past autumn has been a turbulent period, both at the university and across the sector as a whole. With the well-deserved Christmas break now approaching, we would like to take this opportunity to share a brief overview of the work carried out by the Saco-S association at Linnaeus University.
The newsletter from November mentioned that the Saco association had its usual annual meeting at the beginning of October in the form of a hybrid meeting, where our contact ombudsman Michael Svedemar also participated on site in Växjö. After the annual meeting negotiations, where, among other things, the annual report was adopted and a new board was elected, a discussion followed on various union issues. You can find contact information for the new board and the annual meeting minutes via the link below.
Continued strained financial situation
This autumn has been largely characterized by change efforts at the university. When it comes to technical and administrative personnel, it has been about the university's work to streamline operational support, which is now at a stage where unfortunately some members risk being dismissed due to "labor shortages" or leaving the university through agreements on the termination of employment. Regarding teachers/researchers, the university's work on the education strategy is progressing, however, this work is being done in different ways at different faculties. We at Saco-S have acted on both of these issues. We also understand that these issues will affect members in different ways during the coming year. In mid-December, the rector and vice-rector held short information meetings in Kalmar and Växjö, respectively, where they highlighted issues related to the further strained financial situation, with expected savings via the education strategy and further savings within operational support. From what we understood, new hires will continue to be tested in 2026 – even though there is no formal decision to stop hiring. This gave significant results in reducing costs in 2025 and there are hopes that it may be an effective method in 2026. Based on the savings requirements, situations with so-called labor shortages will unfortunately still be able to arise.
In our opinion, it is important that the university carefully monitors personnel turnover (which is often higher in situations like this). In addition, it is important that managers (when necessary) clarify which tasks should be prioritized and provide support in how tasks can/should be performed and, if labor shortages arise, handle these processes professionally and with a high degree of clarity and transparency.
In the Saco-S association, we feel that both the streamlining of operational support and the training strategy have contributed to increased concern among our members. If you have any questions in connection with these two changes, you are welcome to contact someone on the board.
Salary and salary setting process
In the latter part of September, the Saco-S association held two member meetings in the form of webinars that dealt with salary and salary setting - in Swedish and English respectively. These meetings were intended to provide support for our members in the ongoing salary setting process. We are currently in the final stage of the salary review work. Proposals for new salaries should have been communicated by the respective manager and negotiations on new salaries for those members who have rejected proposals for new salaries have just begun and will then continue after the weekends. During January/February, the Saco-S association plans to conduct an evaluation of the salary setting process for the ninth time using a survey in Survey&Report. We hope that you will take the time to respond to the evaluation. Information about salary setting and pictures from the above-mentioned member meetings can be found under the “LÖN”/”SALARY” tab on the Saco-S association’s website – which you can reach via the links below:
Member meetings and activities
On December 2, the Saco-S association held a hybrid member meeting, which highlighted issues related to what happens in the event of dismissal due to a shortage of work. Our central contact ombudsman Michael Svedemar from SULF participated and gave a presentation on processes in the event of a shortage of work.
At some point during the autumn we have also carried out activities on site (in Kalmar and Växjö respectively) under the title “Current with the UNION” – where it has been possible to meet members of the board of the Saco-S association and raise various issues of a union nature. The Saco-S association sees it as important that during the spring, in addition to member meetings with various themes, we continue to carry out “Current with the UNION” as a way for members to find out more about what is happening in the union sector ends at the university and have the opportunity to ask about how things are going and also to convey to the board what they experience is happening in the organization.
In this context, we are already flagging two upcoming webinars that SULF will organize at a central level during the spring of 2026:
- 27/1, 11.30-12.15: New rules for unemployment insurance (English)
- 27/1, 12.30-13.15: New rules for unemployment insurance (Swedish)
- 18/2, 12.15-13.45: Pension - is there life after work?
- 23/3, 12.15-13.00: Migration (English)
- 22/4, 12.15-13.45: Doctoral students' conditions, rights and obligations (Swedish)
- 27/5, 12.15-13.15: Work environment - what can I do to have a better work environment? (Swedish)
Below you will find a link to SULF's calendar (which will soon be updated so that all the activities above can be found there. However, you can already reserve time/s in your calendar for these activities.
When it comes to conditions in higher education on a more general level, the Saco-S association would like to point out that our contact association SULF produces reports in various areas relevant to higher education. In 2025, reports have been produced on the fact that migration policy undermines higher education in Sweden and makes it difficult for international researchers, as well as on why university teachers and researchers do not report threats and hatred. Via the link below you can find the aforementioned reports, but also previously published writings and reports:
https://sulf.se/skrifter-rapporter/
Working hours agreement and teaching planning
With regard to the local working hours agreement for academic personnel, a joint training session for managers and teaching planners was held in Kalmar and Växjö during the second half of September. Hopefully, this can contribute to the fact that the teaching planning for 2026 follows the local working hours agreement to a greater extent. Previously, there have been shortcomings in the employer's obligation to carry out consultations when drawing up teaching planning, when making changes to planning, in drawing up service plans on a calendar year basis and in documenting service planning.
Below you will find a link to a workload planning procedure that was jointly developed by the parties just over two years ago (the procedure can be found on page 2 of the document). We hope that these guidelines will help make workload planning clearer and more effective for you as a member. It is worth noting that it is always the head of department who bears the main responsibility for your teaching planning, even if the teaching plan is usually developed by the person/people who plan the teaching at your department.
Routine for duty planning and consultation
In this context, it should be mentioned that discussions have also been held about updating the existing working hours agreement. However, this work has mainly been paused during the year. Given that the rules for so-called overtime (which applies to those who work part-time) will change and improve at the turn of the year by requiring compensation to be paid in the same way as for overtime work - this may, however, lead to the need to review the working hours agreement for teachers. The working hours agreement for technical and administrative personnel provides clearer references to the central agreement that governs this (Villkorsavtal-T), which means that there is probably no need to make changes to the local working hours agreement, but improvements regarding overtime apply to all those who work part-time - regardless of which working hours agreement is relevant to them.
Other union work
A couple of years ago, the Saco-S association established a number of working groups internally within the board in order to better distribute work tasks and to be able to gain a better focus within various union-related areas. In the wake of the association's annual meeting in October, some minor adjustments to the working groups have been made and they currently look as follows:
- Working group salary and salary mapping: Karina Petersson (convener), Gunilla Gunnarsson, Eva Pohl, Jan Andersson and Stefan Lindkvist Gómez.
- Working group working hours agreements for teachers: Eva Pohl (convener), Jan Andersson, Magnus Mårtensson and Karina Petersson
- Working group working hours agreements for TA personnel: Nina Andersson Junkka (convener), Eva Pohl and Stefan Lindkvist Gómez
- Working group member activities/member recruitment: Gunilla Gunnarsson (convener), Nina Andersson Junkka, Anders Nordborg, Jan Andersson, Magnus Mårtensson, Jonathan Madeland and Eva Pohl
- Working group: Member support/member matters: Jan Andersson (convener), Eva Pohl and Magnus Mårtensson
During the autumn, the Saco-S association has continued to cooperate closely with the health and safety organization. Based on the increasingly strained work of members working conditions, based on our respective roles, there are often both union and work environment-related aspects.
Together with other union organizations, the Saco-S association has during the autumn, in addition to consultations with the various faculties the meetings and the weekly MBL negotiations, also participated in manager recruitments and then mainly through interviews with the candidates concerned. The Saco-S association has also participated in various ways in the ongoing principal recruitment, partly we have had an adjunct member with the right to express opinions and suggestions in the recruitment group itself and who has represented the personnel organizations there, partly other members of the board of Saco-S have recently, together with other union organizations, conducted interviews with the two candidates.
As before, the Saco-S association also has the task of representing individual members in various union issues, which has been done during the autumn. If you or a colleague would like support in a union issue in any context or have questions and concerns, you are always welcome to contact us. In addition, we are also happy to receive suggestions on issues that Saco-S can/should work on.
As we look ahead to the holiday season
In conclusion, the board would like to thank you for the past year. We hope you all enjoy and relax properly from work during the upcoming holidays.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The Board of the Saco-S Association at Linnaeus University
through
Eva Pohl and Karina Petersson (chairman and vice-chairman respectively)