Newsletter June -25
As we approach the final stretch of the 2024–2025 academic year, the local Saco-S association at Linnaeus University would like to wish all our members a well-deserved and restful holiday, but before that we would like to provide brief information about the work that we within your union organization have carried out during the spring.
During February-March, the Saco-S association held member meetings in both Kalmar and Växjö under the heading "CURRENT with the UNION", where the first meeting had as its theme: teachers' working time agreements, service plans and Retendo, while the second meeting had as its theme: working time agreements for technical/administrative staff, home work and working time laws. During May, two webinars were held about the work on the university's efficiency project concerning administrative support (the operational analysis) and a webinar about the development of the university’s educational strategy. Presentation slides from these events can be accessed through the following links: (in Swedish only):
Operational Analysis (14 & 22 May 2025)
Educational Strategy (20 May 2025)
Now in June we are negotiating changes in relation to the operational analysis. Negotiations related to the educational strategy have also been carried out at some of the university's faculties. During the spring, many members have contacted us with questions related to these change processes.
Regarding changes related to the operational analysis, it has so far taken place more synchronously for the entire university and there is also a timeline for continued work. As a trade union organization, we have so far put forward views regarding the fact that the work has been carried out from a top-down perspective and that employees have been involved to a limited extent. The work with risk and consequence analyses where the employer is responsible, but where safety representatives are involved, was carried out over a very limited period of time. In addition to questions and comments on risk and impact analyses, the trade unions have requested financial and data on how many employees may be affected by the shortage of work – related to savings that have already been implemented.
Regarding changes related to the educational strategy, we note that the work on this has largely been more asynchronous, with different faculties at different times raising issues related to the education strategy for parts or all of their respective areas of activity. Before the university's goals for 2026-2030 were to be established by the university board in June, the Saco-S association presented a number of comments in connection with the MBL negotiation that preceded this matter. For Saco-S, it was important to have a common view with other trade unions if possible and the abbreviation PO below refers to the staff organizations (in Swedish only):
”PO lyfter fram att eftersom beslut om lärosätets utbildningsstrategi 2025-2030 redan är fattat på en lägre nivå i organisationen, innebär det att beslut om Mål 2026-2030 tas i fel ordning och får till konsekvens att universitetsstyrelsen i praktiken förlorar betydande delar av sitt mandat som lärosätets högsta beslutande organ. PO påtalar vidare att förändringsarbete relaterat till utbildningsstrategin går alldeles för fort och riskerar att innebära svagt underbyggda beslut och att välfungerande verksamheter kan komma att raseras. Vidare kan detta leda till en ökad grad av konflikter inom delar av verksamheten och på olika organisatoriska nivåer. En följd av detta arbete kan också vara att den akademiska friheten riskerar att försvagas och att nödvändig kunskap inom organisationen inte tas tillvara. PO menar att ett rimligt tillvägagångssätt vore att pausa utbildningsstrategin och göra ett omtag när beslut om mål är fattade. PO uppfattar vidare att det sker en försvagning i målen gällande frågor om kritiskt tänkande, vilket är centralt inom akademisk verksamhet. Dessutom uttrycker PO en oro för områdena kring hållbarhet och lika villkor och menar att de hade en betydligt starkare framtoning i tidigare målbeskrivning.”
This spring, Saco-S and OFR/S participated in a central dispute resolution process regarding the employer’s breach of the local working time agreement for teaching staff. A date has now been set for joint management training on working time agreements, work planning, and occupational health factors related to planning. We hope this leads to improvements in how working time, workload plans, and Retendo are handled. For example, as a trade union party, we have previously developed procedures together with the employer regarding consultation when drawing up duty schedules, as well as when revising duty schedules during the calendar year. These procedures (which you can reach via the link below) should, in our opinion, already have been implemented at the university. It is hoped that this autumn's training of heads of departments and service planners can mean that service plans for 2026 will be developed in accordance with the aforementioned procedures (in Swedish only).
Procedure for workload planning and consultation
In connection with the university's determination of Goals 2026-2030, Saco-S participated in the internal process, including by submitting a response to the consultation in April. You can access the aforementioned consultation response via the link below (in Swedish only):
Response to internal consultation Goals 2026-2030
Only now have the collective negotiations in the salary setting process for RALS 2024 been concluded for the members who disagreed about their salaries. The minutes were recently signed and the members concerned will receive their new salaries retroactively in June. The fact that this has unfortunately taken so long is mainly due to the employer having overlooked one of the members who disagreed. In connection with the completion of the minutes, two documents were produced as appendices. Appendix 2 shows measures that the parties agree to develop in the upcoming salary revision and Appendix 3 contains such points of view that the Saco-S association believes need to be improved regarding the salary setting process - but where the employer does not have the same opinion. Via the link below you can reach Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 from the aforementioned protocol (in Swedish only):
Protocol new salaries 2024 (Appendix 2 and Appendix 3)
The Saco-S association intends to update its salary homepage immediately after the summer as a step in the continued implementation of the salary setting process RALS 2025 which (retroactively) will entail new salaries from 2025-10-01. For example, as a next step we need to conclude an agreement with the employer about the salary setting process itself. However, our view is that there will be no major changes in relation to the previous salary setting process. The link below leads to the not fully updated page about salary:
During the first half of February, the employer and the trade unions reached an agreement on salary for doctoral students and assistants (Saco-S and OFR/S). You can access the aforementioned agreement on Medarbetere via the link below (in Swedish only):
If you have questions about salary and salary setting, you are welcome to contact someone in the Saco-S association's negotiating delegation, which consists of Karina Petersson (karina.petersson@lnu.se), Gunilla Gunnarsson (gunilla.gunnarsson@lnu.se) and Jan Andersson (jan.andersson@lnu.se).
During the beginning of autumn 2025, we in the Saco-S association plan to hold some member meetings and to make it possible for our members to participate in a digital lecture series on current union issues that is conducted centrally by SULF and takes place at lunchtime. Below is a program with links to these latter meetings during the period September-October:
Webinar: Salary and salary negotiations – 17 September, time: 11.30-13.00
https://sulf.se/kalender/webbinarium-lon-och-loneforhandlingar/
Webinar: Salary and salary negotiations – 18 September, time: 11.30-13.00
https://sulf.se/kalender/webinar-salary-and-salary-negotiations/
Webinar: The Swedish Pension System – how does it work? – 23 September, time: 11.30-13.00
https://sulf.se/kalender/webinar-webinar-the-swedish-pension-system-how-does-it-work/
Webinar: Fixed-term employment – 8 October, time: 11.30-13.00
https://sulf.se/kalender/webbinarium-tidsbegransade-anstallningar/
Webinar: What if you risk being laid off due to a shortage of work? – 16 October, time: 11.30-13.00
https://sulf.se/kalender/webbinarium-vad-galler-om-du-riskerar-bli-uppsagd-pa-grund-av-arbetsbrist/
The Saco-S association plans to have a meeting on salary and wage setting in the latter part of September to follow up on issues that may arise in the webinars that SULF central is conducting on 17 and 18 September (see above) and also to raise issues about the wage setting process of a more local nature.
The Saco-S association plans to hold its annual meeting in early October. If you are interested in getting more actively involved in union issues, you are welcome to contact the Nomination Committee's convener, Dino Viscovi (dino.viscovi@lnu.se).
As usual, a large part of the union work for the Saco-S association consists of participating, together with other union organizations, in consultation with the various faculties and in weekly MBL negotiations. In cooperation with other union organizations, the Saco-S association has also participated in management recruitment, primarily by conducting interviews with relevant candidates. We have also had conversations with heads of department and deans who are being reappointed to gain insight into how they have worked so far and how they view their assignments during another term of office. We are also participating in various ways in the upcoming vice-chancellor recruitment, partly by having an adjunct member in the recruitment group, and partly by conducting interviews with the candidates who are selected.
As before, the Saco-S association has met with both groups of members and represented individual members on various union issues on several occasions during the spring. If you need support on any union issue in any context or have questions or concerns, you are always welcome to contact us.
Saco-S is made up of 18 unions at the national level, with members at Linnaeus University belonging to 15 of them. Regarding the local activities within these unions, information on contact persons and activities for these can be found on the Saco-S association's website. At present, however, only SULF is known to have operations at the university. The contact person and also the chair of the board of SULF's local association is Maria Bergström (maria.bergstrom@lnu.se) who is a teacher at the Department of Chemistry and Biomedicine in Kalmar. If there are additional contact persons for other unions within Saco-S at the university, we would be grateful to receive information about it and will ensure that our website is updated.
If you have questions that you would like to raise with your local Saco-S association, you are welcome to contact any of our board members. We would be grateful to receive suggestions and comments on what Saco-S can/should work on further. Via the link below you can find contact information for the board members, but also which board members participate in both internal working groups and various bodies within the university:
After a busy and committed spring term, we hope you enjoy a well-earned and truly relaxing summer break!
Warm regards,
Jan Andersson and Gunilla Gunnarsson – and the entire Saco-S board at Linnaeus University
PS. During the vacation you can reach us by emailing Jan Andersson (jan.andersson@lnu.se) or Gunilla Gunnarsson (gunilla.gunnarsson@lnu.se). We will check the email periodically – although not daily. Alternatively, for more general union questions, you can contact SULF's member advisory service (https://sulf.se/om-sulf/kontakta-oss/).
Updated: 2025-06-18