The Communist Party of Sweden defends the right to take union strike action

The well attended dispute involving collective agreements in Vaxholm in 2004, the so-called Laval case where Construction Workers Union demanded a collective agreement for a Latvian building company turned into a conflict which left deep traces throughout Europe. The concerned building company Let-Laval went bankruptcy and Confederation of Swedish Enterprise took over the issue with great approval from Swedish Construction Federation involving the issue and funded a trial in the Court of Justice of the European Union. The ruling of the court concluded that the Swedish trade union of construction workers Byggnads and the trade union Elektrikerna violated the human rights in the sense that they through conflict action was trying to enforce a collective agreement that were meant to regulate the working conditions of the Latvian construction workers. For this, Byggnads and the Swedish Confederation of Electrical workers was sentenced to pay fines for many millions.

Now the labour market body of the United Nations ILO (International Labour Organisation have looked into the Laval case. ILO. The main task of ILO is to view union rights so that they do not get violated. ILO handed over the Laval Case to its expert committee for review. The committee has now declared its comment. The legal experts of the United Nations say that “Limitation of union strike actions with the purpose of establishing collective agreements with foreign companies violates to convention 87 of ILO. ILO urges therefore the Swedish government to compensate Byggnads and the trade union of Electrical Workers for damages and court costs that they have been forced to pay to the Latvian building company, a total sum of 3 million Swedish crowns.

Furthermore the lawyers of ILO write “We are concerned of the limitation of the rights to strike in Sweden that has become way to far-reaching. They also express their concern of the Swedish law Lex Laval. Now it is the Swedish parliament task to carefully read the criticism from ILO and then come up with proposals for changes. This because the Swedish labour market must correspond to international standards of decency.

The modern parliament woman Katarina Brännström is sitting in the parliamentary committee which is about to investigate the criticism of ILO. She is completely confident in her opinion. She simply announces that she doesn’t care about the criticism from ILO. She refers to the Court of Justice of the European Union and thereby end of story. The approach of Katarina Brännström to the legal expert scientists of the the United Nations displays the amount of respect she pays to international law.

The 36th congress of the Communist Party of Sweden in Malmö May 10th to 12th May urges the Labour Committee of the Swedish parliament and its chairman Elisabeth Svantesson and vice chairman Ylva Johansson to immediately prepare a amendment of the law so that the parts of the labour market in Sweden are guaranteed that Swedish collective agreements applies.

The 36th congress of the Communist Party of Sweden also urges  the Labour Committee to immediately take initiative for the Swedish sentence, issued on behalf of the Court of Justice of the European Union to be handed over to the Chancellor of Justice for cassation and the fines that Byggnads and the Confederation of Electrical Workers are sentenced to pay immediately are reimbursed.