Strike by Swedish health workers escalates as holiday season approaches [Advocacy Lab Content]

Massive healthcare protests continue across Sweden, with 3,300 healthcare workers on strike, operations cancelled, and waiting times prolonged. 

After an initial 2,000 Swedish nurses, midwives, biomedical scientists, and radiographers went on strike on 4 June, mainly over lengthy working hours per week, another 1,300 joined them a week later.

On Friday, the board of the Swedish Association of Health Professionals (the union for nurses and midwives, etc) rejected an offer from a mediator in the ongoing labour dispute in Sweden’s healthcare sector.

The rejection means that the union’s strike will continue, but it also opens the way for further negotiations on a collective agreement with the employers.

The affected regions are becoming increasingly worried about the strike’s duration as the summer holiday period for healthcare personnel is rapidly approaching.

“We will see longer waiting times for our patients in hospitals’ emergency departments, and local emergency clinics will have reduced capacity. Patients will also see their operations postponed or cancelled. But what really worries me is when we get closer to the holiday season, which starts the week after Midsummer. The situation could then become quite problematic,” Johan Bratt, chief medical officer for the region, told Swedish television.

First strike in sixteen years

This is the first time in sixteen years that healthcare workers in the Swedish public sector have gone on strike.

The dispute touches 71,000 nurses, midwives, biomedical scientists and radiographers who are members of the union Vårdförbundet (Swedish Association of Health Professionals).

The first 2,000 healthcare workers went on strike on 4 June after an overtime blockade failed to persuade the two employers’ organisations.

SKR, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, and Sobona, the Employers’ organisation of municipal companies, did not accept the union’s demand to reduce weekly working hours by 75 minutes – or 15 minutes per working day during the week.

For many Swedes, the strike also comes at a time when several hospitals are cutting back on health personnel due to a poor economic situation.

Friday’s development shows the healthcare workers’ association and the employers seem far from reaching a new collective agreement.

“It is bad that it has to come to this and that the parties cannot agree. Not at least because we have had long waiting times for endoscopies for years,” Annika Josdal, a nurse at Arvika Hospital in the Värmland region, which is affected by the escalating strike, told Swedish Radio.

“The wrong way to go”

Sten Nordin, vice-chairman of the SKR’s negotiating delegation and a member of Sobona’s board, stated in a press release that reducing working hours now is “the wrong way to go.”

“Reducing working hours will make it even harder to have enough staff to care for all patients. Instead, we want to focus on other measures, such as sickness prevention, skills development, career models and job rotation,” he said.

According to the health workers union, a reduction in working hours would give them more energy and also reduce the number of sick days.

“Unfortunately, the employers in Sweden’s municipalities and regions do not want to negotiate with us about shorter working hours. But we are not giving up. We want to save health services and our members know what they need – sustainable working hours. Otherwise, there is a great risk that many will leave the health sector,” Sineva Ribeiro, president of the healthcare workers union, said last week in a press release.

13,000 nurses have left the profession

Her statement follows a report in early June from the Swedish National Health Competence Council, which said that 13,000 nurses in Sweden were no longer working as nurses, which translates to a taxpayer cost of more than €60 million.

With the nurses’ union standing firm on its demands, reducing working hours is not on the agenda for the doctors’ union, the Swedish Medical Association.

“At the moment, I do not feel that I have a mandate from our members to pursue this issue, but this may change, “ its president, Sofia Rydgren Stale, told the media.

[By Monica Kleja, edited by Vasiliki Angouridi, Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab]

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