(edit title) How many months notice must an employer give? After one and a half years work with them. Options

[muir318]

Hello again all

By law in sweden,how many months notice must an employer give an employee after working with them for over one and a half years, when terminating a contract ?
I was told 3 months,is this the case or is it less?

Also if one employee has a contract that is terminated for no real reason while another employee who started months after the first employee is kept in employment is there any wrong doing by the employer here?

Thanks in advance for any advice

[Puffin]

What does it say in your contract?

Were you fast anställd or kontrakt? (if it was a contract they may have laid you off to prevent you getting permanent under LAS)

[grugel]

Depens on many factors as pointed out by previous poster.

First what kind of contract did you have?

Provanställning? In this case there employment will be terminated immiediatly

Visstidsanställning? Not really sure here, but i think the collective agreements regulate this but as i remember if you have not bargained for any extra time its two weeks, or in case your contract expires before that upto the end date of the contract.

Tillsvidareanställd? This is regulated in the collective agreements and can be very different between different lines of work.
HEre are for examplethe ones for Handels (cashiers at supermarkets etc)

If you have been employed for 6-12 months during the previous two years get:

2 months if you are 25 years of age
3 months if you are 30 years of age
4 months if you are 35 years of age
5 months if you are 40 years of age
To a maximium of 6 months if you are 45 years of age.

For more info about your situation i suggest you contact your local union. If you are not part of a union i strongly suggest you join the appriopriate one for you field of work. There is power in numbers, in day to day life you might not see the work that unions do so much but when the going gets tough they are very good to have. For example in my workplace a employee was terminated for injuring another employee (safety is very big in my organisation) even though he followed the risk assesments and work procedure that was established by the superiors. He protested and contacted the union and they provided lawyers(usually very good lawyers specialized in labor laws) and handled the process which ended up with a verdict in the Arbetsdomstol (labor court) reprimanding the company strongly, citing that the termination was done illegally, unjustly and that the employee had suffered considarable psychological damage due to the allegations from from the company against the employee.

The company was forced to pay 1.5 years of pay that the employee had lost during the time from termination to the verdict and an additional 1.5 millions if severence. In cases where they loose the union pays for all legal expenses so it doesnt cost the members more than the monthly fee.

Many do not join unions nowadays thinking they are useless and do not do anything. But what people forget is the historical achievements of the unions which are considerable and if the employer acts wrongfully against employees the unions bring great weight, expertise and help. I for the life of me cant understand why people in my age chooses to opt out of union membership. I feel sorry to know that in for example the case above they would stand alone agains, as in the case, a market leading multinational company with over 50000 employees.I guess they are just uninformed.

Sorry for the rant folks! Just wanted to push a little bit for union membership. (and just FYI i am only a member of unionen -. I do not have any board assignment and i do not work for the union.)

[John.Smith]

Nothing against union membership for others myself and in your above example shows the good work they can do. However, those guys have caused me grief in the past when I was renegotiating my employment contract with my current employer when changing position within the company. They said that the pay rise i was supposed to get exceeded the norm for someone of my age (mid-30's) and thus was inappropriate

Not to tar all unions with the same brush but WTF? What has my age got to do with my performance? Up here there is some strange agreement that all pay rises have to be backed by the union even for non-union members. I guess it has something to do with that they don't want their members to fall behind in terms of pay rates?? In the end I got half the rise I was expecting (still not bad)

While I can somewhat understand where they were coming from it also feel like a protection racket (at least here anyway). A majority of the union members are subject to Jantelagen and that extends to non-members also... i.e. don't rise above your station and everybody gets the same etc etc etc...

[Puffin]

Not to tar all unions with the same brush but WTF? What has my age got to do with my performance?

When most people negotiate their pay rises they do a comparison and ask the union for a list of salaries for people of similar qualification/experience/performance/working with the same tasks - and can demand parity so - although I would have though that it was more of an employer problem sometimes it can cause problems with the members if there are wide and poorly argued differences

If you work in the public sector then your workmates will be able to get details of exactly what salaries your colleagues are getting by name!

[John.Smith]

Hi Puffin,
yeah, I know, my wife works in the public sector and has had similar issues

My employer was taken over by a very large German multinational a few years back (good for us in many ways ) and as a result they are very focused on upskilling our aging workforce. The problem now is that many workers in their late 40's upwards simply do not want to upskill (which I can understand) but this then causes issues when we take on new skilled people with wage parity etc..
In my instance, the only comparison they could draw was with engineers employed here, but I am not an engineer, I am a project manager. So they (the union) resorted to comparison by age which I didn't even realise they could argue?

We know have a problem with retaining skilled people due to the wage topic as other employers in our area are paying better for skilled people.

Again, I am not knocking unions, just making a side note that sometimes they can be too 'equal' in their approach which is not fair to people who want to focus on career development.

P.S:

Sorry for the thread hijack!

[Yorkshireman]

By law in sweden,how many months notice must an employer give an employee after working with them for over one and a half years, when terminating a contract ?I was told 3 mont ... (show full quote)

By law in sweden,how many months notice must an employer give an employee after working with them for over one and a half years, when terminating a contract ?
I was told 3 months,is this the case or is it less? ... (hide full quote)

Regardless of if Your employer is bound by a collective agreement or not, the basic employment law is the minimum that must be followed. Collective agreements enhance the base employment law, but cannot give less.

Basic notice periods are for fulltime work are, since it is over 1.5 years, test time is complete:
1 month - minimum
2 months if you have been employed there between 2 - 4 years
3 months if you have been employed there between 4 - 6 years
4 months if you have been employed there between 6 - 8 years
5 months if you have been employed there between 8 - 10 years
6 months if you have been employed there between 10+ years

Your contract may state something else, which can never be less than the basic rights. If it doesn't say anything, then either the collective agreement counts, and always below that is the basic law.

Also if one employee has a contract that is terminated for no real reason while another employee who started months after the first employee is kept in employment is there any ... (show full quote)

Also if one employee has a contract that is terminated for no real reason while another employee who started months after the first employee is kept in employment is there any wrong doing by the employer here? ... (hide full quote)

In Law not possible. According to employment law Lag (1982:80) om anställningsskydd, article 7, Termination from the employers side must always be objectively based, in writing and given personally to the employee.

The employer must always tell You the reasons for terminations, even when it is due to personal reasons. However, they only need to do so in writting if the employee requests it. (always request )

If the employer has a collective agrement with a union, and You are a member, they must not come to You 1st, terminations must be discussed with the Union representative 1st. If the employer comes to You the very first question they ask should be, are you a member of the union, if so ... they should cease discussions and go to the union. However, often there is an informal negotiation, to see if they can reach an agreement before the union is involved.