Criticism of the care agreement: A fiasco

Criticism rains down on the Vårdförbundet after they ended the care strike and concluded an agreement with SKR.

The union’s members are dissatisfied with the new agreement.

– I think it feels very sad, says nurse Margareta Blid.

On Friday, the announcement came: the conflict between the Health Confederation and Sweden’s municipalities and regions, SKR, is over.

For six months, Vårdförbundet has been trying to agree with SKR and Sobona, the municipal companies’ employers’ organization, on a new agreement since the previous one was terminated.

On April 25, the Health Care Association took industrial action in the form of overtime, overtime and new hire blockades as well as a strike in several regions. Now the strike has been called off and both parties say they are satisfied with the agreement.

– It feels very good to have a new agreement in place. The conflict has dragged on for a long time and meant great strain, says Jeanette Hedberg, head of negotiations at SKR.

Among the Vårdförbundet’s members, however, the tone is different.

During a Facebook post where the Vårdförbundet presents the new agreement, there are over 550 comments, and a large percentage are highly critical.

Margareta Blid’s comment under the Vårdförbundet’s post. Photo: Screenshot From Facebook The agreement is disappointing

The criticism raised mainly concerns the shortening of working hours, which was a disappointment for many, including nurse Margareta Blid. She works as a nurse in psychiatry in Halmstad. In region Halland, the nurses with irregular working hours have infocloseoregular working hours Those with irregular working hours work red days, weekends and nights. The shorter working week should compensate for that. a working week of 38.25 hours. When the conflict began, she thought that the biggest issue would be shortened working hours.

Despite the Vårdförbundet promising that more people will have shorter working hours, the critics believe that this hardly applies to anyone who works in healthcare today.

The agreement says that a full-time employee who only works at night on weekdays will have a shortened work week from 40 to 36 hours a week. It is a small group that only works weekdays and not weekends. In many places, there are already local agreements that are better than the agreement drawn up by SKR and Vårdförbundet.

Margareta Blid has previously worked at Halland’s hospital and believes that overtime is not an exception, but rather something that belongs to everyday life.

– There it is common for the nurse who works from 7am to 4pm to stay until 10pm in the evening because the evening colleague is sick, she says.

– The entire healthcare system has been built on people working overtime.

The lack of nurses is noticeable in many workplaces, and the large amount of overtime causes many to apply to other businesses, for example the municipality.

– There is a crisis at the hospital in Region Halland and I don’t think safe care is being provided, says Margareta Blid.

“A fiasco”

A salary increase of 3.05 percent was also included in the new agreement, which extends one year into the future. But it too was met with disappointment and criticism.

– The conclusion is that they have gone on strike for nothing, that is, a strike without results and that the salary is not retroactive from April is just another fiasco. Wage growth of 3% is not something to be applauded for compared to today’s inflation, writes one person under the Vårdförbundet’s post on Facebook.

Many cannot bear to work full-time because the workload is so high. Margareta Blid had therefore hoped for a reduction in working hours.

– The staff leave the round-the-clock care because they can’t stand the working hours and the working environment, and then there’s the salary, of course, she says.

How do you feel now that the agreement is in place?

– I think it feels very sad.

– I don’t think it was worth a conflict, she says.