Healthcare strike under way as nurses refuse overtime

A nationwide healthcare strike affecting 63,000 nurses, midwives, biomedical scientists and radiographers is under way, after negotiations between the union and employers’ organisations broke down. 

The industrial action, launched by the Swedish Association of Health Professionals, kicked off at 4pm on Thursday and means that its members will refuse to work overtime or extra shifts, and that employers may not hire new staff as long as the action is ongoing.

Healthcare services are generally urging patients to turn up to scheduled appointments (although as healthcare is managed on a regional basis in Sweden, it may make sense to check with your healthcare provider), but warn that non-essential surgeries may be cancelled.

Test results could also be delayed.

Swedish vocabulary: an overtime ban – en övertidsblockad

Swedish mortgage bank predicts lower interest rate from next month

Sweden’s state-owned mortgage lender SBAB predicts that the Riksbank (the central bank) will lower the interest rate five times this year.

It predicts in its latest report that the first cut will come in May, when it believes the Riksbank will lower the so-called policy rate, the country’s main interest rate, from 4.00 percent to 3.75 percent. And by the end of the year it predicts the rate will be down to 2.75 percent.

If mortgage rates were to also fall by 1.25 percentage units (mortgage rates are influenced by the policy rate, but it’s not a guarantee that they’ll be identical), that means someone paying a 3 million mortgage would have their mortgage rate reduced by 3,125 kronor per month.

Swedish vocabulary: to lower – att sänka 

Swedish PM to meet parties after attack on anti-fascism event

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told the Expressen tabloid that the government wants to meet Sweden’s parties, after the Left Party demanded action following an attack on an anti-fascism event co-organised by them.

“The government wants to meet all parties in parliament to discuss how we work together against attacks, harassment and sabotage against political meetings,” Kristersson wrote in a comment to Expressen.

Several masked men, described as Nazis by several present at the scene, burst into a Stockholm theatre on Wednesday night and set off smoke bombs during an anti-fascism event, according to police and participants.

Around 50 people were taking part in the event at the Moment theatre in Gubbängen, a southern suburb of the Swedish capital, organised by the Left Party and the Green Party.

Swedish vocabulary: Left Party – Vänsterpartiet

Mother no longer suspected of murdering children

The mother of two school-age children, a boy and a girl, who were found dead in their beds in Södertälje a couple of days ago, has been released and is no longer a suspect, her lawyer told Swedish media. The father remains in custody on suspicion of murder. 

“It’s an incredibly tragic and sensitive case,” her lawyer, Lina Holmgren, told Swedish news agency TT. 

The prosecutor has until noon on Saturday to decide whether or not to ask the court to remand the father in custody.

The two children were found dead in a home in Södertälje, south of Stockholm, on Wednesday night. The Expressen tabloid reports that a neighbour alerted the police. The father was taken to hospital with serious injuries and his condition is still unknown.

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden’s main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is “unacceptable” political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold.

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.

Swedish vocabulary: a business – ett företag