New Legislation Makes It More Difficult For Foreign Employers To Avoid Swedish Collective Agreements

Co-authored by Jakob Nortoft of Glimstedt

Byggnads is the largest Swedish trade union for construction workers. In 2004, Byggnads blockaded the Latvian construction company Laval in order to force Laval to sign a Swedish collective agreement. The subsequent court case resulted in what is known as Lex Laval. The core implication of Lex Laval is that while a trade union is allowed to use industrial action against foreign employers if the purpose is to force the employer to be bound by a Swedish collective agreement's minimum conditions—it can only do so where the employer could not show evidence that those minimum conditions were already met. This is called the "rule of evidence." The consequence of the ruling was that it was harder for unions to commence industrial action against foreign employers than domestic employers, as with the latter, employers could not frustrate the action by showing this evidence.