Debate: You give notice - but few want your flexible pension

Employers hit back at Unionen and the Swedish Society of Engineers (SI): Your members do not want your mandatory flex pension, write IT&Telecom companies' Anne-Marie Fransson and Almega's CEO Anna-Karin Hatt on Aftonbladet debate.

On Wednesday, Almega received a very extensive notice from the white-collar unions Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjörer (SI). Later, it was extended. Together, they intend to take more than 10,000 members out on strike in our areas. This makes this a large and irresponsible notice, which breaks with the constructive spirit we have had so far in Sweden on important and long-term issues such as pensions.

In the heat of the battle, Unionen and Sveriges Ingenjörer (SI) are now using every argument to get their way. A lot of them are directly untrue and totally taken out of the air:

Firstly,Unionen and SI claim that Almega wants to be "the cheap employer alternative". This is not true. We have offered our union counterparts to agree on a 2.2 percent wage increase in the coming year in all areas that have now been notified, exactly in accordance with the mark set by the industry. Almega has never, and will never, want or strive to "get away cheaper" than any other part of the labor market. Employees are the service companies' most important resource and we work actively to reward good employees with individual wage setting and a good wage policy.

Secondly, Unionen and SI claim that we do not care about our employees' pensions. That is not true either. Pension issues are very important issues - so important, in fact, that they shouldn't be rushed through in a collective bargaining process, or brought into conflict. Almega is prepared to agree on a good opportunity for employees of service companies to have an individual flex pension, but individuals must be given the power to decide for themselves whether they want to make an extra provision or not.

Thirdly, Unionen and SI claim that Almega wants to "empty the collective agreements and have collective agreements with as little content as possible". That is not true either. We want to see attractive collective agreements, more attractive than today, so that more people - both employees and companies - want and choose to be covered by them. Forcing a flexible pension model onto our agreements that is ill-suited to the service sector risks leading to more companies choosing to terminate their agreements and find themselves without a collective agreement, when both we and the unions should really be striving for the opposite.

Fourth, trade unions do not seem to believe that their own members can or will choose for themselves. Our experience is the opposite. There are competent, knowledgeable and well-educated white-collar workers in service companies who are used to making their own decisions. That's why we are convinced that an individual flexible pension is more attractive to them too.

To test this hypothesis, Almega recently asked Novus to find out what employees themselves think: Do they want to be able to decide for themselves whether they want a flexible pension or extra pay, or do they want the union to decide instead? And the answer to that is clear: Almost 2 out of 3 want to be able to decide for themselves whether to make an extra pension provision or get that money as extra pay. Only 22% of respondents want a mandatory, collective model.

Fifthly, Unionen and SI pretended that all employees would benefit from a mandatory, collective flex pension. This is not the case. For anyone earning less than SEK 39,900 a month - and there are many of them - the model proposed by the unions is a pure loss-making affair because other benefits, which are based on salary, are reduced. And for those under 25, it's even worse: they get to help pay for the model, but in the unions' model, they don't get a penny of extra provision until they turn 25. This is not fair.

In many areas, the service sector is far ahead in the development of our collective agreements. The unions' demands for mandatory flex pensions run counter to this development and to much of what we have achieved together in terms of individual wage setting, removing individual guarantees in order to fully reward competence and performance and thereby make collective agreements more attractive to both employees and companies.

Forcing collective flexicurity on the service sector through conflict is like shooting yourself in the foot. It may lead to a short-term gain for the unions. But the long-term losses are much greater. Also for the unions and their members.

Anna-Karin Hatt, CEO Almega

Anne-Marie Fransson, Deputy CEO of Almega and Director of IT&Telecom within Almega