Few may have escaped the school debate of recent years. School results in Sweden have dropped drastically since the beginning of the 2000s. However, until 1991, the school was a state affair. So we also had very good results. After municipalisation, the Riksdag opened up to private profits. Sweden is now unique in the world in allowing unregulated profit withdrawals.
Month: March 2016
Stress is the employer's responsibility
The sick leave rate is increasing again. The most common cause is prolonged stress. Since the 1990s cutbacks in public and private activities, fewer employees are expected to do more. Constant reorganizations are another contributing factor. At the same time, we are increasingly connected and available. Stress researcher Aleksander Perski is interviewed in Veckan's business:
The real-life Gordon Gekko chooses Bernie Sanders
The investor and art collector Asher Edelman was the model for the main character Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. In a high-profile news item on CNBC, Edelman explained his support for Bernie Sanders:
Stress increases sharply in working life
In the Norwegian Working Environment Agency's new film, we get to follow some human destinies that describe how stress can manifest itself. One manager started berating people in meetings and at one point threw an orange at the wall. A pre-school principal woke up and did not recognize his own face in the mirror. A man in good physical shape got…
Strong compartments provide better working life
In Sweden, wages are set through agreements between the labor market parties: unions and employers. The stronger the unions become, the better bargaining position the wage earners have. In these times of Kommunal's lack of respect for members' money and criticism of some trade unions' weak membership involvement, it is important to remember one thing: trade unions, left-of-centre parties and popular movements built...
Increased sick leave far down the ages
We need a healthy working life. A working life that provides the conditions for people to do a good job. Where we have time for recovery, reflection and development. A working life for everyone, in short. Now, however, the reality looks different. The Director General of the Swedish Work Environment Agency, Erna Zelmin-Ekenhem, writes on DN Debatt 9/3 – 2016:
The benefit of state-owned companies
We consider it a neoliberal idea that the state or municipalities should not own anything. Certain safer business ideas can, as public companies, contribute to providing for welfare, without taxes having to be raised. Needs that we can foresee we can sometimes more easily solve through public ownership than privately. In some industries, the market does not function optimally as...
Ownership and democracy
Public organizations govern the Swedish people politically. We, with the state or the municipalities as owners, can influence the work of the boards. We can demand transparency. We can decide how the organization should develop. An advantage of the public sector is that the state/municipalities can decide whether increased resources should go to personnel and/or operations. In private welfare companies, the owners themselves manage…
The red-green future is bright
In the future, people and the environment are the goal. Not the ever-increasing environmental-destroying and poverty-creating capital concentration.