Sweden’s largest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, reports today that about 150 trash collectors in Stockholm threaten to go on a wildcat strike any day now, over a salary conflict with the entrepeneur handling the garbage on behalf of the municipal. The conflict itself is pretty interesting, since trash collectors here have a contract structure in which they are paid a kind of piece wage, based on the amount of trash they collect.
The employer wants to pay them a flat monthly salary (a very standard way of doing things), which for most of the workers would mean less cash. And about 20% more work. Further, the trash collectors wants to limit the amount of trash they can collect, and are complaining that there’s just so much more trash these days. Trash collector Mr Berra Ramhquist, 27 years on the job, tells Dagens Nyheter that the increase since he started is just immense.
If a wildcat strike indeed starts, one can just imagine how quickly we all will be part of an involuntary trash collecting project Mattias Hagberg style! To be continued.
Tags: Strike, Sweden, Trash collectors
everydaytrash 
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 8:25 am |
Oh no! Fingers crossed that Stockholm doesn’t end up looking like Naples!