This paper focuses on the employers? responsibility as described in the 11th section in the Employment (co-determination in the workplace) Act of 1976. The questions asked are to determine whether the law in the 11th section is followed in real life and if the consequences for breaking the law are a deciding factor. This paper summarizes the law as it is interpreted today and in what situations it is applicable. Since the law and especially section 11 affects certain individuals and organizations, the paper also describes who these individuals and organizations are and how they are affected.

AbstractThe employer is obliged to initiate negotiations with the union organization to which the employer is bound by a collective agreement. This applies both to decisions which imply a substantial change in workplace operations or employment conditions of the individual employee. In case law this obligation has been very extensive through all cases that have been up in the Swedish Labor court. Due to this fact the employer?s duty to negotiate has been interpreted very broadly.

The employer is obligated to call for negotiation on his own initiative, before he makes decisions in questions, which constitute important changes of the employer?s business or of the worker?s working conditions and terms of employment. The obligation to negotiate is reserved to the organisations, which the employer has collective agreements with. But what does the concept of important changes mean? What areas are included in the concept of important changes, according to legal framework and case law? How extensive is in fact the employer?s obligation to negotiate? The purpose of this report has been to seek answers to the above-mentioned questions, through partly describing how the employer?s obligation to negotiate has developed, and partly describing how the codes of negotiations in the Employment (Co-Determination in the Workplace) Act of 1976 are raised and applied.