Sweden: Agreement reached in wholesale and retail

With the 2007 bargaining round in manufacturing industry mostly completed, on 29 March the first major collective agreement was signed in private sector services, providing 120,000 workers in wholesale and retail with a pay increase of 13.6% over three years.

The wholesale and retail agreement is in line with the strategy for the 2007 bargaining round – which involves the renewal of three-year agreements covering most of the economy – adopted by the blue-collar Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO).