Activity report July 2025 – April 2026

1. The association, the board and the office

The Saco-S association at Uppsala University represents approximately 4000 members in 18 Saco unions. The 2025 annual member meeting was held on 22 April, in the Eva Netzelius hall and via Zoom. The following board was elected for the activity period 2025/2026:

Lars Madej (chair), Henning Henschel (vice chair), Petra Eriksson, Banafsheh Seyyed Khezri, Cecilia Lindholm, Nadja Stålhammar, Johan Åhrgren, Mikael Olsson and Christopher Robin Samuelsson were elected as ordinary members. Robert Malmgren was elected as a substitute.

Robert Malmgren resigned from his position as substitute before the start of the activity period.

The board normally meets every week during term time. Minutes are taken every time the board has a quorum, which is when at least half of the members are present. The Saco-S association's board can appoint trade union representatives to specific tasks, such as representatives on boards and committees or to fulfil a particular task. Those who have a specific task are called office and, during the year, these have been:

Charlotte Swenning Leyser, Kirsi Nording Cronsten, Julie Hansen, Jun Mei Hu Frisk and Marco Chiodaroli.

The University also has six so-called local-local Saco-S associations. The local-local associations have no negotiating mandate and cannot make decisions, but Saco-S can seek the help of the associations when it comes to matters that take place at the department or area of activity. The local-local associations are:

• Department of Business Studies
• Department of Government
• Department of Theology
• University Library
• University Administration
• Ångström Laboratory

2. People with union trustee's time

The following people are on leave without salary deduction for union work. The union trustee's time varies between 1 % and 100 %, and may also vary during the year. The union trustee's time is negotiated with the HR director at Uppsala University before each academic year and additional times during the academic year if necessary. During the activity period, the total allocation of union representative time within the Saco-S association has ranged between 700% and 800% of the approximately 800% available. This means that, for the first time in a while, the association has successfully staffed the available time. At the same time, the workload of the board has increased significantly due to a high number of co-determination (MBL) negotiations, increased demand for member support, and a growing number of redundancy situations at the University. The board has therefore indicated to the employer that there may be a need for additional union time, although no formal position has yet been taken regarding initiating negotiations on this matter.

Note: The Board has co-opted Ulrika Persson Fischier to the board to continue to deal with a member case that she originally undertook during her time as a member of the board in the activity period 2023/2024.

3. Negotiations

3.1. Recruitments and salaries for new employees

Information about recruitments with titles, job content and employment requirements comes in an Excel list once a week. In cases where the Saco-S association has comments on the content, we send an email with questions. We rarely receive answers to whether or how the employer takes our questions and views into account. Recruitment of managers and adjunct lecturers takes place in a special order. During the activity period, the employer terminated the local agreement on adjunct lecturers, which means that these will no longer be negotiated on an ongoing basis. In accordance with the central agreement on adjunct teachers, an annual follow-up of the application of the agreement will instead take place.

Salaries for new employees are not compiled anywhere, but the Saco-S association is referred to looking up the information via Primula. This gives us very little opportunity to follow up on the employer's compliance with the agreement on the 10th percentile.

3.2. Redundancy/lack of work

Redundancies and reassignments are negotiated almost every week in connection with the so-called Thursday negotiations. The most common redundancy concerns researchers, which is based on a practice at Uppsala University of employing research staff until further notice from the first day if there is research funding that lasts for more than two years. When the funding in the project runs out, a lack of funding/work occurs in the project, which means that lack of work are common within this group. Often the tasks are so specific in terms of research that the order of selection circuit will only include the researchers in question. In connection with early reassignment testing, the researchers are tested for advertised and not yet advertised positions at the university. The role of the Saco-S association in this is to support the member and review the process by 1) establishing that there is a lack of work, 2) order of selection circuit and 3) reassignment investigation.

There have also been redundancy of teaching staff and technical/administrative staff during the year. In these cases, Saco-S requires the employer to carry out a detailed operational analysis to ensure that there is indeed a lack of work and to highlight other possible tasks for potentially affected persons. When a lack of work is determined, work begins to develop a priority circuit, which is often an extensive task as all employees with essentially comparable tasks must be included in the order of selection circuit.

During the year, we have had approximately 100 negotiations about lack of work, usually research projects where external funds are running out.

3.3. New organizational placement (NOP)

Negotiations regarding a change in organizational placement for an employee, either temporary or permanent, are negotiated in a special order. The Saco-S association contacts the person concerned in cases where it is a member to hear that everything is in order. These are handled on an ongoing basis by the board.

3.4. Priority right (Swedish: Företrädesrätt)

Within the state, merit and skill take precedence over priority right. In cases where an employer intends to hire someone over a member with priority right, this is reviewed by us. This gives us an opportunity to see whether the employer's intention can be accepted or whether the member's priority right are stronger.

3.5. Salary revision 2025

The preparatory work for the salary revision begins at the beginning of the year with a review of the previous year's negotiation results, notes from negotiations and joint statistics between the parties. This work continues throughout the spring semester. During September, members submit their negotiation documents with information about their performance and salary claims to Saco-S, which is used to submit counter-offers to the employer. In early October, the employer submits its bids for new salaries. The negotiations for the 2025 salary revision began on November 4 and continued until November 28. The doctoral student salary ladder were negotiated for both 2025 and 2026.

3.6. Business plans

The Saco-S association has negotiated the university's business plans down to faculty level. In this year's business plans, just like the previous year, we have specifically addressed work environment issues and skills provision for all employees.

3.7. Collective agreement negotiations

3.7.1. New Local Collective Agreement on vacation according to fixed model for teachers, etc. and on conditions for saved vacation, ref. 2025/3088

The local collective agreement that meant that teachers have standard vacation (Swedish: schablonsemester) was terminated by the Saco-S association. This is because standard vacation have in several cases been used in a way that has disadvantaged members. Examples of this are that members have not been able to take vacation days or have been forced to attend meetings in the days between Christmas and New Year. We have a new agreement in place for 2026, which will be evaluated after this year's vacation periods. The new agreement means, among other things, that all teachers have the right to apply for vacation, unlike the previous agreement where exceptions to standard vacation were required, which were not always granted.

3.7.2. Working hours agreement technical-administrative staff

The employer has continued to describe the needs in the business this financial year, but negotiations on the content of the agreement have not begun.

3.8. Transition dialogue

Saco-S, together with OFR/S and Seko, has a monthly dialogue with the employer regarding transition funds. The discussions have concerned the types of initiatives that the funds should be used for and handling the proposals that have been received by the employer.

3.9. Doctoral student prolongation

Saco-S and OFR/S have continued to pursue the issue of handling doctoral student prolongation. At present, things look very different at different institutions and different models for calculating prolongation are used. The starting point is that all doctoral students should be treated in the same way regardless of which department they are employed at. Work on this is ongoing and we have stated that the university needs to develop central guidelines and templates for calculating doctoral student prolongation. The biggest issue for us employee organizations is that prolongation calculations are often not calculated based on annual working hours according to the central collective agreement.

3.10. Police training

When Uppsala University was awarded the Police training, it was at very short notice. This creates challenges for both the employer and us, the employee organizations and the safety organization. MBL negotiations are regularly held on the consequences of starting the Police training. This concerns organizational issues, such as the establishment of a new department, issues regarding premises (mainly Engelska Parken), safety issues, work environment issues, etc.

3.11. Better use of the Segerstedt Building

The University administration is facing continued saving requirements and as part of this, the employer intends to use the Segerstedt Building in a better way. This means that departments/units that currently operate in other premises will be moved to the Segerstedt Building, that certain areas will be rebuilt so that they can be used more optimally, and that it will be investigated whether external tenants can rent parts of the premises. This has been negotiated continuously in close cooperation with the local-local association at the administration and safety representatives. The negotiations will continue during the coming activity period and Saco-S will receive continuous information from the employer about how the work is progressing.

3.12. University Library

During the activity period, extensive change work at Uppsala University Library has characterized the union negotiations. Several MBL negotiations have been carried out with a focus on reorganization and staff placement.

3.12.1. Restructuring and staff relocation

A central part of the negotiations has concerned the relocation of staff from the campus libraries. The change means that all staff now have their main location at either Carolina Rediviva or the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library (DHJUR). The aim has been to create a more unified staff body and optimize the use of resources within the library organization.

3.12.2. Organizational adjustments and streamlining

In addition to the physical moves, minor organizational adjustments have been carried out to create a clearer structure:

• Digitisation Division: In connection with the recruitment of a new division head, the division has been streamlined. The entire e-area of ​​the library, which was previously organizationally dispersed, has now been gathered under this division to strengthen the digital focus.
• Areas of responsibility and tasks: In order to achieve better coherence between areas of operation and tasks, certain parts of the organization have been moved to divisions where they more naturally belong based on their core missions.

From the union side, the focus during the negotiations has been on ensuring a good working environment during the change processes.

3.13. Reorganization University IT Services

University IT Services has carried out a reorganization where the new organization is now largely in place. This has involved continuous information from the employer and ongoing negotiations, usually every other week.

3.14. Other negotiations during the year

Saco-S, together with other employee organizations, conducts recurring negotiations primarily in accordance with the MBL and LAS every Thursday during most of the year. A summary of some of the most common types of negotiations is shown below:

• Approximately 20 negotiations regarding an acting manager (some of these are extensions of an acting manager) or the appointment of a manager.
• Approximately 10 negotiations regarding the hiring of a consultant.
• Approximately 10 negotiations regarding reorganizations at individual departments.

4. Other activities

4.1. Advice and support for individual members

An important part of the Saco-S association's work consists of providing members with advice and support on issues that are important to them. A large part of the issues are of a labor law or work environment law nature. Some of these conversations stop at confidential discussions. A smaller part transitions into so-called member matters where the Saco S association is there to support or ultimately negotiates the working conditions for members. In addition to short-term advice, Saco-S has concluded over 100 member matters during the fiscal year. The Saco-S association also provides advice and support in connection with setting new salaries and in connection with salary revisions.

4.2. Work task plans

According to the collective agreement, work task plans for all teachers must be submitted to Saco-S before the start of the period to which the plans relate. After dispute resolution during the 2023/2024 academic year, reporting of work task plans from the departments that were previously late with this or did not submit their work task plans to Saco-S has improved. However, certain problems remain and the work to improve the departments' work task plans has been further developed during the academic year.

The work during the academic year, just like during the previous academic year, has mainly been about the departments submitting their work task plans on time and that deviations from the agreement should be formalized through agreements or negotiations. Through this work, we have also drawn attention to situations where teachers have had large amounts of overtime, which the employer has now begun work to handle.

4.3. Salary surveys

The Saco-S association participates in the joint work on salary surveys at the university. The assignment is to analyze salary differences between women and men who perform the same or almost the same tasks and between equivalent jobs. Full salary difference must be explained objectively. This year's salary survey is ongoing.

4.4. Notice of termination

In many cases, the employer is obliged to give Saco-S notice of termination of temporary employments on behalf of our members before the employment is to end. We use this information to be able to contact these members and investigate whether everything is in order, that they are aware of the situation and whether we can be of service in any way.

Notices is handled via Primula for the entire university. There are still some problems with the handling of notice among operational HR (VHR). The Saco-S association has good contact with operational HR in these matters.

4.5. Safety representatives

Safety representatives are elected by the employees at a workplace and then appointed by the union to which they belong. The Saco-S association is involved in the training of newly elected safety representatives, and is working on this issue together with the Human Resources Division.

4.6. Continuing training

The board is constantly working on continuing their training in order to be able to support members as well as possible and work for better conditions at the university. All board members have completed basic union training. In addition, various members have taken theme courses with a bearing on union work, for example Involuntary Mismanagement. Board members participate in national union network meetings to keep up to date with what is happening in the higher education sector in Sweden.

4.7. Internal organization

The board has begun work together with the local associations to review which union tasks are handled by which association, how the different associations can cooperate in a clearer way and how the internal organization should be designed.

5. Representatives in various committees and boards

Note: Some representatives have been appointed by Seko or OFR/S. In these cases, only the organisation to which the representative belongs is stated.