Occupational Safety and Health


Sweden has a solid tradition of research and of continuously updating its knowledge in fields related to the job market and the working environment. The concepts of working environment and occupational injury are thus defined more broadly than in most other countries and are closely linked to productivity and efficiency. Working environment refers not only to traditional physical, technical and chemical health hazards, but also to psychosocial problems, stress, job organization (work systems), job content and other labor market-related issues. The concept of occupational injury also has a wider meaning than in other countries. Discussion does not focus merely on directly job-related accidents or diseases. Researchers have identified working environment factors that contribute to the development or spread of many other ailments as well.

The Work Environment Act - creating the framework
Sweden’s first occupational health and safety law was adopted late in the 19th century. The current Work Environment Act (Arbetsmiljölagen), which went into effect in 1978, is a "framework" or enabling act. This means that it presents its objectives and outlines systems, techniques and allocation of responsibilities for the working environment in general terms. The law is supplemented by detailed rules issued by the National Board of Occupational Safety and Health in the form of ordinances, general advice and information.

There are several other Swedish laws that directly or indirectly regulate working environment and safety, for example acts on transportation of hazardous substances, chemical products, inflammable and explosive products, radiation protection, environmental protection and physical planning and construction. At the workplace, however, the Work Environment Act takes precedence.

The enabling act and related ordinances and advice are supplemented by agreements between employer and employee organizations. For many years, a working environment agreement between the Swedish Employers’ Confederation (SAF), the Trade Union Confederation (LO) and the Federation of Salaried Employees in Industry and Services (PTK) regulated local industrial safety systems. This agreement, which also regulated affiliation with occupational health services, was terminated in 1991 by SAF, and no new agreement has been signed.

Worst jobs surveyed
In the autumn of 1988, the Swedish Cabinet pledged to carry out a survey of the 400,000 worst jobs in Sweden. The government-appointed Commission on Working Conditions identified a number of hazardous occupational categories, especially in manufacturing. These occupations are especially vulnerable to traditional working environment problems, such as severe and repeated accidents, hearing losses and musculoskeletal injuries. Women in these occupations were in particular danger.

To build further on the Commission’s report, in 1995 the National Board of Occupational Safety and Health (Arbetarskyddsstyrelsen), the National Institute for Working Life (Arbetslivsinstitutet) and the Swedish Council for Work Life Research (Rådet för arbetslivsforskning) asked 26 researchers to survey the Swedish labor market. Their findings were summarized by Professor Bengt Järvholm in the report Arbetsliv och hälsa - en kartläggning (Working Life and Health - A Survey). The report indicates that the gaps between the health of different occupational categories and social classes have not narrowed. In the future, there is even a risk that these gaps will widen. Job-related psychological pressures have increased significantly over the past 20–25 years. Employees in hotels, the postal system, restaurants, health care, telecommunications and the trucking industry are exposed to more negative stress than other occupational categories.

Today many of the classic occupational diseases such as asbestosis, silicosis and metal poisoning are rare in the Swedish labor market. Due to improved ventilation systems and other reforms, fewer and fewer employees are being exposed to hazardous chemicals, for example organic solvents.

The risk of heart attacks varies greatly between occupational categories. Professional drivers and male mechanics are at high risk, while the academic professions are at low risk. The number of severe accidents has fallen by half in less than ten years. Asthma and allergy have become greater problems.

Job insecurity affects everyone today. About 500,000 people in Sweden are employed on a temporary basis. Meanwhile many permanent employees are being forced to accept more overtime and fewer people dare change workplace.

Strict employer responsibility
The Work Environment Act was tightened in 1991. In its amended form, the act emphasizes the employer’s responsibility for the working environment, which is also defined more broadly to include work systems and psychosocial problems:

"Technology, work organization and job content shall be designed in such a way that the employee is not subjected to physical or mental strains which can lead to illness or accidents. Forms of remuneration and the distribution of working hours shall also be taken into account in this connection. Closely controlled or restricted work shall be avoided or limited." (Swedish Work Environment Act, Chapter 2, Section 1) The employer is obliged to develop a plan of action on how to resolve problems and improve the working environment in the long term. Another new feature of the act is that it has been extended to cover pupils in grades 1–6 of compulsory school. Starting in grade 7, each school class is also entitled to appoint two student safety delegates.

Lower sick pay
To increase employer motivation to improve the working environment, in January 1992 a new sick pay system was introduced, shifting the financial burden from the public sector to the employer during the first two weeks of illness. On January 1, 1996 sick pay was lowered to 75 percent of ordinary income. This change was also an attempt to halt rising public-sector expenditures for absenteeism due to illness.

The Working Environment Act also makes the employer responsible for rehabilitation of employees with work injuries or chronic illnesses. After an employee has been continuously ill for four weeks, the employer is required to initiate a discussion of any need for rehabilitation and, in consultation with the government’s social insurance office, to set up a plan for active rehabilitation of the employee.

Improved work systems and skills development
In order to ensure funding for improved working environment, lower employee absences due to illness and rehabilitate those with occupational injuries, the Swedish Parliament allocated about SEK 12 billion to establish a special Swedish Working Life Fund, which existed during the years 1991-1996. The fund granted priority to about 25,000 "workplace programs" aimed at improving work systems. Successful workplace programs were characterized by:

It is thus important for top management to regard the organization and supervision of development processes as an important element of its work.

An evaluation of the fund’s programs indicated that four main elements drive successful development work: Project-oriented working methods, major investments in training programs that support the development of new work systems, establishment of development activities in work teams and finally, coordinating functions via informational and discussion arenas.

Between 1991 and 1995, the National Institute for Working Life ran a program for learning organizations, called the L Program. It provided support to workplace projects that tested new methods for achieving on-the-job learning. Some 40 workplace projects participated. The then- Work Environment Fund appropriated SEK 50 million for this purpose.

The program makes it clear that continued renewal and adaptation to changing external conditions and demands are now vital for survival. Employee skills development is another strategically important issue. As a result, a parallel development of personnel and operations is necessary. Skills development and continuous renewal also require time for reflection. The program reached the conclusion that in all companies, there is unutilized potential for on-the-job learning that must be mapped out and systematically utilized.

50,000 workplace visits
Working environment issues are under the purview of the Ministry of Labor (Arbetsmarknadsdepartementet). The National Board of Occupational Safety and Health (Arbetarskyddsstyrelsen), with 300 employees, issues regulations, participates in international standardization programs, oversees the Labor Inspectorate (Yrkesinspektionen) and handles appeals of the Inspectorate’s rulings.

The Labor Inspectorate, which has 550 employees and is organized into 11 districts, ensures that companies and other organizations comply with the Work Environment Act. Based on this act, the Inspectorate can take legal action against violations of working environment laws and regulations.

Some 400 labor inspectors visit roughly 50,000 of Sweden’s 260,000 or so workplaces each year. Their priorities in deciding which workplaces to visit are based on their knowledge of the hazards in different economic sectors and occupations, as well as conditions at particular workplaces. Every inspection district has access to a database containing detailed facts on occupational accidents and diseases at each workplace. The same information is broken down by economic sectors, occupations and different machines and tools.

More than 45 percent of their visits result in written orders for improvements in the working environment. The employer then has a grace period to implement these changes. Only 450 of these 22,500 orders go on to the stage of injunctions or prohibitions. Some 20 cases per year lead to proceedings in a court of law.

Recent amendments to the Work Environment Act partly alter the duties of the Labor Inspectorate. To a greater extent than previously, it engages in "systems supervision," a new form of monitoring that has evolved over a number of years. It is a method for monitoring an employer’s internal control of the working environment, in terms of its structure, implementation and function.

Workplace safety delegates
The Work Environment Act enables employees to change the working environment through two institutions: safety delegates (sometimes called safety representatives) and safety committees. At all workplaces in Sweden with at least five employees, safety delegates (skyddsombud) are selected for three-year terms by the trade union with the most members in each particular industry. Today there are about 100,000 safety delegates, and about one fourth of them are replaced each year. Large workplaces have several, and one of them serves as the senior safety delegate. The act entitles safety delegates to perform their tasks on working time.

Safety delegates are entitled to order the suspension of work that involves "immediate and serious danger to the life or health of an employee and if no immediate remedy can be obtained through representations to the employer." In such cases the Labor Inspectorate must be summoned to make a final decision on what should be done.
The right to suspend work was used most frequently during the first few years after the act took effect in 1978. The peak year was 1979, when 171 such actions occurred. Very few abuses of this right are believed to occur. The decline in the number of cases is probably attributable to joint decisions by both employers and employees to suspend work, thereby obviating the need to call in the Labor Inspectorate.

The effectiveness of safety delegates is based not only on their legal rights but also on education and training.

The Joint Industrial Safety Council (Arbetarskyddsnämnden) has put together study packages for safety delegates and foremen. Today more than 850,000 safety delegates and foremen have taken the 40-hour course "Better Working Environment" on paid working time. The Council, a national labor-management collaborative body for the working environment, provides training and information materials in this field. This includes a number of working environment courses, reference books and checklists.

The National Board of Occupational Safety and Health for Government Employees (Statens arbetsmiljönämnd) formulates training and information policies and supplies training materials on working environment issues for the public sector.

The magazine Arbetsmiljö, produced by the Swedish Work Environment Association (Föreningen för Arbetarskydd, FFA), is sent free of charge to all safety delegates in Sweden. It contains news related to occupational safety and health, as well as technical features in this field. Every year the Association also publishes an English-language issue, Working Environment, which is distributed worldwide. FFA’s task is to promote good working environment through informational, publishing and service activities.

Over the past two decades, cooperation between employer and employee organizations at both the national and local levels has ensured the success of working environment programs. Working environment is one field in which the Swedish model has been successful. Also instrumental in creating good working environments has been cooperation between labor market organizations and public agencies.

Occupational health services reassessed
Occupational health services in Sweden employ about 7,000 people at more than 700 centers. A restructuring of this system toward larger units and/or collaboration between several units is underway. More than 80 percent of the Swedish labor force has access to such services, which may be organized in three ways:

The occupational health services are organized into teams of occupational health physicians and nurses, physical therapists, safety engineers and behavioral scientists, who cover the medical, technical and psychosocial aspects of the working environment. Problems that occupational health services cannot handle can be referred to one of thirteen occupational medicine clinics around the country. These are operated by the county councils, who are also responsible for most medical care in Sweden.

Occupational health services can provide both preventive measures and medical care. A government commission report presented in 1990 emphasized their preventive role.

Guidelines for quality assurance have been produced to give the occupational health services a more clear and active role as a resource for employers and employees, while facilitating opportunities for these services both to accept and provide assignments involving companies and public agencies. This has created the prerequisites for evaluations at individual, company and public agency levels. Ethical guidelines have been developed at the industry level. These guidelines supplement the rules of professional ethics found in the Swedish health care system as a whole.

Database on occupational injuries
The Swedish Occupational Injury Information System (ISA) is a database on occupational injuries and job-related illnesses in Sweden, maintained by the National Board of Occupational Safety and Health. It is compiled on the basis of reports to social insurance offices under the Work Injury Insurance Act (Lagen om arbetsskadeförsäkring). ISA was designed for compiling official statistics and performing special analyses requested by various clients. The Labor Inspectorate has a direct link to ISA via a Windows-based program that also presents the information in graphic form. The database can also be ordered separately in a format accessible to personal computers, PC-ISA. This enables companies to examine their own work injury statistics, for example.

The Work Injury Insurance Act of 1976, amended in 1993, defines occupational injuries as all injuries caused by accidents or other harmful effects of work. “Other harmful effects” refer to the effects of a factor that is highly likely to cause the kind of injury the insured person has sustained. Accidents while commuting to or from work are also covered. There is no list of approved occupational illnesses.

The Act applies to all people in the work force, including the self-employed and students undergoing vocational training. A separate law regulates compensation to military conscripts.

Occupational injury insurance is coordinated with the public system of sickness allowances with regard to compensation for absences from work. The same compensation is payable as in all other cases of illness. If a person has been ill for a long period and believes there might be some type of occupational injury or chronic reduction in working capacity, there is an assessment to determine whether an occupational injury exists. If it does, the law authorizes full compensation for lost income.

The cost of occupational injuries is financed by a portion of employer payroll fees.

The occupational injury insurance system does not award any compensation for "pain and suffering". However, there is a collective agreement that provides no-fault employer liability insurance for this purpose.

A government commission has recently presented its report including several proposals for amendments concerning the occupational injury insurance system.

Research yields new knowledge
The Swedish Council for Work Life Research (Rådet för arbetslivsforskning) was established on July 1, 1995 after the Cabinet and Parliament approved a restructuring of the field of job-related research in Sweden. Among other things, the new Council took over the research-financing role of the former Work Environment Fund.

The Council’s brief is to initiate and finance research and development work that promotes a good working environment, effective work systems and a labor market accessible to everyone. This is to be accomplished at three levels: individual, company/public agency and national.

Its task as one of Sweden’s sectorial research funding agencies implies that the actual needs and problems of the labor market should be reflected in its research and development programs. The Council has structured these into three areas:

The Council is charged with planning, initiating and supporting research and development efforts of importance to working life - by crafting overall programs and allowing these to support research and development projects. The Council’s task is to evaluate projects, promote research on the role of women in the job market, disseminate information on the findings of various studies and promote international cooperation in its fields.

The Council for Work Life Research is a major source of funding. It received a central government appropriation of nearly SEK 265 million for this purpose in 1996. The Council’s operations and the projects that it finances are described in a free English-language newsletter.

Interdisciplinary research and development
The National Institute for Working Life (Arbetslivsinstitutet) is a national center for research and development related to the working environment, working life and the labor market. Other important tasks are to build up and apply knowledge by means of training, information and documentation as well as international cooperation. A total of 470 people work at the Institute, including 122 who hold doctorates. Among these are 32 full professors. The Institute is located in Solna, Stockholm and Umeå. It was established on July 1, 1995 by a merger of the National Institute of Occupational Health (Arbetsmiljöinstitutet), the Institute for Working Life Research and portions of the Work Environment Fund. The Institute has a 1996 budget of SEK 213 M as well as SEK 306 M in funding to support outside programs, for example at universities and colleges or in the fields of employment development and training.

The Institute pursues research and development work in:

According to the Institute’s brief, this research must be relevant to developments in working life and must be of good scientific quality. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research is the identifying theme of the Institute, which is expected to work together with other public agencies, scientific institutions, universities and colleges both in Sweden and abroad.

The Institute is also expected to implement and support various training and development programs in the labor market. It has established a development council and a training council, whose members include employer and employee representatives as well as internal and outside experts.

The Library of the National Institute for Working Life (Arbetslivsbiblioteket) has been assigned national responsibility for documenting research on working life. Its holdings include about 40,000 titles, and it has sophisticated information technology and database resources.

The Institute documents research in its fields by publishing scientific monograph series and popular magazines. Its publications include the English-language newsletter Research News, which appears 2-3 times yearly.

Sweden’s membership in the European Union imposes growing demands on the Institute’s international work. An International Committee coordinates and supports its international contacts and development collaboration. Training activities in developing countries and in Eastern and Central Europe are other important Institute programs.

The Institute trains the employees of Swedish occupational health services, but it also works with other target groups that need a knowledge of working environment and other job-related issues. In addition, the National Institute for Working Life provides postgraduate training in collaboration with universities and colleges.

1 SEK (Swedish krona) = 0.15 USD or 0.10 GBP

 This fact sheet is part of SI’s information service. It can be used as background information on condition that the source is acknowledged.

ISSN 1101-6124
Classification: FS 85 k Ohae
August 1996



Fact Sheets on Sweden