The Malmö Construction Worker's Syndicate, affiliated with the Malmö Local Federation of the syndicalist SAC, is set to receive €2.200 in damages from a construction company for refusal to negotiate.
The background for the conflict is the written employment agreement about employment given to the member by the inBlue construction company - an agreement never honored, as the company turned him down when he showed up for work in person. The reason? The management had learnt that he was a practicing Muslim. Imagine a first day at work consisting of being alone in a room with company executives hammering you with various evasive explanations as to the amount of trouble your religious conviction would cause at work! As if this was not enough, inBlue then proceeded to refuse to do the right thing, refusing all invitations to sit down and negotiate on the matter.
Such a clear case of discrimination can never be tolerated, and neither can violations against the workers' right to organize. Given this, the Construction Worker's Syndicate proceeded to sue the employer in the Swedish Labour Court, and as mentioned, the ruling in the part of the complaint relating to the refusal to negotiate has now been settled in the favor of the syndicalists, with the result in the part relating to discrimination on religious grounds expected to be passed down before summer.
- The outcome of this settlement is satisfactory. Now we can move on, focusing on winning the remainder of the case pertaining to discriminatory practices, says John Nordmark, legal representative of the syndicate.