Sweden’s Employment Protection Act Is a Joke: Labor lawyer Rasmus Hästbacka writes about Sweden’s supposedly strong legal protection for workers. I often find myself in grim negotiations where the employer has already decided to fire workers because they’ve suffered workplace injuries or illnesses – or because they’re union activists or health-and-safety delegates. In such situations, the employer doesn’t care one bit about the Swedish Employment Protection Act, abbreviated LAS. Workers are offered a “voluntary” buyout under the threat of a forced buyout. How does that work? First, you need to understand that firing people in Sweden has never been difficult – at least not legally, only financially costly in some cases. Under Section 39 of LAS, employers can always dismiss workers and then buy them out against their will. Even if you’re fired in violation of the law, and even if a court rules that the employer broke the law, the employer can simply buy their way out of the verdict by paying the damages specified in Section 39. In short, the law literally states that money stands above the law. A forced buyout therefore means that you lose your job even if you win in court. The very name of the law – the Employment Protection Act – is therefore somewhat misleading. A more accurate name would be the Law on Employers’ Right to Fire Workers on Any Grounds They Please.
https://libcom.org/article/swedens-employment-protection-act-jokeIn the Name of Security: An investigation into the everyday violence of prison strip searches, which incarcerated women say are a tool of abuse. When Karla Padilla started her sentence at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, Calif., in 2023, a guard singled her out. Over the next 15 months, the guard strip-searched Padilla so frequently that anyone near her risked being searched too, and other inmates began keeping their distance whenever that guard was on shift. Most prisons across the country conduct strip searches under a federal policy that requires women officers to inspect incarcerated women. The officer instructs them to remove their clothes, shake their hair, open their mouths, lift their breasts or genital area and then bend, squat and cough. On one particularly cold day in November 2023, while Padilla was cleaning the cha
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