Fredrik Söderqvist is an economist at Unionen which has over 620,000 members, 10,000 of whom are self-employed, making it Sweden’s largest private sector union and the largest white collar union in the world. Fredrik works on issues regarding structural change and how to adjust the generous Swedish welfare model to changing labor markets. He is an expert to the Swedish Government’s Digitalization commission and was named one of the future 99 most powerful people in Swedish politics in 2016.
Platform Co-ownership by Workers and Their Trade Unions
Regulation is one of the key challenges facing platform workers, operators, and legislators. How does one balance the interest of platform workers, platform operators, and third parties who are competing under different sets of rules than their platform competitors? In Sweden, a novel initiative is under development, developed by the trade union Unionen. By creating an institution, jointly owned by platform operators and the worker’s trade unions, existing “analogue” regulation can be translated to digital standards through negotiation between trade unions, platform operators and relevant government agencies. The institution may also handle functions related to resource pooling in areas such as portable benefits, establishing best practices and consumer labeling certification. Fredrik’s presentation covers the basics of this Swedish approach and how the Platform Cooperativism movement could adapt many of its aspects.