Lund University and Saco-S are in negotiations regarding the process for this year's salary review. The new salaries for the Saco-S cohort are expected to be paid out in February 2026. For OFR/S and Seko, central collective agreement negotiations are underway between the Swedish Agency for Government Employers and the central employee organisations, since the current agreements expired on 30 September 2025.
These negotiations need to be finalised so that the parties at Lund University can sign negotiation agreements on the local salary review process. More information will be provided as soon as the central agreements are finalised.
Managers are currently working to offer their staff a special follow-up appraisal before the salary review. These appraisals will follow up on what was agreed in the last staff appraisal.
Later this autumn, members of Saco-S (or individuals not affiliated with an employee organisation) will be invited to a salary-setting appraisal at which their manager will inform them of the new salary and explain how it was decided.
Once the collective negotiations between the University and OFR or Seko are concluded, members of those two employee organisations will be informed of the new salary and the justification for it in a salary appraisal with their manager.
Read more about the salary review here: Salary Review | Staff Pages (lu.se)
The background discussions
Ahead of this year’s salary revision, Saco-S demanded that the model of salary-setting appraisal be abandoned in favor of returning to collective negotiations. Such a reversal would mean that Saco-S and the employer determine salaries through collective negotiations instead of the manager and employee agreeing on new salary individually in a salary-setting appraisal.
– We have had salary-setting appraisals fully in place since 2018, after being introduced gradually over three years. Since then, we have experienced several long delays and put in a great deal of effort to make the system work. Despite this, our members have been dissatisfied whenever we have surveyed them. Many members despair over the process and feel that they do not have influence over their salary, even though that is precisely one of the fundamental purposes of the salary-setting appraisals. Saco-S has listened to its members and could not simply continue with minor adjustments but has now pulled the emergency brake and requested collective negotiations instead. The problem is that the employer must accept our demand for it to have effect. It is a rather weak emergency brake, says Adam Brenthel, union leader of Saco-S at Lund University.
Despite ongoing discussions, Lund University and Saco-S have not been able to reach consensus on the salary-setting model.
– As an employer, we view the salary-setting appraisal as an important dialouge, since the manager and employee are best placed to assess and discuss goals, results, and performance. Over the past several years, the salary revisions at LU have started to establish a routine with recurring steps. The process has not yet fully taken shape, and the fact that there may be shortcomings is neither unusual nor strange. The model gives managers and employees direct responsibility in the dialogue about salary, which we believe is positive. We assess that most of the problems highlighted by Saco-S are not solved by abandoning the model, but by working together to improve it. Therefore, we chose to stand by the salary-setting appraisal as the salary-setting model, which is also the main path in the central agreement RALS-T, says Dan Hyllberg, negotiator for Lund University at the HR department.
Since Lund University and Saco-S disagree on which salary-setting model should be applied, the matter was escalated to the central parties. The Swedish Agency for Government Employers (Arbetsgivarverket) and central Saco-S invited to what is called a central consultation, with the purpose of guiding the parties at the university further.
– In the central consultation, a dialogue was held between Lund University and local Saco-S together with central representatives from the Swedish Agency for Government Employers and central Saco-S. The aim was to clarify what possibilities exist within the agreement and to state each party’s position regarding the salary-setting model. The consultation resulted in the central parties confirming that the main direction in the central agreement is salary-setting appraisal, but that it is up to the local parties to handle how the process is carried out in practice. The central parties emphasized, among other things, the importance of continuing the dialogue about the process that has begun, but with a stronger focus on evaluating the different steps in the process rather than placing too much focus on the salary-setting model itself, says Dan Hyllberg.
Question to Saco-S: What happens now?
– Within Saco-S, SULF is pushing for the local veto against salary-setting appraisals to be reinstated so that local union representatives regain influence over the union’s most important issue — the members’ salaries. In the meantime, this year’s salary revision must be carried out so that members receive their increases, and therefore we propose that salary-setting appraisals be conducted in the usual way this autumn. But the major question of whether salary-setting appraisals should remain or not must be resolved; therefore, the negotiation procedure will only apply for the rest of this year. We still demand collective bargaining, and we believe that the higher education sector requires a salary revision system that is adapted to universities. A university is not like any other company in the labor market, and that distinctiveness must be taken into account by the parties, says Adam Brenthel.
Question to Lund University as employer: What happens now?
– This year’s salary revision will be conducted during the autumn using the salary-setting appraisal method. We are keen for the process to work better, and therefore we will draw on the experiences that have emerged in the dialogue so far, and we will continue discussions with Saco-S on how we can develop a salary revision process in the long term that works well for both employees and the organization, says Dan Hyllberg.