Medlingsinstitutets roll och funktion Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka vad medlingsinstitutet har för roll i arbetstvister. Vad är medlingsinstitutets befogenheter i tvister och vad har institutet för medel att lösa den uppkomna tvisten. Utifrån institutets befogenheter blir syftet att ta reda på vad arbetsgivare/organisationer har för skyldigheter i en uppkommen tvist gentemot medlingsinstitutet. Syftet med uppsatsen är också att undersöka vad medlingsinstitutet gör för att uppnå en mer jämställd lönebildning mellan könen.  För att få en internationell utblick i uppsatsen blir syftet att titta närmare på grannlandet Norge. Finns något liknande institut där och vad skiljer i så fall instituten åt. Resultatet av min undersökning blev att institutet har en rad befogenheter både under en tvist, men även innan en tvist brutit ut. Skyldigheterna för arbetsgivaren/organisationen är inte lika många, men hänger ihop med institutets befogenheter. Att institutet jobbar för en mer jämställd löneutveckling blev ett mer överraskande resultat för mig. Med mitt resultat anser jag att institutet inte gör så mycket mer än tar reda på gällande fakta som skett under året och publicerar detta på sin hemsida. Med min internationella utblick blev resultatet att det även finns ett institut i Norge som i det stora hela har samma befogenheter som Medlingsinstitutet i Sverige, dock med några små skillnader gällande ny medling, medlemsomröstningar och koppling. / Role and function of the Mediation Institute The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the Mediation Institute in labor disputes. What is the Mediation Institutes’s powers in disputes and what tools does the Institute use to resolve the dispute. Based on the authority of the Institute the aim is to find out what obligations employers / organizations have in a dispute arising in relation to the Mediation Institute. The purpose of this paper is further to examine what the Mediation Institute does to achieve more equal wages between genders. To acquire an international perspective the essay will aim to investigate whether the neighboring country of Norway have a similar type of institution, and in that case what the differences between these instititutions are. The investigation’s result was that the Mediation Institute has a number of powers both during a dispute, as well as before the erruption of a dispute. The obligations of the employer / organization are not as many, but are linked to the Institute's powers. The fact that the Mediation Institute is working for more equal wage was more of a surprising result for me. Based on my results, I believe that the institution does not do much more than finding out the facts that occurred during the year and publish it on the Institute’s website. Regarding my international outlook the result was that there is also an institute in Norway, which generally has the same powers as the Swedish Mediation Institute,  however with some small differences in new mediation, member polls and interconnection.

This thesis aims to analyze whether Swedish law in its current form complies with the provisions in the newly adopted EU Directive on Minimum Wages (Minimum Wage Directive). To conduct this analysis, the thesis has sought to answer the question of whether Swedish workers have a right to demand a spe-cific minimum wage level, as well as assess if the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) could interpret the Minimum Wage Directive as entailing such a right.The analysis of Swedish workers’ right to demand a minimum wage concluded that such a right is bestowed upon only a small number of workers, under specific conditions. Due to a lack of legislation on wages, the worker in question must work at a workplace where there is a collective agreement in which a minimum wage level is set. It has been found that out of the 700 collective agreements on the Swedish labor market, only 250 have such provisions. In order to demand access to said minimum wage, the worker must either be a member of the con-tracting labor union, which subsequently makes them party to the collective agreement under the Swedish Co-Determination Act, or be in a position where the provisions of the collective agreement are considered part of their individual employment contract. Workers at workplaces where there are no collective agree-ments in place, on the other hand, are unable to demand access to minimum wages. It has been found that there are certain legal safeguards ensuring that these workers do not receive unfair wages, suffer from wage discrimination, or get forced into labor under exploiting conditions. These safeguards however do not entail the right to demand a minimum wage.Furthermore, the thesis concludes that there are sufficient indicators to sup-port the claim that the CJEU most likely will refrain from interpreting the Mini-mum Wage Directive as entailing a right for workers to demand minimum wages. Interpreting the directive in this way would result in an obligation for member states like Sweden, where the provisions of the collective agreements do not ap-ply to all workers, to either impose statutory minimum wages or declare collective agreements universally applicable. This would constitute an interpretation contra legem, as the directive explicitly states that nothing in it shall be construed as imposing such obligations. In previous cases, the CJEU has been unwilling to interpret secondary legislation in contrast to its wording, even in cases where there might be valid reasons to do so. Apart from this, it has been concluded that such an interpretation of the directive would interfere with the overall context of the directive, the purpose the directive was made to fulfill, as well as the legislative history preceding the adopting of the directive. According to case-law from the CJEU, these are factors that are considered when the court is faced with the task of interpreting a directive. It should also be noted that interpreting the Minimum Wage Directive as entailing a right for workers to demand minimum wages has been found to be incompatible with article 153.5 of the Treaty on the Function-ing of the European Union (TFEU), which exempts matters regarding pay from the legislative competence of the EU.

Since roughly the 1990s, Sweden's labor market has consisted of comparatively few labor conflicts and a good real wage trend. Mediation has been highlighted as an important conflict resolution mechanism, and in relation to other Nordic countries' mediation authorities, Sweden's has historically been the weakest with the least power. In 2000, however, Sweden got a new mediation authority – The Swedish National Mediation Office (Medlingsinstitutet) – with a broader mandate than its predecessor. Today, Medlingsinstitutet must not only mediate in labor disputes, but also to promote an efficient wage formation process and be responsible for wage statistics. The purpose of this essay has been to study, through a text analysis and from an organizational perspective, how Medlingsinstitutet organizes the Swedish labor market. It has been carried out based on the premise that previous research, but without mentioning Medlingsinstitutet, believes that the Swedish state, through market-active authorities, has a central function to play in the organization of the markets today. The results show that Medlingsinstitutet appears to influence and organize the Swedish labor market, more or less and with varying severity, based on all of the methods considered in this study: information, different forms of analysis, rules, membership, hierarchy, monitoring and sanctions. The methods seem to be primarily directed at certain specific market elements: buyers and sellers, the exchange, and the price. The survey shows a pattern that Medlingsinstitutet is involved in organizing how the labor market can, should and will function. Thus, I argue that the Swedish state is not only an important market organizer in a free market society, but also in the labor market where the principle of freedom from state intervention has been pervasive. However, there is nothing that gives the impression that the labor market is now only controlled by organization, or only by the market itself, but rather with the help of both systems – the invisible and the visible hand.