then it is very hard to break in again, it becomes a sort of segmentation that was not meant to be. Another important act that likewise came during the 1970´s, and thus jointly with LAS was the start of an era with more governmental control of the labour market through extensive regulation. The MBL is a typical Swedish invention that has few followers across Europe. It is an act that gives the workers and also the Trade unions extensive right towards the employers. The Act does for example include the right to association, the right to negotiate about important changes in the business, the right to information and the right to collective agreement. It has not abolished the principle of the employers’ right to exercise their rights to lead and allocate work. It is nonetheless a tool for the trade unions to increase the influence of the employees as well as putting pressure on the employer to take the interests of the employees’ into account while leading the business. This act has had positive outcomes, such as empowering the workers and through this also increasing the protection and security of workers. It is nonetheless an act that is not particularly positive in a flexicurity context. This is due to the fact that even though it is a nice idea with increased influence by the employees, which should lead to a better job climate and happier employees, it is at the same time an act that decreases the leeway of the employer to make swift decisions that in some cases are unpopular but necessary. How has the EU, and in particular the flexicurity strategy affected the protection of workers then? Sweden has since the “December compromise” been famous for having a strong protection of workers. The trade unions have been very strong, and so has also the grade of organization been. The attention has mostly been paid at the collective as revealed and collective agreements have therefore been an essential. LAS and MBL If one pay attention to the organization grade one may discover that it has been steadily going down, especially during the years of the liberal-conservative administration that ruled Sweden between 2006 and 2014 and who made the social insurance weaker, by for example making the self-employed contribution to the unemployment fund higher as well as an abolition of the tax-cut for membership in trade unions. Furthermore, it is hard, regarding collective agreements, to question the substantial scope and coverage it
figuratively obstacle towards the outsiders which do not benefit from these protective measures. This argumentation might identify an insider-outsider problem. Others argue that insider-outsider problems do not exist in Sweden. One of these is Per Jansson who in the midst of the 1990´s recession concluded that he could not find evidence for this theory. What is clear though is that there is a structural problem that many people in Sweden today are alienated from the labour market, and even more problematic is that the people who are overrepresented are those that are defined as `outsider´ groups by the EU such as immigrants, women, young and old people and low educated ones. The recent actions made to help those that are alienated have not been successful. A reform of the regulation of fixed-term work was however entered into force on 1 July 2007, which has been an important step towards simplifying and clarifying the regulation of fixed-term employment contracts, as well as continuing to maintain a high level of security for the employees on the flexible labour market. This regulation did also create numerous `new´ types of fixed-term contracts, for example temporary substitute for employees above the age of 67 years, and probationary employment. A vast originality of the 2007 reform was the creation of general temporary employment (allmän visstid), where the employer does not need to justify why the appointment should be time-limited rather than indefinitely. This reform is clearly influenced by the ideas of flexicurity due to the fact that it is normalizing the use of atypical job contracts, and moving away from open-ended contract as the norm, which is a goal for flexicurity. However in 5§ LAS it still declares that open-ended contracts shall be the norm, but it does in fact also say so in the EU Fixed-Term Directive (1999/70/EC). It has been criticised by several trade unions such as LO and TCO