P.M. BRIEFING : Lockout Stalls Swedish Banking
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STOCKHOLM — Financial business in Sweden virtually ground to a halt today after domestic banks shut their doors to the public and locked out about 50,000 employees in a dispute over demands for more pay.
The dispute had already crippled trading in foreign exchange and the domestic credit market and is now disrupting everyday commerce and the corporate sector.
“In only a short while the whole financial system will be walking on crutches if the conflict is not solved,” said Olle Lindgren, chief economist at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken.
The parties negotiated through the weekend. But the employees’ union finally rejected an 11.2% wage offer from the bank employers’ organization BAO, and said they would strike from today for a pay claim of more than 15%.
The BAO retaliated by locking the doors at Swedish bank branches across the country.
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