
Sweden is deporting entrepreneur for lowering his own salary - stareatgoats
https://www.thelocal.se/20180202/sweden-is-deporting-this-entrepreneur-for-lowering-his-own-salary
======
bjornedstrom
This happens over and over again in Sweden: skilled worker immigrants get
deported over small technicalities, that is often not even their own fault.
There have been many examples of this affecting highly skilled engineers in
some of Swedens famous (and not famous) tech startups.

What I find disturbing is that immigrant criminals, who haven't contributed to
society at all, often do not get sentenced to deportation. So we have the
situation that people who are a benefit to the Swedish society get deported,
but the criminals get to stay.

~~~
BadassFractal
In the US, if you're perfectly productive, legal, highly qualified and well-
behaved member of society on H1B from China or India it might still take you
10-15 years to become a resident, so the situation isn't totally rosy here
either. And you certainly won't have the right to work on your own idea while
you're on that visa, so that's a long time to wait before you can even get
started.

Probably explains why so many people will try to game the system and claim to
belong to the O-1 category.

~~~
qbaqbaqba
O-1 stands for...?

~~~
BadassFractal
[https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-
worker...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-
workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement)

------
bjourne
I'm not a Nazi, but rules are rules. If you are intent on immigrating to a
country, then it is your duty to read and understand that country's laws. I
can't visit Singapore and then claim ignorance if I get fined for spitting.

E.g the guy could have googled "sweden work permit," clicked on the first
result, then through to the FAQ:

What is the requirement regarding wages?

To be granted a work permit, you must be offered a wage that is at the level
of a Swedish collective agreement or what is normal for the profession or
industry. You must also work to such an extent that your wages amount to at
least SEK 13,000 a month before tax.

[https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/...](https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/Working-in-Sweden/Frequently-asked-questions.html)

~~~
mrmekon
It's easier to get it wrong than you might think. Sweden doesn't publish a
specific "rules for work visas" document. That website is it, and it is not
all inclusive. The only way to know all the rules of the visa are to read the
actual laws (in Swedish, and in Swedish "legalese", so good luck to
foreigners... the people who would need to know), and to read all of the
relevant case law around it. On your first days in a country, you probably
aren't perusing the rulings of their high courts.

In this guy's case, there is very relevant case law. Before March 2015
Migrationsverket applied the rules based on the average of your work visa
period, 2 years. They would take your last 2 year's salary, divide by 24, and
see if it's over 13,000 kr per month. After March 2015, following new case
law, they started looking at each month individually and deporting if any
specific month violated the rules.

Depending on when he did this, it is possible that if he asked a migration
attorney for guidance they would have approved, and they would have been
correct. The rules retroactively changed that year. It still would be just as
likely to make the wrong decision after the court ruling, since migration
court rulings aren't a particularly big topic of conversation for most people.
Nobody really learned about it until deportations started skyrocketing in
2016.

I wrote a bit about the topic here: [http://dontdeportthedog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/Failu...](http://dontdeportthedog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/11/Failure-of-the-work-visa-policies-in-Sweden.pdf)

~~~
bjourne
There is also a pretty visible "Contact us" link with phone numbers and email
addresses: [https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Contact-
us.html](https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Contact-us.html) So I can not
feel sorry for him because he should have known. Had he been given incorrect
information, it would have been a different matter. I also believe that the
Swedish rules for work permits for immigrants are among the simplest, most
transparent and least arbitrary in the world. But you know more than me about
that.

~~~
mrmekon
Hah, I just noticed that you consult to a tjänstepension company!

My experience with MV on the phone is that they won't answer any specific
questions about the rules. According to some migration attorneys I spoke with,
many of the rules are undefined and they make them up as they go. Did you see
the one about the guy who was deported for not taking _unpaid_ vacation? Try
to find _that_ requirement on lagen.nu ;)

Everywhere I've worked and everywhere I've interviewed with in the last 2
years has had employees get deported. In all cases, they (the companies) claim
that the information that they got from the big HR consultancies and from
Migrationsverket was faulty, and they're paying the price now. I'm not saying
that it's okay to break the rules, but I will say that if breaking them
accidentally is so common, something is wrong with the system.

Every job offer I've ever received in Sweden (5) has been illegal on the first
pass, violating various requirements of work visas. Violations are typically
things like tjänstepension not starting until after the 6 month trial period.
The most common is that the job ad was only posted on LinkedIn and Indeed, but
not on Arbetsförmedlingen.

Two of my friends got hit because their employer insurance plans didn't become
"active" until their second day at work. You know, those plans that your
employer takes out on your behalf and you can't even see if they exist, let
alone when they started? So it goes.

In 2014 I would have agreed strongly with "among the simplest, most
transparent and least arbitrary in the world", but in 2018 I would add the
caveat "but worse than most of Europe."

~~~
qbaqbaqba
tjänstepension - is that some kind of social security?

~~~
mrmekon
Yes, it's an employer-paid pension that is very similar to the U.S. 401(K).
Depending on how you slice it, Swedish pensions are divided into 3 or 4
layers:

1) Income pension - equivalent to U.S. social security. Taken out of
everyone's taxes, and you have no control over it.

2) Premium pension - it's considered part of Income pension (1), but when you
earn above some amount it goes into this bucket and you can tell the
government a bit about how you want it to be invested.

3) Occupational pension (tjänstepension) - An "optional" employer-paid pension
that you have some direct control over. Depending on the management company,
you can either choose between a few fixed investment schemes, or you can have
full control over it and invest in stocks/mutual funds. It is "optional", but
mandated by the unions, so not really optional.

4) Private pension - your own personal account, like an IRA

There were a bunch of deportations over tjänstepension problems. Companies
that were not in unions paid employees that were not in unions and didn't
offer the same tjänstepension as the union agreement. Migrationsverket decided
(also in 2015) that the exact terms of the union agreements are required for
all non-EU citizens, even if they aren't involved with the unions. (If you are
Swedish or from the EU, there is no legal requirement.)

I got in trouble because the union requires a 4.5% tjänstepension contribution
from your employer. My employer paid 8% to mine, but it was structured in a
different way... which we later found out was unacceptable.

------
larrysalibra
I was in a similar position as this entrepreneur. I had the company I created
sponsored my own employment visa in Hong Kong. I often took less salary than
my employment contract that was provided with the visa application specified
because that's what happens sometimes with bootstrapped businesses.

Luckily for me, the Hong Kong government isn't the Swedish government, and
didn't give me a hard time when renewing my visa.

It will be Sweden's loss if they deport this entrepreneur.

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stareatgoats
The law is in place to prevent foreign workers from being exploited. That they
voluntarily reduce their own salary is not relevant to the implementation (as
they could have been pressured to reduce it). Still, the outcome is absurd.

I wonder if it is because of the inherent rigidness of civil law? would a
common law system solve this better?

~~~
mcguire
Maybe if he'd sought an "entrepreneur" visa, not an employee visa?

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throwaway7645
There's a lot of things I like about Sweden, but reading things like this make
me cringe a bit. Hopefully his lawyer keeps the deportation off.

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callesgg
Why would he get a collective employment agreement in the first place?

Assuming there is an angle the thelocal.se is trying to hide.

~~~
tuukkah
The collective agreement is binding to every employer and employee in the
field - you can think of it as a per-field minimum wage law.

~~~
nemetroid
This is incorrect. There are many tech companies in Sweden that haven't signed
a collective agreement. However, "to obtain a work permit you must [...] have
been offered terms of employment that are on par with those set by Swedish
collective agreements or which are customary within the occupation or
industry" [0]

[0]: [https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/...](https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-
individuals/Working-in-Sweden/Employed/Work-permit-requirements.html)

------
mcguire
Tl;dr: Immigrant employee of a company has salary reduced below the amount[1]
specified in his visa; the government refuses to extend his visa even though
he says, "It's ok! Really!"

[1] Presumably set high enough that foreign workers don't drive down the wages
of locals.

------
pimmen
There are also cases of immigrants being deported for taking a second job to
pay the bills because the law for a worker's visa says that it applies to "a
job" as in singular [0]. The same applies if you quit a lousy job and find a
new one [1].

I suspect it's game theory; the public reacts more negatively to allowing
immigrants the right to stay since it means they get access to integration
programs while the public might get mad over an incident like this but not the
overall trend of being overly rigid. The choice becomes pretty easy
politically.

[0] [http://viralt.aftonbladet.se/sheikh-29-ska-utvisas-fran-
sver...](http://viralt.aftonbladet.se/sheikh-29-ska-utvisas-fran-sverige-for-
att-han-haft-for-manga-jobb/) [1] [https://digital.di.se/artikel/han-fick-
jobb-som-utvecklare--...](https://digital.di.se/artikel/han-fick-jobb-som-
utvecklare--blir-utvisad)

