In the summer of 2007, Lars Andersson started as chief negotiator at the Maritime Employers’ Association, Sarf, in Gothenburg and also became chairman of SAN, the Maritime Joint Environment Committee. He had a background in work environment issues from his years as manager of onboard personnel at Stena Line. 

“I was chief negotiator at Stena Line for eleven years, but for the last three years of that time I was also manager of onboard personnel and had a lot of health and safety questions to deal with. But of course there were a few new issues when I started at SAN,” he says.  

During his years at SAN, he was not the only person to learn more about health and safety; knowledge and commitment among employers also increased in general. Requirements from the authorities regarding health and safety have become stricter and this has had an effect, he says. 

“These days there are greater demands on both employers and employees’ organizations, and companies have seen these requirements as reasonable.” 

Immediately after high school, Lars Andersson began studying law at the University of Lund, followed by court duties in Halmstad and aspirant clerk at the Court of Appeal in Gothenburg. After qualifying in that position he looked for work in the commercial sector. He spent his first ten years with what is now the Swedish Trade Federation before being recruited to the shipping sector as chief negotiator for Stena Line. 

“This was not my first contact with shipping, though. While I was studying law, there were 20 credits of applied studies and I chose maritime law with a focus on maritime insurance at the University of Oslo. It was an exciting experience and two of the professors we had were world famous in their fields.” 

The challenge is to agree on issues where we may have slightly different views.

At the Swedish Maritime Employers’ Association, Lars Andersson also became chairman of SAN, which consists of representatives from employers as well as trade unions. Several co-opted members also participate in the committee’s work, including the Swedish Transport Agency and Linnaeus University, and representatives from the navy have sometimes been included on the board. 

“Chairing a committee with such wide participation can be both rewarding and challenging,” says Lars Andersson. 

“The challenge is to agree on issues where we may have slightly different views, but it is not usually very difficult and there is a good spirit of cooperation in SAN. I have probably benefited from my experience as a chief negotiator for this job. I learned early on to respect other people’s jobs and different roles, which makes it easier to work together.” 

This summer, Lars Andersson will leave negotiating rooms and SAN behind him. He has not had time to think much about retirement yet, but he has plenty of interests besides work that he wants to spend more time on. 

“When everything falls into place, I look forward to travelling more and a golf trip to Scotland is high on my wish list. I have a boat I like to use and I will try to improve my fly fishing. I am also thinking about joining the model aviation club here in Kungsbacka. I think it would be fun to build and fly model planes again, which I’ve not done since I was 15 or 16 years old.” 

Lars Andersson about SAN

“SAN has an important role to play in shipping. Through the magazine, our conferences and other activities, we spread information about health and safety and set good examples. We also have skilled people that we can mediate to other industries. Finally, I would like to offer my real thanks to those who have been on the SAN committee and those co-opted. We have had very good, rewarding collaboration over the years.”