Swedish trade unions

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The Swedish trade unions are representative bodies of workers in Sweden and negotiators within the Swedish social partnership.

history

The Swedish trade union movement was a branch of the labor movement in Sweden. The first trade union clubs were formed in the 1870s based on the British and German models. The breakthrough came after the great wave of strikes in Norrland around 1880. These strikes, which had been suppressed with the use of the military, made people aware of the importance of a unified organization. In the following years a number of trade unions came into being, which finally merged in 1898 in an umbrella organization, the state organization LO .

The positive development was broken by the major strike of 1909, which collapsed after a few weeks. Many members left the national organization and joined a newly founded syndicalist movement based on the French model, Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC). In the beginning there was strong competition between these two unions, but the syndicalist union quickly lost its importance after the First World War .

The national organization established close ties with the political branch of the labor movement, the Social Democratic Party , at an early stage . With the strengthening of the Social Democratic Party, LO also got a stronger position in the enforcement of union issues.

The trade union - like the employers' organization - took a stand early on against government attempts to regulate the labor market through legislation. In 1938, in a historically important contract, the so-called Saltsjöbadsavtalet , between LO and the employers' organization SAF, the framework conditions for the social partnership were defined, which were valid until the 1960s. The contracting parties agreed on a negotiation order, rules for the use of combat measures, etc.

The first white-collar unions came into being in the interwar period. The social and professional situation of the employees was better than that of the manual workers and they were closer to the employers. These employee unions did not join the existing umbrella organization LO, due to its close contact with the social democratic party, but formed their own umbrella organization in 1944, Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation (TCO) . In 1947 the last of the three umbrella organizations, the academics union SACO, was established .

In the 1960s and 1970s the unions grew strongly. The degree of organization was 85% in the mid-1980s, 81% in 1990 and 68% in 2019.

The changed conditions in the labor market have also led to greater cooperation between trade union associations since the 1990s.

swell

  1. ↑ Anders Kjellberg (2020) Kollektivavtalens Tackningsgrad including organizational degrees hos arbetsgivarförbund och fackförbund , Department of Sociology, Lund University. Studies in Social Policy, Industrial Relations, Working Life and Mobility. Research Reports 2020: 1, Appendix 3 (in English) Table A
  2. ↑ Anders Kjellberg and Christian Lyhne Ibsen (2016) "Attacks on union organizing: Reversible and irreversible changes to the Ghent-systems in Sweden and Denmark" , in Trine Pernille Larsen and Anna Ilsøe (eds.) (2016) Den Danske Model set udefra - Comparative perspectives på dansk arbejdsmarkedsregulering , Copenhagen: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag

literature

see also Sweden # economy

Unions