Swedish_Trade_Union_Confederation

Swedish Trade Union Confederation

Swedish Trade Union Confederation

Organization of trade unions in the Scandinavian country

The Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Swedish: Landsorganisationen i Sverige [ˈlânː(d)sɔrɡanɪsaˌɧuːnɛn iː ˈsvæ̌rjɛ] ⓘ; literally "The National Organisation in Sweden"), commonly referred to as LO (Swedish: [ˈɛ̂lːuː] ⓘ), is a national trade union centre, an umbrella organisation for fourteen Swedish trade unions that organise mainly "blue-collar" workers. The Confederation, which gathers around 1.5 million employees out of Sweden's 10 million people population, was founded in 1898 by blue-collar unions on the initiative of the 1897 Scandinavian Labour Congress and the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which almost exclusively was made up by trade unions.[1] In 2019 union density of Swedish blue-collar workers was 60%,[2] a decline by seventeen percentage points since 2006 when blue-collar union density was 77%. A strong contributing factor was the considerably raised fees to union unemployment funds in January 2007 made by the new centre-right government.[3][4]

Quick Facts Founded, Headquarters ...

History

Further information: Swedish labour movement

Organisation

LO-borgen (Swedish: 'the LO-castle'), the landmark LO headquarters building by Swedish architect Ferdinand Boberg, at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm. 59°20′8.9″N 18°3′17.2″E

The fourteen affiliates of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation span both the private and the public sector.[5] The member unions are fully independent, with the role of the Confederation limited to the co-ordination of wage bargaining, international activities, trade union education and other areas. Another important task is to promote the organisation's views to decision-makers and the general public. It also has representatives on the governing bodies of many government authorities. The Confederation is also responsible for research and signing labour market insurance schemes. The member unions, however, carry the responsibility for the administration of the unemployment insurance funds.

While its Danish sister organisation, the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, cut its formal ties to the country's Social Democratic party in 1995, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation maintains a strong cooperation with the Social Democrats. Although the organisations are independent from each other, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation has a representative on the party's executive committee elected by the Party Congress. Also, both the Confederation and the member unions contribute substantial amounts of money to the party.

Until 1987 there was a system of collective membership in the Social Democratic Party for members in the confederation, in which the local union could apply for membership in the Social Democratic Party, effectively enrolling all its members into the Social Democratic Party. (An individual could decline to be part of this collective membership.)

In 1956 social democratic newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen was acquired by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation.[6] Until recently, it owned 50.1% of the evening newspaper Aftonbladet, the largest daily newspaper in Scandinavia (as of 2005). As of 2012, the organisation owns 9% of the newspaper. The organisation bought Aftonbladet in 1956 but sold off 49.9 percent to the Norwegian media company Schibsted on 2 May 1996.

The number of member unions have been reduced by mergers. Most recently the Forest and Wood Workers' Union and the Graphic Workers' Union merged into the single union GS Union on 1 June 2009.

Affiliates

Current affiliates

More information Union, Abbreviation ...

Former affiliates

More information Union, Abbreviation ...

List of chairmen

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Torvald Karlbom Den svenska fackföreningsrörelsen, Stockholm: Tidens förlag, pp. 45-47
  2. [2]
    Yearly average in 2019. See Anders Kjellberg (2020) Kollektivavtalens täckningsgrad samt organisationsgraden 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
  3. [3]
    Anders Kjellberg "The Decline in Swedish Union Density since 2007" Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies (NJWLS) Vol. 1. No 1 (August 2011), pp. 67-93
  4. [4]
    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 - komparative perspektiver på dansk arbejdsmarkedsregulering, Copenhagen: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag, p. 292
  5. [5]
    "This is LO". The Swedish Trade Union Confederation. Retrieved 2023-02-23.
  6. [6]
    Ingemar Oscarsson (2003). "Development of the Swedish press and journalism since the Thirty Years War until today". In Hartmut Walravens; Edmund King (eds.). Newspapers in International Librarianship: Papers Presented by the Newspaper Section at IFLA General Conferences. Munich: IFLA Publications. p. 18. ISBN 978-3-11-096279-6.
  7. [7]
    Kjellberg, Anders (2017). "The Membership Development of Swedish Trade Unions and Union Confederations Since the End of the Nineteenth Century" (PDF). Lund University. p. 188. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  8. [8]
    Kjellberg, Anders (2017). The Membership Development of Swedish Trade Unions and Union Confederations Since the End of the Nineteenth Century. Lund University. ISBN 978-9172673106.
  9. [9]
    Kjellberg, Anders (2017). The Membership Development of Swedish Trade Unions and Union Confederations Since the End of the Nineteenth Century. Lund University. p. 198. ISBN 978-9172673106.
  10. [10]
    Mitchell, James P. (1955). Directory of Labor Organizations: Europe. Washington DC: United States Department of Labor. pp. 27.19–27.34.
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