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LearningTranscript
00:00:14so hello everybody here is michael from new left and today we will be talking about unionization
00:00:21and unions in sweden with very good guests who can clarify this martin please can you introduce
00:00:28yourself i can indeed my name is martin jefflin martin jefflin i guess it would be in anglophone
00:00:35i am residing in sweden swedish trade unionist currently working with and have been for many
00:00:42years with union which is the largest trade union in sweden with a bit over 730 000 members
00:00:49we're organizing white color workers in all private sectors apart from bank and insurance
00:00:58i had also a career in brussels as a president of euro cadres council of european professional
00:01:06managerial staff between 2013 and 2021 i'm now currently mostly working with the uni global
00:01:16union the federation for the services sectors that's one of my main jobs but i also do some
00:01:22development cooperation work with ukraine and among others okay thank you thank you so cool so as
00:01:30experts go on swedish union you are one of the best i imagine so let's have a discussion about what's
00:01:37going on in sweden because i was looking at the data and as nordic countries go somehow you you manage
00:01:45to
00:01:46okay you dropped as well roughly 15 16 points compared with the height in the 90s but still
00:01:53you manage to withhold and withstand the neoliberal push compared with let's say finland because fin
00:02:00fins but did they drop roughly 30 percentage point three zero so like more twice as much as you did
00:02:07so
00:02:08obviously you do something better i guess looks like you do compared with the fins so if you know what
00:02:17it might be then that would be interesting also for the fins and and definitely for us slowwaks because
00:02:24we are at 8.8 so you're 60 something percentage points that looks like fairyland for us
00:02:34uh well um my husband is actually finnish so i i i have a quick quite good understanding of what's
00:02:42going on in finland and even better and we have plenty of cooperation also with with finland from
00:02:48our trade union side so uh we've been following uh with great interest what has been going on there and
00:02:55basically the attacks that the the government has made on on workers and the trade unions um and i think
00:03:03that one of the experiences that they are going through right now is also what happened in sweden in in
00:03:10like two 2006 around there when we had a right-wing government um who attacked our unemployment benefits
00:03:19fund and also the right to deduct trade union membership fee uh which is what is going on in finland
00:03:29now as
00:03:29well um right now we've had uh attacks on development cooperation aid uh through civil society uh in sweden
00:03:39which meant that we had quite large cuts also for trade unions working with uh with trade unions in in
00:03:47development countries but also a lot of um a lot of work now starting with ukraine um and this exactly
00:03:57is what finland is now going through i think they had a 40 cut uh from uh from the budget
00:04:04uh with a
00:04:05finnish trade union uh solitary support organization uh called uh sask sask sask is the name there yeah
00:04:17and so when you compare the model that you are running in sweden compared with uh finland where are
00:04:24the differences where you think that this might be the reason that we are not falling as quickly as the
00:04:29things do well also if you look at the numbers that we have in sweden what is a bit unique
00:04:36um and i'm
00:04:38not sure that it's 100 unique anymore because we're seeing this trend also a bit elsewhere as i understand
00:04:46that is that we have a significantly higher trade union density when it comes to white color workers
00:04:53uh and that has not been a historical fact but we have always been quite good uh at organizing uh
00:05:01amongst white color workers and civil servants also why uh yeah because they are the toughest crowd so
00:05:10you you have something special in your house well i believe that one of the reasons now uh is also
00:05:18what we what i talked about earlier the attacks that was on the unemployment benefits um we have seen
00:05:25rather drastic cuts which has made it um not as useful for our members just the unemployment benefit
00:05:35insurance because the amounts that you're getting there are so low so that you need to top that off
00:05:43uh and that has also meant an opportunity for us to build on our insurances so a very good organizing
00:05:51um
00:05:53reason for us is is that we have uh the unemployment benefit insurance add-on uh inside our membership fees
00:06:04so if you are a trade union member you will get significantly more uh if you become unemployed than if
00:06:11you're not a trade union member so that is by the way something very unique about scandinavia that the
00:06:17uninsurance as far as i know all four or five countries in scandinavia around the insurance if
00:06:23you are unemployed together with the unionization because not everyone in europe knows it that that
00:06:30this is one of the explanation when the why the penetration is so high because well you know who wants
00:06:35to
00:06:36not be insured so against system yeah no it's like it's rational to do it yeah so this is something
00:06:43that was uh in the from the beginning as a as a kind of strategy and uh in scandinavian countries
00:06:50or is it
00:06:50something that you will learn you know as it as it as it as it went or when did this
00:06:56model emerge
00:06:57you don't have to constant date it was only september i don't care but roughly like after second world
00:07:04war or whatever when it happened no i i i i sorry i have to say that i i don't
00:07:11know my history well
00:07:12enough there to to give you a good understanding of how the processes was to to lead up to the
00:07:18unemployment benefit uh and was it something that was run for decades is it like long history or this
00:07:26is yes but it's also something which has been changing quite a bit uh i mean some some decades
00:07:34ago only um or maybe more than well like four or three or four decades ago we were not young
00:07:44we were
00:07:44we were nothing back then exactly but in my youth yeah sometime then we had this situation where
00:07:51the trade union and the um unemployment benefit society which has the which has the insurance they were
00:07:59very intricately linked i mean they were basically the same um now the um with the state to try to
00:08:10make these ties uh less strong uh so for for us i mean we we have our own
00:08:21unemployment benefit insurance and benefit society it's called union as well as uh as the as the trade
00:08:29union union akastan which is the name in swedish or unemployment benefits insurance um but uh
00:08:39it has no real organizational links it has
00:08:43uh the same people to some extent uh in boards but we are not allowed even to have these um
00:08:51links
00:08:52anymore uh and in the twin in the in this change that we had in around 2006 one of the
00:09:02ideas of uh of the
00:09:05government then was to make the insurance the unemployment insurance more like an insurance
00:09:12so they wanted to increase um the risk premium that the money that you have to pay i mean if
00:09:20you are
00:09:20if you're driving a very fast car uh like i don't know ferrari or something um then you're likely to
00:09:30get
00:09:30a more expensive insurance because you are it's it's more likely the probability goes up yes exactly this is
00:09:38what they wanted to do with the the trade unions and their unemployment benefits societies as well
00:09:43so they wanted to look at specific sectors and see okay this is a sector where the unemployment is
00:09:48quite high that means that it will be more expensive to be uh insured there uh and of course this
00:09:56this uh
00:09:57hit quite those sectors where they they raise the premium quite a bit that's where you had the you
00:10:05could see also what you are saying this is interesting depending on the sector the insurance
00:10:10is higher or lower is it not the same percentage for everyone no the insurance is not higher or lower
00:10:17but the cost of it the premium that they wanted to introduce what it would be different so um and
00:10:25it
00:10:25it's on basis of the um of the insurance so in our place in in our case we have one
00:10:33insurance i mean
00:10:34there's no difference and it's not ours it is our unemployment benefit society so uh they have one
00:10:44level which applies to everyone and in our case the sector is very very large because we have all private
00:10:50sector all white color workers apart from bank and insurance but there are many other trade unions
00:10:56which are much much narrower in uh their organizing that are just cutting through a very small segment
00:11:03um i mean we are in terms of numbers we are a giant but there are many trade unions which
00:11:09are much
00:11:10smaller and if they have their own benefit unemployment benefit society with insurance linked to it
00:11:15then they could be hit hard so this was something that was so in the process in in uh around
00:11:212006
00:11:22roughly 20 years ago yeah okay and this leads to a question i wanted to ask you how how is
00:11:30the
00:11:30landscape actually looking in in sweden uh how many trade unions are there because i was uh talking to
00:11:37your swedish or to your finnish colleague and i was flabbergasted that the number is 80 or roughly 80 yeah
00:11:45and i live in switzerland in austria and we are at seven and you know between seven and 80 there
00:11:53is a lot of space so
00:11:54well i guess you are somewhere in the middle but i'm just you know guessing so uh well i mean
00:12:03it depends on how
00:12:03you count it also uh we are one way we have three big ones because that the central organizations which
00:12:09is often in other countries seen as the trade union
00:12:12uh but in our system i think it's more the the federation uh which belongs to a central organization
00:12:23that is uh uh the more important one because that's where you have your you have your closer um affiliation
00:12:31as a member with this organization um yeah what how many are there roughly again i don't need precise number
00:12:41and date of birth i just when you say 10 i believe you when you say 50 i believe you
00:12:46i have no idea no no no
00:12:48no it's it's it's i think it's like 30 uh ish okay it could possibly be
00:12:56not make sense it's fine i just so that people understand how it's done because that's that's where
00:13:03i what i'm trying to find out with this discussion among among other things is how things are done in
00:13:09different
00:13:09countries and what is the best model because my first intuition was when i learned about austria and
00:13:16seven it's like the less the better because then then it's stronger but then i was uh talking to a
00:13:24colleague from finland and he said 80 and they are more than twice as successful as austria is so
00:13:32as my intuitions go this this this this one that yeah let's commit let's put it all together because
00:13:39then it's strong and then it has to be successful obviously goes down the toilet because even in 80
00:13:46you can have pretty decent results so so in your case it's somewhere in the middle and you are even
00:13:52better
00:13:52which seems to indicate that the middle ground is the best way
00:13:59i think you can argue both ways there i mean we had our journey with the union that uh i
00:14:06mean we are
00:14:06now the clear the clearly the largest union in sweden and it came out of a merger that was done
00:14:13in 2008
00:14:15between then the uh the the white collar workers in the industries uh their union what called sif and
00:14:23then we had htf which was uh for commerce services um ngos non-governmental organizations and so on
00:14:31uh so um and there we saw we saw the trend that in particular in the industry uh we had
00:14:39more like
00:14:40um certification it more and more industries started to carry out services we also had quite a lot of
00:14:50members which uh were belonging to these um temporary work agencies uh so
00:15:00by definition they were in services but they were also working in the industry in their daily jobs so
00:15:09they they were rented out from services to work in industry so we started seeing this blurring of the
00:15:16boundaries uh and uh i think i mean the leadership on both sides saw that we are now getting more
00:15:25and
00:15:25more into these gray territories we're having potentially more and more disputes over who
00:15:31should have which member uh should we not try to work differently with this and this is when this
00:15:38uh marriage was made the um the uh kind of solution to the problem was that okay we we merge
00:15:46we big build one big
00:15:48union uh that uh deals with and the others followed suit or this was rather an exception in sweden when
00:15:57you
00:15:57say that it's like 30 unions yeah i know it's i think it's more thinking about it i think it's
00:16:02more closer to
00:16:0245 because on the academics they have have much more smaller unions that's so still so so you like
00:16:09you are like a giant and the others are well somewhere around 10 ish or 20 000 or something like
00:16:16that
00:16:17of the members i guess i mean we for for quite a few years we were number two because the
00:16:24the municipality workers uh which is a blue color union belonging to the central organization lo
00:16:30but you only belongs to tco um that was for many years the the number one union but as we
00:16:38have also
00:16:38seen well first of all i mean you you you know the the trend in white color so yeah also
00:16:48all the like
00:16:48cutbacks in welfare um so uh there have been they have been dropping members um uh while we have
00:16:57instead been growing in our membership and one of the reasons there come simply out of the fact that
00:17:03the labor market composition is changing we have we see more growth in our areas which means that if
00:17:11we don't increase we're actually dropping in density so we need to increase it to just maintain our
00:17:17density and we are maintaining our density and we're even improving it a bit and one of our biggest
00:17:22tasks right now is to not only recruit members because this was something that we we started really
00:17:29doing like four four or five years after the merger we had this uh internal discussion that arrived on
00:17:37the conclusion that okay we we are now well below 500 000 and we're continuing to drop we had the
00:17:45situation with the government uh the changes in policy uh where you i mean became much more expensive to
00:17:52be a trade union member also the link with the unemployment benefit society
00:17:57it was severed a bit there but still people saw
00:18:02so i just want bill to pay i'm a member of the union and this other thing also
00:18:09um and then when they had to make the choice between them and more people stayed in this
00:18:15unemployment benefit society so we had a process there where we arrived at the conclusion uh in our
00:18:21national board um and i was uh i was actually a member of the national board at the time as
00:18:27an
00:18:28employee representative so staff representative on the on the board and i remember the discussions that
00:18:34we have had among our colleagues they were like what have what have they been smoking because the
00:18:39decision that they made what they they wanted to go for a membership number of 600 000 and we were
00:18:45then
00:18:45like 450 000 as ambitions go this was pretty ambitious yeah exactly it was it was like a crazy target
00:18:53but uh it served us well in the sense that uh we couldn't just improve a bit we had to
00:19:01completely
00:19:02rethink everything uh there was a lot of obviously you did no yes we did and successfully also
00:19:09and of course we let's be honest we we we have a good um treasury test and we put some
00:19:15money into use
00:19:16to to make ads uh on tv and everything so that was one of the things which made us much
00:19:24more visible
00:19:24so we became more top of mind when people actually were thinking about okay i should join a union should
00:19:29you do this one then we had also by the way is there a choice in sweden isn't it like
00:19:36you know
00:19:36differentiated that some unions are responsible for this kind of workers and some for this so
00:19:42actually you know like there is not much choice in some countries no
00:19:48yes it's it's okay no interesting because we have this as i mentioned we have these three uh central
00:19:54organizations uh elo the blue color one tco the white color one which we belong to and from a union
00:20:01side and also saco which is the academics uh if you are in a worker profession a blue color profession
00:20:10then you will belong to the elo union which organizes the field where you work same time
00:20:17if you if you are a white color worker uh then you would belong to the tco union which organizes
00:20:25the sector where you work but there's also the academics and they work differently so they organize
00:20:31on basis of uh profession and and education so for example we have in our membership we have a lot
00:20:38of engineers
00:20:39but there's also in in uh in the saco central organization there is also um what is their english name
00:20:48now
00:20:48ssa association of swedish graduate engineers i think like sweden's engineers is the short name in
00:20:55swedish um and they organize only engineers uh we organize of course much broader so people that are
00:21:03engineers they can choose either to go with them or with us if they're working for a great area so
00:21:10how do you sort it out you you can accept it that they go both ways i mean there we
00:21:16have an open
00:21:17competition and we are of course very happy when so actually you you you look at it as a challenge
00:21:22it
00:21:23sounds like yeah like yeah the best one wins something like that okay i mean we have a we have
00:21:29different uh
00:21:30uh different thoughts about what is the good way to organize uh and i think that's also one of the
00:21:36criticisms against uh uh the formation of uh when when we did the merger because there was a lot of
00:21:44discussion what will happen with the identity it will be just like so huge people will no longer feel
00:21:49that they are belonging to like this is the white collar worker union for the industry that had a long
00:21:56history and also on the on the other side as well um and this of course the the matter of
00:22:03identity uh i
00:22:04would say of course it's probably easier to work with for the saco unions because they organize on
00:22:11basis of education and profession but it also means that they they can't work together in the same way okay
00:22:19they can they can have like joint uh workplace structures in between the different unions but
00:22:27a lot of the policy that goes on in the union is of course relating to their different field of
00:22:33occupation and we are working differently um and and cater for a larger audience in that sense
00:22:41so this leads to a question martin important one what exactly were the changes you
00:22:48implemented back in the day when you merged and when this challenge of 150 000 new members was laid upon
00:22:57miracles so what what is the special source ingredients that you came up with because
00:23:03i can tell you we and our union because we are doing it so as as white color as it
00:23:10gets
00:23:10mm-hmm people are like ah you know so how did you made it sweet sweet for well people as
00:23:19i said
00:23:20white colors used to be okay you are an exception to a rule but in most cases i would say
00:23:26that white
00:23:27color is the hardest job to unionize because for reasons that are complicated they somehow feel that
00:23:33they don't need to need the union because their salary is 10 percent higher of the blue color so i'm
00:23:39that they feel rich yeah even though they they're actually getting more screwed in many cases than the blue
00:23:45color people were okay but this is the false identity of those people that somehow i guess was addressed in
00:23:54a
00:23:54manner that they woke up to the bitter reality that they need a union even more than the blue color
00:24:02people do maybe huh so what did you do uh well i would say well first of all it didn't
00:24:09come immediately
00:24:09after the merger it took some years because and when we saw like if it went so easy then everybody
00:24:14would be doing it so it was kind of i can imagine that you made some mistakes but that's life
00:24:19well we
00:24:20were we're investing in making the the new union the merger shown uh well noticed on on streets and
00:24:27everything uh and uh we still saw a decline in numbers i think one of the main components that was
00:24:35that was responsible for our success was uh the fact that we did a large culture change
00:24:43um sometimes decisions that were really frowned upon by many by by members and and uh elected
00:24:54people in our structures and also by by staff i remember for example this was during the years when
00:25:02i was a trade unionist internally so representing the staff in in our headquarters um the the decision was
00:25:11made to create a sales department and that was just like shocking how can we work with sales we're
00:25:19a trade union this is like we we represent workers white collar workers we can't we can't it's it's not
00:25:24like we're selling an insurance well actually that we are now because we are selling this unemployment
00:25:32insurance add-on that's one of the big so they made sales representatives out of you maybe not
00:25:39officially but they gave you the scales to sell or what exactly was that we created a structure
00:25:46internally which had which was tasked with uh well with recruiting in a more professional manner than
00:25:54than what had been the case before and i think the what we took out of because i mean we
00:26:02recruited people
00:26:02of externally and i think some of them came from like direct marketing and like had these very
00:26:09commercial oriented um experiences before in their work life and i think that's really served us well
00:26:17it was very tough to see this culture change but we saw also the results and that's what counts because
00:26:27the results is more members more members makes us stronger at the negotiating table which makes for
00:26:34better conditions for our members so okay it was difficult to to see this okay well now we have a
00:26:41sales department but yeah okay so how exactly was it done so the sales department was recruiting the
00:26:48members or the sales department was there to kind of teach you how to recruit members it was many different
00:26:55things uh one of the things uh one of the things of course was actually recruiting members we also
00:27:02this is one of the mistakes that we had to apologize for unions to as well we i remember that
00:27:07we uh we
00:27:08rented the services of a telemarketing company and they were tasked with uh calling people and asking
00:27:16them to join as members and they did uh they did a good job at getting a lot of members
00:27:22but quite a few of
00:27:23them should not have been our members and that was what we were saying is that we have a division
00:27:28so we we got members that were blue collar workers that were not supposed to be okay so they went
00:27:33all
00:27:33around the place and whoever was there they just took yeah so we had we had to cut they had
00:27:39to fulfill
00:27:40their quotas it was it was a grandma never mind and she's a member now yeah okay exactly so uh
00:27:48we had we had
00:27:50really to stop that cooperation and uh i think that one of the outcomes there was that we built up
00:27:55our
00:27:55own structure for making these um calls often on leads but also some cold calls as well um which which
00:28:05was um also contributing to our membership growth uh but our main recruiter for many years it it's been
00:28:14google adwords um when people enter searches um we paid for ads and got us top of the top of
00:28:25the
00:28:25search results really google saved you okay
00:28:32yep again as surprises go this is a big one this is something i didn't expect that yeah all right
00:28:39and i i mean this is something i said in many many times i've spoken about our journey with the
00:28:45membership growth this has been something that many people react to what really google so
00:28:50i'm one of among them yeah all right and uh so so it looks like it was a mirage of
00:28:58multiple
00:28:59kind of strategies it was the sales department it was this telemarketing it was these proactive
00:29:05google ads that you when people are asking those specific questions suddenly you popped into the
00:29:11searches yeah was there something else that kind of stands prominent this is the way how we tackled it
00:29:18and we managed to grow yes uh i would say also you should talk about what's like lies beneath the
00:29:26the
00:29:26iceberg also there was the culture change uh and the the sales department certainly contributed to this
00:29:32like we had to think differently like we had to think differently it was like a reaction that okay we're
00:29:36now in a new uh new world but i think also one of the things that we did which really
00:29:44led to a culture
00:29:45change was changing some processes internally um using uh management strategies um models for uh strategic
00:29:58leadership inside the organization which basically this the way that we organized work then um was
00:30:09basically leading to every single worker inside our union being challenged with what can i do
00:30:18in my job to contribute to membership growth so we had this uh steering model um that um made you
00:30:28ask on on on the on the national level the national board made these targets but then everything went
00:30:34out in the regional level and also the national headquarters we we had every unit had their own
00:30:40planning uh we have our own planning in in the different subunits uh so there were a lot of
00:30:49conversation going on when every one of those conversation was also always thinking about what can i do or
00:30:56what can we do as a team or as an office or as a larger organization do to contribute to
00:31:02member growth so
00:31:04it led to a lot of really good conversations and also uh led to ideas about uh activities and targets
00:31:13um that were then really well followed up on uh so we had for a few quite a few years
00:31:21we had
00:31:21there was a lot there was a lot there was a lot of measuring and and uh discussions about follow
00:31:27-ups
00:31:27and targets and stuff but that also really contributed to to um kind of a mindset change uh in in
00:31:37staff
00:31:37um and i remember also the the the discussion about our regional um
00:31:44um
00:31:48i'll trade you that most of them are negotiators so they go out in the
00:32:00martin martin i lost the voice can you hear me and the lawyer i can hear you okay because for
00:32:06a couple
00:32:06of seconds uh this is something i will have to cut out 55
00:32:18now i lost my train of thought oh well can you please begin very rare because for like 10 seconds
00:32:25let's say i lost the voice so you know the listeners will lose it so we can i will cut
00:32:32it out
00:32:32it reminds me it was the processes and stuff okay um so basically our regional representatives they
00:32:44often go out uh i mean their main job is to go out and represent
00:32:53members so disputes with it happened again meeting a local club martin it happened again
00:32:58i lost you for five seconds i'm gonna check my connections
00:33:06because no when when when it's audio as well as video and video is the first that flickers
00:33:13audio is kind of stable so this this looks really like only audio
00:33:20never ever had problems with this before
00:33:23everything is for the first time it's just you are still 2000 kilometers away still it's a miracle
00:33:29of technology that we can have this discussion so
00:33:33never mind never mind let's continue hopefully it won't happen again if it happens again then
00:33:38then then we can drop and we can start uh maybe with a new connection it will be more stable
00:33:44we will see looking at the microphone modes here it says uh noise reduction standard okay but i also
00:33:52have original sound for musicians now it's set for noise cancelling standard okay hopefully it will help
00:34:01but it's it's uh it's it's a rather good no it it might have been connection who knows maybe it
00:34:09was
00:34:09something in between us and something that is totally outside of your control it's just really for a couple
00:34:15of seconds you just you were talking i have seen you talking but nothing was hard so let's continue
00:34:21so so the representatives and and so on yeah so i'll start again with that one so in our regional
00:34:29offices
00:34:30the main uh employee category are the ones that are negotiating uh for our members they offer go out in
00:34:37workplaces uh representing members in disputes with employers but they are often also going out
00:34:42to workplaces to workplaces to meet with our local trading clubs and to support them in different ways
00:34:49and one of these uh journeys that we did there with culture change was to install kind of a mindset
00:34:56in our regional reps that when whenever they went to a workplace they always had to carry out something
00:35:05which could contribute to membership growth so it could be like walking around in in the in the cafeteria
00:35:13talking to potential members maybe handing out a couple flyers or whatever it could be many different things
00:35:20but just to have this always top of mind and to work with this in the teams it made a
00:35:28difference also in numbers
00:35:30uh also every single office every regional office uh had their own target set and they followed up on
00:35:40this like i think it was even weekly that they did this follow-ups to see where they are in
00:35:45terms of
00:35:46membership growth so they worked very actively so you it was really like a corporation because i was in
00:35:52sales for 15 years and then this is this sounds familiar man yeah we did not get bonuses to my
00:36:00knowledge though we recruited a lot of members just just a good good feeling that the job well done yeah
00:36:06you slept better that's the bonus yeah but not all slept better i mean we created the conditions to be
00:36:13stronger uh as a trade union because member numbers are so important no definitely yeah uh this leads to a
00:36:21question to better understand how union is actually set up because this is something that you mentioned
00:36:27these regional offices and everything so what is actually the structure because uh every country
00:36:33runs a little bit differently so obviously you have your headquarter you have your regional offices
00:36:38when you take the whole union in as a one big happy family how big is it actually the professionals
00:36:45is it
00:36:45like a thousand people or something in the ballpark bigger smaller around yeah i think it's just below
00:36:52one thousand uh and you are structured regionally or you are structured by the departments like yeah we
00:36:59are covering this particular profession so i don't know how you do it yes and yes it's combined or what
00:37:07do you do because in some regions i imagine there is there is a because there is a bigger factory
00:37:11or whatever
00:37:12and then the the the profession is more concentrated in the region of sweden i guess no it's usually the
00:37:18case but sometimes it's spread evenly you know yeah what do you do well the the the workplace unit is
00:37:29always our main unit so if there is a local trade union club that's how we call it if you
00:37:34have a local
00:37:34trade union structure it's called a club uh so if you are five people then you can join together
00:37:42and say okay we're going to create a club and by the way how it's done in sweden so what
00:37:47is the
00:37:47minimal number of employees that a company has to have to to get a union or is is there no
00:37:53a minimal
00:37:54number of employees or even like two two two guys together in a company one of them can join or
00:38:00create a
00:38:00union in that company yeah so that in that sense we we don't create a union in a company we
00:38:07become members
00:38:07of a member of the union but but you know someone joins from a company of two and suddenly there
00:38:13is
00:38:13a union in that company if you have a collective agreement uh then things change when you are in
00:38:19a union but if you don't have a collective agreement nothing really happens when you join a union some of
00:38:25the rights you get only through a collective agreement so in in the workplaces where we have local clubs we
00:38:32in most cases have uh collective agreements but there is no there's no real link in between them
00:38:40in the sense that if people come together and unionize like we're going to be members of this
00:38:47trade union in our case union that doesn't mean that then that the employer is obliged to enter
00:38:54a collective agreement there is no like they have in the us for example and some other countries that
00:39:00if you if you go then you have to have this uh referendum among no there is this threshold of
00:39:0750 percent of the employee and the union is created and suddenly you have to yeah we have nothing like
00:39:12that so every single worker in in a company can be a trade union member and we can demand
00:39:20a collective agreement and the employer can still refuse and i don't know if you have heard about
00:39:26the tesla conflict that has been gone for quite a few years now that's the situation by the way it's
00:39:31still running i thought that this was one already so it's it's still running yeah yeah it's still
00:39:36running ah yeah i thought that i thought that it was like you know elon had to say that yeah
00:39:41well you
00:39:42you guys in scandinavia i win yeah so no it was actually in the news today about it and yesterday
00:39:49because there was a court decision saying that yeah so we've been trying every single way to make
00:39:56it more difficult of course for tm sweden is the is the formal name for tesla in sweden uh
00:40:04to to we make it to make it difficult for them to run their operations because we want to put
00:40:09pressure
00:40:10on them so that they will enter into a collective agreement with us um we have this right uh we
00:40:19have the right to strike we have the right to sympathy sympathy measures and this is something which
00:40:25is protected by our constitution now uh what we've had for a long time now is that we had union
00:40:33after
00:40:33union after union trying to do their part because this is something that we're really in together
00:40:39this is a threat to the swedish model which is what we call it with the with how we organize
00:40:46our labor market and one of the basic features of how we organize the the labor market in sweden
00:40:53is that we try to really settle disputes between employer and trade union and try to leave the
00:40:59politicians out of it as much as possible they sometimes need to go come in and and like set set
00:41:06the
00:41:07baseline like a threshold for things and they need to set up structures and they need to deliver when
00:41:12when we are social partners on both employer and trade union side agree on on stuff like for example
00:41:17we had negotiations around uh upskilling and and how to um well how to change paths in your work life
00:41:25how to go to another field if you if you're if you want to change careers and so on um
00:41:33and there we
00:41:34negotiate with employers we came up with a system uh where we also needed the the state to come in
00:41:42like
00:41:42the government to step in and say okay we're going to take this part we're going to provide the possibility
00:41:48to to financing for education under these conditions and so on so that's one of the things there um
00:41:57otherwise when it comes to collective agreements and and what is required there um
00:42:04and and what what we what we see from from both employers and trade unions and this is something that
00:42:11we really here we really really shake hands employers and trade unions we we do want things to be
00:42:18determined to a large extent by the social partners by the trade unions and the and the employees
00:42:26so a lot of things come out of the collective agreement that's where we have a lot of the
00:42:30rules we have no minimum wage in sweden for example that comes only through the collective agreement
00:42:38but because so much is governed by the common collective agreement we also need a right as a
00:42:43trade union to be able to exert some pressure on the employer to actually join uh and and enter into
00:42:51a
00:42:51collective agreement they are as the situation is now completely 100 free not to enter a collective
00:42:59agreement that is what's tm sweden tesla is now doing they are choosing not to enter into a collective
00:43:04agreement but then we as a trade union have the right to exert pressure on them to convince them
00:43:12to actually take the step to to do this and we're doing this in every single way that we can
00:43:17and as we
00:43:18see that this is a threat to all of us trade unions we're really trying to chip in and do
00:43:24our parts
00:43:24all of us for example we have we have workers that work on certification of the lifts that need to
00:43:34raise the vehicles then they when they do repairs these lifts need to be repaired i think it's one
00:43:40once every six months if they don't receive this certification they can't use it because then it's
00:43:47not deemed to be safe we have put those into blockade so the people working in those jobs in those
00:43:56companies we have put into blockade so they are no longer allowed us as members of of our union to
00:44:03do that job and if they are in another union i mean they they would also be asked not to
00:44:11do this uh if
00:44:12they want to to yeah um yeah but this dispute is running for like two or three years when i
00:44:19remember
00:44:19it correctly now maybe even longer yeah it's it's quite a few years and this is as struggles go this
00:44:27one is a huge one no yeah and if metal they have all the workers in tm sweden on on
00:44:33on strike so uh
00:44:34there's a lot of people just um yeah receiving their paychecks from from the the metal workers you
00:44:42and you have metal instead and then they are doing their part in chipping in like for example standing
00:44:47outside the premises and handing out flyers asking people not to shop there and so on and
00:44:53like and they are striking for two years or they are in and out of the job and sometimes they
00:44:58work
00:44:58and sometimes they strike no they're striking for a very long time yeah okay wow yeah so so this is
00:45:05paradigm shifting strike then this is this is this is like what the uh miners were in in great britain
00:45:13you know they were striking for a year and in the end and lost or the the paradigm shift with
00:45:18the air
00:45:19traffickers in americano and when when really like like the big fight yeah like this is this is so
00:45:25what decides the history or better to say the future of well the unions okay when we now have the
00:45:33court case
00:45:33which uh i believe i've settled yesterday um which in which tesla they are trying all these legal ways to
00:45:43to to get what they want through and also i would say almost illegal ways as well um but they
00:45:50have been
00:45:51for example they have been uh rejected the possibility to uh attach one of their charge for many of their
00:45:58charges like there's chargers all over sweden's that are not connected to the electrical grid because we
00:46:04are uh from many different unions putting the tasks relating to the connection of them to the grid
00:46:13we're putting a blockade on that so that means that um they don't get they don't get the the juice
00:46:20for
00:46:20it they don't okay this leads to a question why are they doing this fast because i what i've read
00:46:26is
00:46:27like it's 200 workers or something of that magnitude it's not like the biggest company on the planet with
00:46:33hundred thousand of employees that is on the stake here it's like a small it's as precedents go yeah but
00:46:41you know
00:46:42it's sweden so it's sorry to make you smaller than you are but it's like it's like yeah you know
00:46:49is is is this kind of like personal thing that it's like more about the ego of elon than about
00:46:55the
00:46:56rationality of let's do it because i mean tell me otherwise the comp the the the i'm not gonna
00:47:03argue again those presumptions i i i mean we we really don't know what what is behind behind this uh
00:47:09in
00:47:10in our way of looking at it it makes no sense because the money that they lost is probably
00:47:16bigger than than the collective much more yeah and i mean this is the way that we organize work in
00:47:21sweden we we try to we we don't put everything into legislation we put it into into the collective
00:47:27agreement which is a balanced solution which has been determined in the social dialogue between
00:47:33employers and trade unions so i mean it's it's in their interest as well so for us
00:47:41elon sees is otherwise and we know all how elon is we've seen his life so when you when you
00:47:49take
00:47:49the the the play things from a child and the tantrum follows and this is probably the tantrum that
00:47:56you have the privilege to experience okay well that's just i mean it's happy sad the court case
00:48:03which was settled yeah well the court case which was settled at least it went against them so in in
00:48:10the trade unions favor uh it was about uh putting the work on the blockade which is about uh attaching
00:48:17these charges to the electrical grid so what the what the court decided was that no this is a constitutional
00:48:25right if we would say that because of laws around electricity or whatever it was around
00:48:34they have the right to get this connection
00:48:39but the what the court then said was that if we give them this right we void
00:48:45uh the uh the industrial action of the trade unions we make it useless it makes it completely
00:48:53ineffective so uh for to to for the for the court not to take sides they need to let the
00:49:04industrial
00:49:04action go on and not not say that you have that's cool that's cool lucky you know it could have
00:49:12been on
00:49:12and otherwise no one yeah when you listen to the stories from around the world and then yeah at
00:49:18least sweden functions somehow still well this could be challenged also in court i mean and and also
00:49:24it is not undisputed this is something which we'll have to really take uh take care of in the public
00:49:31debate
00:49:31because there's always these discussions oh aren't we giving the trade unions too much power with the right
00:49:37to sympathy um measures and so on uh for us no absolutely not because the way that we have composed
00:49:46uh
00:49:46the rights of unions and the rights of employers and also what lies in in uh in the legislator's uh
00:49:53field of competence uh we need to have we need to have these muscles because without it we would be
00:50:01we completely unbalanced and then we would as trade unions need to look more for solutions which are
00:50:09not built on collective bargaining but which are built on legislation and the employers don't want
00:50:14that either they want to have the solution that we have now which offers us also the positive
00:50:20possibility to make adaptations uh relating to which sir which sectors um that the collective agreement is made
00:50:28for okay so a collective agreement to dig a little bit into detail so how it's structured in sweden
00:50:36because now we were talking about tesla longer but uh i was just curious because well i i really
00:50:43thought this one is over because you know elon lost you have won and and you know it's it's a
00:50:48history
00:50:49uh so how is it actually done with the collective bargaining so you have only sectoral bargaining or you
00:50:55have a mixture of sectoral as well as uh per company collective bargaining so we know how you
00:51:03differentiate how it's all kind of done because you are a huge union and i can imagine that not
00:51:09everyone can be covered by a collective bargaining on a sectoral level so you know what do you do with
00:51:14the grain zones well first of all regarding our structure uh we i mean i talked about this before
00:51:22that the the the main the main unit of of our trade union is the local club but that club
00:51:31is then
00:51:31also organized into regions and there we have we have like a democracy structure which is on one side
00:51:38on the other side also lies the the offices and the staff so we have the national headquarters
00:51:43partners a part of the national headquarters are regional units so clusters of regions
00:51:52are working together in teams and i don't so on one hand there is a professional from
00:51:58union and on the other hand there is the professional from the company yeah the the the
00:52:04member of the union something like that no we have the like the one thousand staff we we cater for
00:52:10for everything a large part of our staff is of course out in the regional offices but they are
00:52:17employees a lot of the trade union work is being done by the clubs and they are elected representatives
00:52:24when they are elected representatives in a company with a collective agreement you get rights one of
00:52:31those rights is the right to time so you can dedicate part of your working time to trade union work
00:52:38that's one of the rights that's one of the rights that comes with being an elected representative of a
00:52:44union inside a company with a collective agreement if you don't have a collective agreement you don't
00:52:49get the right to free time so that's one of the reasons not at all or less or how it's
00:52:55done not not at
00:52:56all not at all okay we don't we don't we don't have the right we don't have the legislation that
00:53:03uh that
00:53:06offers um uh yeah specific conditions for elected representatives if there is no collective agreement
00:53:13so it's only when the collective agreement is in force that also these uh privileges to the union
00:53:22start working which is also why one of the reasons of course why we're fighting for collective agreements
00:53:28uh and in many places where where we have workers that are fighting for a collective agreement and they
00:53:35are forming clubs they need to do the work outside of office hours because they are not allowed to take
00:53:42their
00:53:42their work time by the way how are you handling it because if they are doing it they are doing
00:53:46in the spare time for free or are you
00:53:49kind of covering their time somehow so that they are motivated to do it because you know it's do your
00:53:55spare or
00:53:57sacrifice your spare time for the work in a union okay it's nice for one or two hours but when
00:54:03when
00:54:03this fight like in elon's case take three years then it's hundreds of hours of time and well you know
00:54:10not everyone is willing to do it so how do you handle this the situations where it takes longer than
00:54:16everyone wants well in the case of of tesla and the and these sympathy measures that are linked to the
00:54:24tesla
00:54:25dispute uh there there are decisions about strike actions for example and and the decision on strike
00:54:33action always comes with a payment also so the the the trade union member that goes on strike they will
00:54:40also get a strike fund funding from from by the way what is it 60 of their salary or how
00:54:47it's handled in
00:54:48sweden all hundred okay yeah but we don't need to pay taxes on it so it's a special the special
00:54:55rules okay
00:54:57so they just get the net income but it counts as if they were working because the taxes are gonna
00:55:02okay yeah got it and then then for the unions uh for the people in the clubs that are not
00:55:10uh covered by the
00:55:12collective bargaining agreement yet yeah how do they do their jobs when it takes longer it might take
00:55:18longer than they do it for free the whole time well uh well first of all if if there is
00:55:25no collective
00:55:25agreement in place there's probably no not also any dialogue with the employer um from trade union side
00:55:34they they don't want the union there to represent the workers there's i mean this is a culture issue
00:55:42also we see this in many american companies where there is this um there's this concept of no we need
00:55:50to give the individual right to the workers to have this dialogue with us as employer which
00:55:56of course means that we are completely imbalanced when it comes to to power uh because if we stand
00:56:04alone in dialogue with employer well i mean that's why we created unions in the first place so that we
00:56:10could stand stronger together and say this is the demands that we are making as collective
00:56:15we will not work for salaries not to mention that one person strikes in a big company then like no
00:56:21one
00:56:21gives a fuck it's like i'm on strike well yeah enjoy so when so when we have the situation that
00:56:29we have
00:56:29uh members or even potential members that want to take this fight uh for a collective agreement in the
00:56:36workplace then of course our uh our reps from the from the regional offices they will go to them um
00:56:45possibly not at the workplace because they are not always allowed there but they will have meetings with
00:56:51the with the people that are interested in taking this struggle and i mean this is not a decision which
00:56:56comes lightly because it it can be um it can take a long time as as as you can see
00:57:02from the tesla fight
00:57:04uh and also it's it's going to be uh quite difficult and tiring but of course i mean you're doing
00:57:11something for yourself and for your colleagues so if you win then it's a real win okay so so people
00:57:18do
00:57:19we don't we don't we don't take this decision lightly people do it totally for free till the collective
00:57:23bargaining agreement kicks in and they are hypothetically freed for their professional
00:57:28union work till till it happens they are doing it for free well we don't pay people on the workplace
00:57:37level for this i mean if they would become uh a regional uh elected they become part of our democratic
00:57:45structures in our regional boards for example there i mean there we would pay them if they would be
00:57:52allowed to be off work uh because they don't have that right when they are not uh no that's that's
00:58:00why
00:58:00i'm asking but in the situation when there is no collective bargaining signed yet those you said it
00:58:06yourself they can do it they can't be doing the union job during the office hours or when they are
00:58:12working so you have they have to do it in their spare time yeah and that's kind of a sacrifice
00:58:17that's
00:58:18what i was saying that not everyone is willing to do that's why i was asking that maybe as part
00:58:23of the
00:58:24strategy to motivate people to go into this battle you i mean you don't have to kind of you know
00:58:30give
00:58:30them millions of euros or what uh at least something so that they are motivated to to start the union
00:58:36and
00:58:37start this struggle in the first place yeah um i don't i don't know i mean i think it's it's
00:58:46also
00:58:46not a monetary issue i mean you you want to do this uh for yourself and for your colleagues uh
00:58:51to share
00:58:52but you know it's it's always like how much do you want to do it when when it's totally for
00:58:57free and
00:58:58it takes two years and and and your wife is bitching yeah and you know yeah and you should be
00:59:06with your
00:59:06kids and and well you know so that's that's that's why i was asking because this is this is a
00:59:13dispute
00:59:13that we are having in our union as well and in my opinion till it's not uh done and uh
00:59:20and you are not
00:59:21free as a professional trade unionist in the company that at least something is nice to get
00:59:27because well do it for free for years uh i i i'm not i can understand the people that a
00:59:35not everyone
00:59:36wants to do it that it's really hard to find the people who will uh do this shitty job because
00:59:43you
00:59:43know you have to be fighting your employer and you know it's as fun goes this is not much fun
00:59:49and and b just expect people to do it for years sometimes for free you know i i i can
00:59:58totally
00:59:59understand and that not everyone is willing to do it you know and then then we are in this sketch
01:00:0322
01:00:04situation that we want to grow but there is no one who wants to join because it's only
01:00:11complicated and it's only you know unpleasantness that it's on the horizon so i thought that maybe you
01:00:18do it you you have some sweetness for the people in the beginning you know i mean first of all
01:00:24i
01:00:24would say that uh a decisional strike doesn't come lightly so that that very rarely happens the the
01:00:31tesla situation is completely unique in the sense of how long it's been going and and how many people
01:00:36are involved with all these sympathy sympathy measures as well there's a lot of industrial action going on
01:00:42as regards tesla um so it it's it's quite unique i mean in most cases it's it's not really um
01:00:53a difficult task to to get the employer to to sign a collective agreement the way you sign a collective
01:01:01agreement in sweden is usually by entering into an employer organization that's the that's the main
01:01:10route of of uh joining a collective agreement it's not writing one directly with us if we would
01:01:17write one directly with the company we would in any case be exactly the same as one of the sectoral
01:01:24ones
01:01:24and who's doing the negotiation in the case as you are saying now that it's specifically for this
01:01:31company are from the union and goes to the employer and this makes the okay and and for many for
01:01:38many
01:01:39sectors we we we we don't allow this at all we we uh the the direct collective agreement we want
01:01:49now
01:01:50we be because part also of the setup part of what makes this work is that they are also uh
01:01:56part of an
01:01:57organization so you are pressuring the employer to go into the sectoral agreement to join the whole thing
01:02:03because that's the best way to join the employer organization okay okay okay okay got it interesting
01:02:10okay so uh let's talk a little bit more about the whole principle of fair competition so that's also
01:02:16what's in it for the employers they don't want they don't want to to be to be fighting over stuff
01:02:23in in
01:02:24this um by by dumping conditions or by racing racing stuff so uh so from the data you are running
01:02:32somewhere around 65 i'm not talking about union and i'm talking about the swedish union as such
01:02:39uh which is well whole number because uh you are you are thing number two or number three in europe
01:02:45and the question i wanted to ask uh whether you know i mean it is so something i always
01:02:52am wondering what the hell are doing the fellas in iceland because there are 90 percent
01:02:59and maybe because you are you are in the north you might know why not then it's fine it's just
01:03:05something is very special in iceland because when you look at the data from the last 30 years
01:03:11everywhere the union dropped everywhere except for iceland on one hand yeah it's a it's it's like a bigger
01:03:19city so you know and plus it's an island so like everyone knows everyone but still i i i was
01:03:27always
01:03:28kind of curious if someone from scandinavia knows what they are doing because they are
01:03:33the shining star on the hill like the best on the planet is best on the planet in union space
01:03:41so what do you know they don't need to they don't need to work very hard to get the members
01:03:45let's put
01:03:46it that way okay so the setup there is that the employer is the one paying for the membership so
01:03:54you
01:03:54have the choice that either you can get the membership or you cannot get the membership
01:03:58and either way the employer is going to pay for it so would i want to be getting the perks
01:04:04of a trade
01:04:05union membership or not so this is something unique in their constitution or well i don't know if it's
01:04:12in the constitution but that is in their system that's the way the system is is composed that the employer
01:04:18is the are you envious in sweden or or it's like this is too easy you know i i really
01:04:24like a bit of
01:04:25fight no it's not about uh fight i think it's also about i mean we want to organize people so
01:04:32that they
01:04:33will uh stand behind us uh and stand together also for to fight for better working conditions if if just
01:04:41everyone becomes members i i think like almost automatically maybe it would be a different
01:04:47situation that has also been one of the criticisms against uh uh using this um insurance add-on as as
01:04:56uh as as like a sole recruiting strategy this is something when we're not trying to do anymore so much
01:05:03um or at least if we are working on basis of this insurance and saying okay if you become unemployed
01:05:11then you are likely to lose this much money if you're not a member of us then we need to
01:05:16also
01:05:16work on uh what happens to these when they do join and one of the things that we're doing right
01:05:22now is
01:05:23that at the same time as we've seen uh growth in our membership um and actually also small growth in
01:05:32our density uh from from a newness side what we also have seen is a rather drastic drop in the
01:05:39number
01:05:40of our elected representatives and this is a threat also to how we have composed our model because we
01:05:48believe that the disputes they need to be settled locally that's where we need to have the dialogue
01:05:52between the local trade union club and the local employer and it also goes up and also of course in
01:05:58bigger in bigger companies there you have the local clubs you elect the representatives of who should
01:06:04be on the company board and so on so it's like it's like a democratic structure as well so we
01:06:10really
01:06:10believe that we need to have this representation that to for it to work okay another question i wanted to
01:06:17ask you is uh education because the struggle for better wages working conditions and whatnot that was
01:06:25that's the first thing that pops into the mind of most people when talking about unions but unions uh
01:06:31historically were not only fighting yeah it was also uh kind of like an educational tool or for
01:06:39working classes to well as uh the consciousness of the working class goes it didn't just you know
01:06:46happen you know someone had to teach it to the people that you have your rights because a and b
01:06:52and c and d so
01:06:53what do you do on that front uh do you have any any schools or or or how how is
01:07:00it actually handled in
01:07:01union union and primarily uh the educational part well uh of course as as i think for many
01:07:12organizations and companies now a lot is being done online uh especially after covet of course
01:07:22that completely changed how we work but after covet also there's been a bit of a pushback
01:07:30uh when our elected representatives that we when we met in congress they were saying like okay
01:07:34we've taken this too far now uh yes it's great that members can just click on on a link and
01:07:43then go
01:07:43online and get like a a course of 15 minutes or or or even spend a day or whatever um
01:07:50you can't spend a day
01:07:51by the way on on on on your work time unless you were uh um elected representatives on the union
01:07:58and then
01:07:59also needs uh by the way sorry to jump in is there some time per year that the worker can
01:08:05spend on
01:08:05self-education in the unionization matters or this has to be done completely in the spare time uh no and
01:08:15yeah well oh that's a tricky one i mean there is no there is no specific right uh that says
01:08:22that you
01:08:22have this amount of time for studies or whatever but if you are an elected representative then you are
01:08:30entitled to have the time you need to carry out your trade union duties and that also includes some
01:08:38training doesn't doesn't mean all training i mean we can't if we were to have um a course on on
01:08:45how to
01:08:46recruit well for example that's not really related to uh to the workplace that's more relating to us as
01:08:53union you can't you can't do that but okay so when it's workplace regulated you are freed when it's not
01:09:00then you have to do it in your spare time that's what you're saying yeah and okay of course i
01:09:05mean
01:09:05the there's uh there's uh limitation i mean you you need to look at the the overall composition if
01:09:15you have a company of of uh several thousand employees well then you are allowed to have
01:09:20several people working full-time for the trade union but if you are a very small workplace then you
01:09:26can't have many working a lot of time obviously with the trade union duties another question i wanted to
01:09:34ask about the education before i forget because this is a interesting one for me what about the
01:09:42official education in schools and history of trade unions and stuff like that is is there something in
01:09:49sweden where you know small children and small like you can be 14 whatever but it's part of the school
01:09:57curriculum that they you know eight hour work day just didn't fall from the sky and and and and
01:10:04vacation time and that there was this struggle and the first may just isn't a day off because whatever
01:10:10but you know there was this haymarket incident and people died and so on and so on and so on
01:10:16so that
01:10:16people understand from young age that everything we take for granted wasn't really granted but was fought for
01:10:25yeah or not at all because for example in finland that at least what uh your colleague told me there
01:10:32is nothing of that sort and definitely nothing of that sort in central europe yeah no i mean i wouldn't
01:10:38say that it's nothing of that sort but uh of course it's it's not from a real trade union perspective
01:10:43but
01:10:43they they would what we would have in our history education of course is to to tell about the like
01:10:49for
01:10:49example the development of the labor movement there would be something okay and you are sure you you
01:10:56know this for a fact well i've gone through school myself so i know that i just because because this
01:11:02is
01:11:02this you are lucky one in sweden not every country has this it's it's also about how how it's how
01:11:09it's
01:11:10taught i think we we are criticizing of course from from the trade union side that there's not enough
01:11:15for example labor market knowledge taught in schools uh when you enter the labor market as a
01:11:23potential employee uh then you don't know so much of your rights as you should we think that we think
01:11:32that should schools and the the whole education system should equip um students better for working
01:11:39life and that that's not only about i mean that's not really about trading history and how we got here
01:11:44and why we have where we have the right to to to vacation and so on it's it's about also
01:11:50um looking
01:11:53after our own rights when we are out what do you think why are the schools failing in that matter
01:12:00they have to be aware that you know they are failing you are telling it to them so
01:12:04well it's like yeah but i mean yeah but i think there's a new debate i mean this debate pops
01:12:12up
01:12:12now and then well there's a new debate now about a new national curriculum so let's see if we can
01:12:19put
01:12:19it into that process but um yeah i think i think it's important that students are or we think it's
01:12:25important that students are equipped for working life and that also includes learning about their rights
01:12:30okay cool we we do our part and we know that the employers are quite successful in this sense they
01:12:37uh they are they've been putting out a lot of material into schools uh for free which is
01:12:45for schools very beneficial i mean we have the situation where many of the municipalities are not
01:12:52they don't have enough money to to buy school books and and stuff anymore and that i mean this is
01:13:00something that's going on for decades now uh so when the employee organizations have been handing out
01:13:06for free uh courses about um yeah like the market economy for example i remember when i was myself was
01:13:16a
01:13:16student in uh what was like seventh grade or something like that i believe i was like 13 14 at
01:13:24the time
01:13:25uh we had we had we had a session where we got to play like we we had our own
01:13:33ice cream kiosk uh in the
01:13:35summer so we had this uh pamphlet from the employer organizations where we could write how much we would sell
01:13:43the ice cream for how yeah like plan the whole setup of of a small business um now this is
01:13:50of course i mean this
01:13:51is part of of them uh marketing their ideology and we of course as a trade union need to do
01:13:57the same so
01:13:58we have had um corporations established between unions uh as regards uh trying to come closer to
01:14:08schools and inform about uh labor market about unions why people should be members of unions when they
01:14:15enter the workplace and so on so there is there is work being done on that as well cool cool
01:14:20cool and
01:14:21another question i had is the media landscape in sweden whether you have some uh newspapers that are
01:14:29you know funded by unions or co-funded by unions whether you have even maybe a tv channel or radio
01:14:36stations
01:14:36of of or whatever so that the you know let's call it a battle for brains yeah it's kind of
01:14:45not totally
01:14:47100 percent uh occupied by uh elon musk and and zuckerberg and whatnot but uh and private media
01:14:56basically uh there is uh some counterbalance coming from maybe not only unions maybe the left parties as
01:15:04well maybe the cooperatives as well that there is a collaboration between those who are on the left side
01:15:10of things so that the media landscape is not totally shifted to the right well there's been and this
01:15:17has been an ongoing discussion for decades as well about the the ownership concentration of media so we
01:15:24do see that there are large uh conglomerates which own uh several media outlets in in in the sector or
01:15:32field so we have uh we have a couple we like a handful different different media conglomerates
01:15:41um what what would be like the counterbalance to this well we do have public service of course
01:15:47public service television and public service radio part of the public service system is also that we have
01:15:53is education radio uh which makes education uh material both for radio and television as well uh what we have
01:16:04seen the past few years now is uh the unwillingness of the government to uh increase their funding there's even
01:16:13been
01:16:13some cuts i believe there and there's also been uh limitations put on what the public service uh
01:16:25companies can do and not do so for example they are no longer allowed to put all their podcasts into
01:16:33into the space where we normally listen to podcasts like apple podcast and spotify or what what not
01:16:40uh they need to put uh why and what what is behind that i mean the reasoning behind this which
01:16:51yeah
01:16:51which many do not agree with that of course is that uh here we come with basically like tax funded
01:16:58uh
01:16:59material and we put it out there in the in the main marketplace where others which are not tax
01:17:09funded need to compete for freedom so they are saying that you they can that that the tax um
01:17:17tax funded companies they have an advantage which which the other have to okay sounds kind of logical
01:17:27but still so there is no media conglomerate something that is really created from the unions a newspaper
01:17:36that is run by the union something of that sort we have we have we have magazines run by trade
01:17:42unions
01:17:42of course uh and uh trade union close uh organizations but these are not big ones
01:17:50um also i guess this is only for the members no it's not like uh yeah you know big swedish
01:17:57newspaper
01:17:57run by the union that is very union pro yeah and so on now we have we have i think
01:18:05is it not on the
01:18:06blue color side that there's not something which is not really linked to membership because in the past it
01:18:11used to be the case in many countries so that's why i'm wondering maybe somehow you survived the
01:18:17neoliberal push and you still have some media hmm well also uh this is where the the labor movement
01:18:26uh i mean labor movement at large is also uh it's not only elo but it's also the social democratic
01:18:33party we as an organization are non-party affiliated so we don't take sides so we are we are not
01:18:40social
01:18:40democratic party but the blue color unions uh that are organizing elo they are linked to the social
01:18:46democratic party um uh and they had their own media oh they do many many no had the head okay
01:18:55okay i
01:18:56i heard the head yeah no this was sold a long time ago like i think it was like 80
01:19:0280s or 1980s yeah
01:19:04um i think also the center party was like the agrarian it's like uh um centrist liberal parties belonging to
01:19:15the uh uh to the um to the alde party uh uh in in in on european level
01:19:28um never mind never mind but basically there is nothing of that sort so that's no it's the state
01:19:35of the affairs in sweden okay the center party also used to have one and i mean there used to
01:19:41be
01:19:41several more um in in the in the public field which owned media but there there was this process of
01:19:49uh ever increasing concentration of these media conglomerates so they
01:19:53it was sold piece by piece and then just like okay so i would i would say let's wrap it
01:19:59up because
01:20:00we are about one hour and 30 minutes already and i don't want to make it too long for for
01:20:06our listeners
01:20:07and everyone so martin thank you very much uh it was eye-opening in many many cases and in many
01:20:16senses and i just i learned a lot so hopefully people will be listening and watching as well
01:20:21and well kudos to you that you managed to kind of know withstand the crash with the trends that
01:20:30there are are happening in our civilization and you know you are one of the one of the best and
01:20:37well
01:20:38enjoy it till it lasts well we have to continue fighting i mean we are 74 percent now for the
01:20:45white
01:20:45color unions and then i think the blue color unions i feel the envy but on the other hand you
01:20:50have it
01:20:50too easy now with 74 you know we at eight it's like it can go only up yeah well thank
01:20:58you that's
01:20:59the only way our our model would work so yeah we're gonna have to keep up that good work thank
01:21:04you
01:21:04thank you for talking to you
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