The labour movement in Sweden dates back to at least the 1850s, when Swedish workers initiated the organizing of previously spontaneous

food riot A food riot is a riot in protest of a shortage and/or unequal distribution of food. Historical causes have included rises in food prices, harvest failures, inept food storage, transport problems, food speculation, hoarding, poisoning of food, ...

s into strikes, hence acting as an autonomous group.

History

Modern types of

labour union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

s emerged in the 1870s. An event that is usually considered to be central in the early days of the Swedish labour movement is the lecture "Hvad vil Social-Demokraterna?" ("What do the Social Democrats want?") by August Palm, at Hotel Stockholm in

Malmö Malmö is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, sixth-largest city in Nordic countries, the Nordic region. Located on ...

6 November 1881. Five years later, in 1886, Sweden's first national labour union, Svenska Typografförbundet, was founded.Björklund & Edin & Holmlund & Wadensjö (1996), p. 245. Another union of that sort, Svenska Postmannaförbundet, was founded later that same year. The labour movement soon divided into two parts, a political one and a union-specialized one. The union movement was organized in one central organization, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), founded in 1898, with the aim to organize all national labour unions in one central organization. Parallel to, but closely associated with this movement is the

Swedish Social Democratic Party The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( , S or SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( ), is a social democratic political party in Sweden. The party is member of the Progressiv ...

(SAP), founded in 1889. These two organizations has ever since dominated not only the Swedish labour movement but also the political life in general. One example of their close association is the fact that all members of LO was initially automatically made members of SAP. Even though LO has dominated labour relations in Sweden, the two other big confederations for unions, the

Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees The Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (, TCO, literary ''White-collar workers' Central Organisation'') is a national trade union centre, the umbrella organisation for 12 trade unions in Sweden that organise professional and other qua ...

, TCO, and the

Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations The Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations (, Saco) is a confederation of 21 independent professional association A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a g ...

, SACO, are today almost as important participants as LO in the debate of labour economics. In 2008 for the first time the total number of active wage and salary members (i.e. excluding pensioner, students and self-employed) in TCO and SACO together surpassed that of LO. In the year before that (2007), the center-right government considerably raised the fees to unemployment funds, which in particular hit funds run by LO unions. The result was large membership losses of LO funds and LO unions and rapidly declining union density.Anders Kjellberg (2011
"The Decline in Swedish Union Density since 2007"
''Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies'' (NJWLS) Vol. 1. No 1 (August 2011), pp. 67-93 The declining number of LO members is also related to the decreasing share of blue-collar workers in the labour force.

References

Printed sources

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History

References

Printed sources

Notes

Further reading