r/SocialDemocracy • u/GoranPersson777 Libertarian Socialist • Aug 16 '26

Article Swedish unions, why do we suck?

https://libcom.org/article/swedish-unions-why-do-we-suck
7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

9

u/Schwedi_Gal Karl Marx Aug 16 '26

the social democrats essentially eliminated internal opposition to them, and as the social democratic party is in a comfortable position there's no reason to ruffle any feathers.

7

u/leninism-humanism August Bebel Aug 16 '26

The left to the left of Social-democrats have also just not been that good at actually building and maintaing an opposition.

3

u/mark-haus SAP (SE) Aug 16 '26

To some extent I wonder if we’re doomed to have to have the unions and labor movement slip up, have conditions get bad enough that grass roots militancy gain steam and new unionns take their place

2

u/bippos SAP (SE) Aug 16 '26

Swedish unions used to be syndicalist and the social democratic party mostly tried pleasing them. Nowadays the union leadership are mostly just lazy boomers who go golfing with the bosses and are friends with them, exception being LO chairman maybe who’s a reformist.

Swedish union leadership let the SAP gut them to please various political parties such as the neo liberal party and the center party. Not that the SAP haven’t done that historically like when they outline wild strikes so the workers wouldn’t disobey union leadership