By Chu Daye

Millions of jobs around the world have been shed during the current global recession, the worst recession after World War II. But consider this: In one country, workers will still be paid 80 percent of their regular salaries for up to 300 days even after they lose their jobs. And they will be retrained so they can easily find a new job.

This is the policy in the Nordic country of Sweden. The working class there is united and strong and can defend its interests against major industrial companies.

Trade Workers Unions, as they are called in Sweden, are the defender of workers' legal rights.

Erland Lindkvist in his office at IF Metall headquarter, Stockholm. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com/Chu Daye]

A few weeks ago, I visited the headquarters of IF Metall, one of the biggest and strongest national industrial trade unions in Sweden. I talked to Erland Lindkvist, head of the International Department to find out how workers there remain united, how their rights are protected and how the trade union benefits Swedish society.

"IF Metall is one of the strongest trade unions in Sweden, and we represent workers from the automobile, electronics, chemical, mining, rubber, glass and cement industries," said Lindkvist, who had been a miner for 15 years before working at IF Metall.

Lindkvist sat in his sunlit office during our discussion. The walls were adorned with Romantic paintings of steadfast, muscular miners at work. One of these paintings, depicting the members of a mining family standing shoulder to shoulder, was entitled "Stronger the Union, Safer the Mine." Lindkvist said the painter was inspired by a terrible mining accident in Belgium in the 19th century.

At intervals ranging from one to four years, negotiators at IF Metall will negotiate with company representatives on working conditions, including everything from wages to work site protection. They will work towards securing workers the best deal possible in a quality bargaining agreement, Lindkvist said.

"We only negotiate the quality agreement with the employer organization on the national level, and we try as much as possible to only have one national quality agreement per sector," he said.

When a quality agreement is reached, it remains valid until the union and the employer's organization, the two parities involved in the quality agreement negotiations, decide that a new quality agreement is needed. Then negotiations resume.

A distinct feature of the quality bargaining between IF Metall and companies is that they keep the government away from the negotiation table.

"Here in Sweden it is very important for us that we don't want to have the state involved in the quality bargaining at all," Lindkvist said. "This is something between us, representatives for the workers and the employers. We don't want the fingers of the state [in it]."

Because of the absence of the state in quality bargaining negotiations, Sweden is one of the few developed countries that do not have government-stipulated minimum wages for workers. While in many other parts of the world workers are struggling for legislation to protect their rights, Swedish workers have already gotten rid of it.

Lindkvist said it is better that workers themselves have influence in each sector to determine the lowest wage that should be paid.

"We believe in agreement; we don't believe in legislation," Lindkvist said. "As we have a parliament which changes power, sometimes we have a right wing government, sometimes a left wing. Of course, we believe in the left wing government. But the government is always shifting. All the time if you give politicians power, they want to change the laws. And you don't have any long-term developments. Then agreements are much better. The government, no matter right wing or left wing, doesn't have so much influence on the agreements. All the time you give politicians power, they want to influence. There is a question of power."

With a highly-organized labor force, employers have also formed their own very strong organizations. Lindkvist said he thought this was good.

"We think it is very good to have very strong employer organizations and strong trade unions," Lindkvist said. If you have that then you can say to the state, 'Take your finger out. We can resolve this.' So every time the state wants to have influence on us, we say. 'No.'"

As a time-honored workers' organization established in the 19th century, IF Metall has fended off political influence and prevented worker's rights from falling victim to inconsistent state policies. It encourages its members to influence the country's parliament by casting votes and letting politicians consider their positions.

IF Metall supports the Swedish Social Democratic Party, traditionally the party of blue-collar workers. More than two-thirds of its members vote for the party. But voting for the Social Democratic Party is not obligatory for all IF Metall members; they can vote for whichever party they want.

On the international stage, IF Metall is also engaged in promoting decent work conditions under the framework of the International Labor Organization (ILO) convention, by providing training to workers from other parts of the work to help them change their work situations back home.

It is rare to see a mass strike in Sweden, unlike in other European countries where mass workforce strikes cripple industries from time to time. The last large-scale strike in Sweden occurred a decade ago. Smaller strikes occur here more often because of the unusually strong position of the Swedish trade union, Lindkvist said

"We don't want to strike, because we think it is better to have a very strong position and negotiate from that," Lindkvist said. "We have a very big strike fund, and we can use it during strikes. That is our strategy, to be very strong economically. But we don't want to use it. It is more of a threat."

The strike fund Lindkvist mentioned is unique to IF Metall. The trade union charges each member a membership fee, which is about 1.7 percent of his base wages, and collects it for the strike fund, which is solely owned by the union. Because membership fees are quite high, the union controls a very large sum of money with which workers can support themselves during a strike.

Because workers from different industrial sectors under IF Metall are unlikely to go on strike at the same time, the strike fund, which plays a similar role as life insurance policies, can guarantee that they will still be paid by the union, not their employers, during a strike. The strike fund is like a nuclear weapon, effective in actual use but even more effective in terms of a threat.

Because of the strike fund, negotiators at IF Metall, including Lindkvist, enjoy solid ground in the quality bargaining.

If a worker is fired, either as a result of the company reshuffle or bankruptcy, the union will try to negotiate better compensation for the worker and find him a new job in a related business. The new job for the unemployed worker comes about as a result of the quality agreement reached with the employer and partly funded by the union's membership fees.

If a new job is not immediately available, the worker can receive training or go for further education to move into a new job. While doing this, he is entitled to receive 80 percent of his salary for up to 300 days. The money, called the unemployment fund, is partly paid by the union. Lindkvist said.

"We have an unemployment fund," he said. "That is part of the solution that we have gotten through the parliament. The union and the state each contribute 50 percent of the fund. When someone gets fired, he will still be paid 80 percent of the wages he received at the time he was fired for as long as 300 days."

While workers in Sweden painstakingly defended their rights, they also encounter some of the new, and perhaps common problems that globalization has brought to many economies. Some Swedish companies are moving their plants to foreign countries in search of cheaper labor. And some foreign companies staffed with cheap labor have entered the Swedish market. Many of these moves have been carried out under the banner of "Free Trade."

Lindkvist said free trade in a globalized world must not be "totally free" trade, but trade with regulations to ensure fair play.

"I don't like the phrase 'free market,'" he said. "I want to say a 'fair market.' It is much more important to say that we must in the world have fair, free trade. Because if you only say 'free,' many enterprises in the capitalist world will play by the rules of the jungle [where] the strongest always decides everything. As representatives for workers we advocate fair trade so that they don't exploit workers."

Lindkvist said the union hopes foreign companies pay their staff the same level of wages that Swedish companies pay Swedes, but this is something IF Metall still must fight for.

The union has big concerns about what it calls "social dumping" �� companies that move their factories and plants around the world to where they can offer the lowest benefits and wages to workers. This even includes places where they can find forced laborers. Lindkvist denounced this practice as a totally capitalist�� a position that holds money as the only valuable thing in the world.

Lindqvist said Sweden's high wages �� something the trade union fights for �� would not raise the cost of Swedish products and reduce the competitiveness of Swedish enterprises, but do the exact opposite. He argued that with the presence of the strong trade union and strong employer organizations, Swedish enterprises can compete much better on the global market.

"The quality agreements will provide Swedish enterprises with skilled workers, who can be trained and retrained very flexibly," Lindqvist said. "The quality agreements also guarantee the stability of the workforce. Those together give the company a long-term vision, high wages, and skilled and productive workers who are satisfied with and loyal to the company, and who can compete on the world market. It is flexibility. We can guarantee that. You can't do that with very low wages."

Lindqvist said trade unions play an indispensable role in Swedish society.

"The high wages we are struggling for enables a lot of overlapping social welfare systems that bring huge benefits for everyone working," he said. "So it is more important what you have in your head than who your parents are. We are defending decent life, decent work! And if you look at Swedish society, it is maybe one of the most decent societies in the world. That's because of a very strong trade union. "

Basic Facts about IF Metall

IF Metall is one of the biggest trade unions in Sweden and has about 440,000 members at nearly 13,500 workplaces all over the country. Its members come from the automobile, electronics, chemical, mining, rubber, glass and cement industries. These altogether account for 80 percent of heavy industries in Sweden.

IF Metall's headquarters is in Stockholm. It has 52 regional branches scattered across the country, each consisting of 4,000-10,000 members. IF Metall has a national-level congress, where delegates (elected representatives from local levels) meet every three years to discuss big issues and lay out plans for the next three years. An executive board in Stockholm meets once every year to form and carry out IF Metall's annual plan.

IF Metall has local trade unions in all companies that have more than 20-30 employees. For small companies with fewer than 10 employees, the organization tries to have at least one worker elected as a trade union representative. These grassroots units are responsible for handling issues within their companies.

IF Metall successfully organizes about 80 percent-85 percent of all workers in the sectors it covers. In some sectors, such as mining and chemicals, nearly the entire workforce is organized.