The Evil of Swedish Labor Unionsby
Nima Sanandaji Sweden is not only burdened by an extensive welfare system, but also by powerful labor unions that sometimes seem out of control. To give an illustrative example of what the unions are up to one can look at the fate of Sofia Appelgren. Sofia is 24-year-old woman who has for the last year run a small shop selling sandwiches and salads to her costumers. She mostly works alone, but for some of the busy hours of the week she pays a few young people to help her out. The problems for this young struggling businesswoman started when the Hotell- and Restaurant Labor Union demanded that those working for her would be employed through the union contract. Sofia discussed the issue with her employees and discovered that they were not interested, since they believed that they were making more money through their existing contracts. Sofia subsequently told the union that neither she nor her employees were interested in signing a union contract – something that proved to be a big mistake. The union decided to put Sofia's tiny café under "blockade" – for several days some ten union activists have been hanging outside her business telling people not to go inside as the owner is an exploiter of the workers. The blockade, which is still ongoing, has become top news in Sweden as even most Swedes are shocked at what extents labor unions will go to in order to preserve their power. However, this is not the first time that a company where neither the manager nor the employees are interested in joining the union has been put under blockade. Unions rarely take so drastic measures; usually it is enough to threaten most small businesses with a blockade to force them to sign labor contracts with theirs employees. A blockade can not only mean that union activists scare away the costumers of a company, it can also mean that the union bullies other companies to stop doing business with the company under blockade. But the power of the unions does not stop here. Many Swedish unions are part of an umbrella organization called LO, which is in turn not only the most influential interest group in the country, but also in a sense almost a part of the dominating Social Democratic Party (for example the party and the union organization share the same youth organization). The fact that the social democrats recently have been toppled from power does not stop the Hotell- and Restaurant Labor Union from making political threats on a national scale due to their frustration that a small café refuses to follow their demands. The union has expressed that if the current center right government does not make clear that they are supporting similar actions from the side of the unions, the result might be that serious problems are cased across big parts of the Swedish labor market. This translates to that the unions will make outrageous demands or go on strike on a national level simply to prove to the government that they have no right to question their actions. So far, the government has not dared to challenge the labor unions.
December 11, 2006 Nima Sanandaji [send him mail] is president of the Swedish think tank Captus and the editor of Captus Journal. He is a graduate student in biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com |
In
the middle of this demonstration of union power a young entrepreneur
is caught. A woman who is looking out for the interest of her workers
and who has a one-year-old daughter to support. Can anybody truly
say that the unions are always on the side of the common man?