Trade Union
The level of union membership in Sweden is very high – at 71% – although it has fallen from its peak of 86% in 1995. There are three main union confederations, LO, TCO and SACO, which are divided along occupational and educational lines in line with the traditional way in which Swedish employees are grouped, and there is considerable co-operation between them.
There are some 3.5m trade unionists in Sweden and, although there are a number of non-employed members, particularly students and pensioners, the level of union organisation is extremely high at 71% (figures for 2009).1 A comparative database of union membership put union density at 73.8% in 2007.2
There are three main union confederations in Sweden, each dealing with a different part of the occupational structure. The largest is the LO which has 1,528,000 members and organises manual workers. The second largest is the TCO, which has 1,192,500 members, of whom 962,600 are employed or looking for work and organises mostly non-manual workers. The smallest federation is SACO which organises graduate employees. It has 617,700 members, of whom 462,600 are employed. (All figures are from union websites and are for the end of 2010.) The balance of membership between the three confederations has changed in recent years, with SACO growing and LO and, to a lesser extent, TCO both losing members (see below).
Relations between the federations are generally good and there are agreements between most LO and TCO unions to help resolve potential conflicts over membership. There is potentially greater scope for competition between TCO and SACO as many employees can choose either.
Both the LO and the TCO are structured more or less on an industry basis but SACO is structured on the basis of its members’ occupations. The two largest of the 14 individual unions in LO are the local authority workers’ union, Kommunal, with 506,900 members, and IF Metall, created through a merger of the metalworkers’ and industrial workers’ unions in 2006 which has 354,300 members in the metal industries, building component and textile and clothing industries. These two are followed by the retail union, Handels, with 145,300 members, the service and communications union, SEKO, with 128,000, and the construction union Byggnads, with 110,300.
The largest TCO union is the Unionen formed through the merger of SIF, a union organising clerical and technical employees in industry with HTF, which had substantial membership in retail and distribution. Unionen, which came into being on 1 January 2008, has 477,100 members. The next largest is the TCO teachers’ union, Lärarförbundet, with 229,400 members and the union for non-manual local and central government employees, SKTF, with 163,900 members. In total TCO has 15 affiliated unions.
SACO’s biggest union is Sveriges Ingenjörer, the association of graduate engineers with 128,700 members, followed by another teachers’ union, LR, with 83,600 members, and Jusek, with 78,600 members, who include lawyers, business managers, personnel managers and computer experts. SACO has 23 affiliated unions.
The ending of centralised bargaining has reduced the power of the confederations and individual unions now have greater room for manoeuvre and greater influence. However, the confederations still play a role in co-ordinating union claims (see section on collective bargaining).
The LO has a long tradition of a close relationship with the Swedish social democratic party, the SAP. Local union branches can affiliate to local bodies of the SAP and LO’s president, its most senior figure, is a member of the party’s executive. The ties have loosened to some degree, but the election of a centre-right government in September 2006 has led to a number of clashes between LO and the government. The two other confederations stress their party political independence.
The proportion of employees who are union members has fallen in recent years from a high point of 86% in 1995, although at 71% it remains high.
Until the change of government in 2006, the decline was relatively slow and in part reflected changes in the labour market. LO lost 160,000 members and TCO 16,000 between 2001 and 2006, while SACO’s graduate membership increased by 72,000 over the same five-year period. However, between 2006 and 2008 the unions’ membership situation deteriorated sharply as the centre-right government increased the contribution that employees make to unemployment insurance funds, which is often paid together with union membership contributions, at the start of 2007. The consequence was that union density fell from 77% in October 2006 to 73% in October 2007 and 71% in October 2008, although it was unchanged at 71% in 2009. 3 The decline in union density was greater in the private sector, where it fell from 71% in 2006 to 65% in 2008 and 2009, than in the public sector, where there was a drop from 88% to 84% over the same period.
In absolute terms LO lost 193,000 members between 2006 and 2008, TCO 70,000, and SACO’s membership, which had previously being growing by between 10,000 and 20,000 a year increased by only 2,300. Since then, the previous pattern of losses at LO being partially compensated by gains elsewhere appears to have re-emerged. While LO lost 82,000 members between 2008 and 2010, TCO gained 17,000 over the same period, and SACO saw a 30,000 membership rise.
On the issue of membership balance, a study undertaken for LO in 2009 found that there was little difference in union density for non-manual workers (72%) and manual workers (71%), but that women – with a union density of 74% – were more likely than men – with a union density of 69% – to be union members. Local and regional government had the highest level of union membership – 85% for non-manual and 83% for manual workers – while the lowest level of membership was in retail and wholesale distribution – 59% for manual and 57% for non-manual workers.4
