September 12 to launch a campaign to influence the negotiations of the 1988 national labor contract coming up at the end of the year. Falun is in the province of Dalarna, identified in Swedish history with rebelliousness.
GERRY FOLEY
HE LATEST Dalarna rebellion,
T which began developing years ago, was a workers' reagainst falling wages and social-democratic austerity.
It was expressed in the Dalarna Appeal launched in December 1985. Since that time, it has been signed by 75,000 people. The rebellion was stopped by mass shock at the murder of Premier
Olof Palme in February 1986. But with the approach of a new contract, workers' insurgency is rising again.
"It has been a long time since the
'Internationale' has rung out so forcefully in the Swedish workers' movement," Håkon Blomqvist wrote in the
September 17 issue of Internationalen, the paper of the Socialist Party, Swedish section of the Fourth International.
"From a chock-full community center in Falun the signal went out to Sweden's workers and low-wage earners that the time when they have to take a beating is over."
In the opening speech, Åke Wiklund, leader of the Dalarna rebellion said "..We want to fight together for the cake we have baked but which is being eaten by those who are already the last national contract negotiations in 1985, the union leaderships at ASEA in Ludvika and Saab-
Scania in Falun issued an appeal for an economic redistribution in favor of the workers, the Dalarna Appeal.
Wiklund described the purpose of the
Falun meeting in the following way in the July 16 issue of Internationalen:
"Our idea is to have people come from the lower levels of the unions, ordinary shop stewards and deputy shop stewards from the clubs. And we are not thinking only of industrial workers. We are thinking of all wage earners who are having a hard time economically: hos-
6 pital personnel, poorly workers. For my part, i think we
International Viewpoint • October 26, 1987 should bring in retired people living on pensions too."
The Falun meeting was not welcomed by the top union leaderships. They launched a campaign denouncing it as an attempt to create a parallel union.
In the run-up to the Falun meeting, Internationalen interviewed Göte Kilden, a leading SP member and tradeunionist at the Volvo truck plant in Göteborg. He said that the union leadership's campaign had faded. "Before, people tried to brand the national meeting [in Falun] as some sort of "alternative' LO [National Labor Federation]. But we stressed that it was in no way an alternative to the LO. We even asked for travel money from the plant local, since we see the meeting as entirely within the framework of the activity of the metalworkers' union."
### Radical trade-union solutions
The Dalarna Appeal had gained broad support, even from social-democratic workers, Kilden said. "In Volvo, Group 6 [the spare parts department] 7,000-8,000 members joined in. Its leadership is made up of members of the social-democratic party, but they backed the appeal and are sending a representative to Falun. The majority in the union clubs at Saab-Scania are social democrats and they decided unanimously to participate....
"Many social democrats are interested in radical trade-union solutions. They admit that they were taken in by the talk about the budget deficit." 1
The Falun meeting was to discuss proposals for the tions. Kilden described the program that was to be recommended by the delegation from Volvo Group 19: "[State] hands off the negotiations, no state incomes policy! Metalworkers and mudemocracy in the unions. The hall was filled all the time. Messages came in from many groups of workers, including one from 72 hospital supervisors in Göteborg calling for an end to the "everse Robin Hood policy." A letter from Doctor Lars Person in Göteborg, who started the People's Campaign Against Social Cutbacks, got thunder-
Rolf Häggman from the 1,800member Ludvika ASEA club put forward his organization's program calling for a stress on benefits for the low-waged and a general increase for all. He called for a wage scale by which the lowest paid would get the biggest raises: "That was our proposal to the metalworkers' negotiating committee two years ago, but it was voted down," he said. The Volvo workers argued that a wage scale was too complicated. "Our proposal is for a thousand crowns for everyone."
Bosse Lindström from the 800member Boliden Kemis factory supported the thousand crowns demand, also proposed cost-of-living increases. This was supported by speaker after
Christer Hagman from the Fix factory in Göteborg stressed: "We have to recognize that we only represent people to the extent that our people are active... Passive representation is pulling the union movement down."
Internationalen noted that Kilden got probably the biggest applause of the day for an attack on a proposal from LO leader Stig Malm for a punitive tax on wage increases that exceeded guidecide," Kilden said.
Support came from many groups of public workers: the Östra hospital in Göteborg, the Falun general hospital, pre-school teachers, playground leaders and postmen. The largest group were the 10,500-strong Stockholm public workers, in which the transit workers are a major force. They called for unity between private and public sector workers and for opposition to privatization.
The demands finally adopted included a thousand crowns for all, cost-of-living increases, a one-year contract and the demand proposed by women in the Falun general hospital for a seven hour day for day-shift workers and six hours for those on night-shifts. * 1. See the interview with Göte Kilden in IV 126, Sep-
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SWEDEN Workers'