Together at Work in Sweden
IF Metall Sweden
IF Metall organizes approximately 300 000 members working in the Swedish industry. However, the industry generates far more work in Sweden, around 800 000 employments are related to the industry. This means that the Swedish industry and the Swedish industry workers play a significant important role for the Swedish society and the welfare system.
We believe that the “Swedish Model” has the fundamental importance in building our strength and power. The wages are negotiated at national level between trade unions and employers organizations, without interference from political parties.
In IF Metall we negotiate 41 national agreements in various sectors, and the national bargaining agreement stipulates wages and all working conditions. Some parts have been strengthen by legislation (such as co-determination law, working environment act) but we will never leave the negotiations to be determined by our politicians.
Our model depends on many members joining together so that we in the trade union have a strong voice when negotiating wages and working conditions. The more members we are, the stronger we get and the better agreements we can get.
In our film What if there were no trade unions? we explain this an easy way. The film exist in Swedish, English, Arabic and Thai. You can find it below.
The model is also described by Darko Davidovic, IF Metall negotiation department, in a film made at the launch of IndustriAll Europe campaign Together at Work. The video is just below.
However, the importance of the Swedish industry is not obvious for all people, and sometimes not even for the political parties. Some years ago we had a right wing prime minister who said that the Swedish industry was basically gone when he talked at an European meeting. He couldn’t have been more wrong!
IF Metall have 300 000 members in IF Metall and we are a strong voice.
We make Sweden work!
This is also the message in our campaign with the same name. During several weeks we have spread this message through print and digital advertisements all around Sweden.
