Four out of ten turn down the union

By Johanna Wreder, from Arbetet 7/2018 (March 2, 2018)

The proportion of workers who are part of a union continues to decrease.

Last year, 61 percent of all workers were in a union. That is a percentage point lower than the year before.

“It’s never good when the level of organization goes down, but now it’s not due to the fact that we lost so many members, but more that the labor market is strong and many people have jobs,” says Berit Müllerström, Second Vice-President of LO, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation.

She says that last year, the LO unions had a record year, recruiting a total of 150,000 new members.

The fact that membership nevertheless fell by 6,600 is due to the fact that more people, primarily older members nearing retirement, have left the union.

LO has a long-term goal of 80 percent of workers joining the union.

That was the level LO stood at around the beginning of the 2000s, before the drastically increased membership fees in the unemployment benefit fund led to a major collapse in membership starting in 2007.

Despite membership fees being lowered again, the union has had difficulties bringing members back, says Anders Kjellberg, professor of sociology at the University of Lund, who calculated the information about the degree of organization.

“Even if the fees are lowered, people don’t automatically return. Joining a union and an unemployment benefit fund is no longer as self-evident, especially among workers,” he says.

The level of organization in working-class occupations continues to sink

Professional associations recovered more quickly from the membership loss, and now have a higher degree of organization than LO.

Last year, 73 percent of professionals were in a union, which was also a decrease – if only by half a percentage point.

“The good times are rolling, and more people think they’ll do all right without the union’s help,” Kjellberg says.

The share of unionized workers varies greatly among different industries.

Among workers, the union is strongest in industry, where 74 percent are members, and the weakest is the hotel and restaurant industry where 27 percent were union members last year.

Organization by industry (percent membership)

The decrease in the level of organization was greatest, however, in the public sector, and there primarily among those born outside Sweden.

“There is a generational shift, where we’re getting a lot of young people, foreign-born, and newly arrived immigrants in the public sector. They may have insufficient knowledge of what a union and a collective agreement are, and don’t have the same tradition of belonging to a union,” Kjellberg says.

Despite LO being far from its goal of organizing 80 percent of workers, Berit Müllerström thinks it will work.

If it is to become reality, however, major changes are needed on the labor market, she says.

“Most of those who have permanent, full-time jobs are in the union. But a large part of the workers have uncertain temporary employment that will perhaps only last a few days into the future, and they don’t join. If we do something about that, we’ll have solved a lot,” she says.

Read Anders Kjellberg’s report (in Swedish) here.