Regardless of which trade union you belong to, or what industry you work in, ongoing hamnkonflikten affect your future.
If anyone by now still believe that Hamnarbetarförbundets struggle for a homonymous collective bargaining is the only thing that is at stake in the ongoing conflict have missed the most important.
that, more and more unions and workers in all industries wake up and realize that the current hamnkonflikten is much larger than the Hamnarbetarförbundets struggle for a collective bargaining agreement. Had the will been had the employers given Hamnarbetarförbundet a collective agreement a long time ago.
The only thing this democratic trade unions all of the time and demanded a similar agreement as it already is with half the total workforce in the ports. So where is the sacrifice for the employer?
the Employers ‘ side offered thus fredsplikt in all ports, with all port workers for a collective agreement they have already once accepted and that still applies to every other port workers. In spite of it they choose to say no.
very simple. Hamnarbetarförbundet is not the real goal in this conflict. For the employers ‘ side and its collaborators have the actual objective from the beginning has been to degrade the labor law and the freedom of association – two cornerstones of the Swedish model and stating the obvious in a democratic society.
You don’t need to be Einstein to figure out that arbetsgivarparten had bigger things in mind when they chose to make the conflict in the city of Gothenburg into a national concern. A conflict at the local level by only one of the Hamnarbetarförbundets departments was enough simply not to as the only argument to change the Swedish legislation, and to reduce sharply the labour law.
I have recently come home after the first of our two punktstrejker at my workplace, the port of Halmstad. Virtually all the members of our local hamnarbetarförbund was there.
We should, however, have been considerably more and with more I mean more unions, and not just our own members. What is happening now affects all workers, not just those who happen to work in a port, or those who chose to be represented by Hamnarbetarförbundet.
It is time to wake up, for soon it may be too late.
