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Happiness is Mandatory.
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May 29, 2020 09:36
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Socialstyrelsen reports that as of April 28th, 50% of the Covid-19 deaths in Sweden were elderly in some kind of nursing home and another 25% were elderly with some kind of home care service (hemtjänst). e: correction, those percentages are out of deaths among people above age 70, but people above age 70 are 90% of the overall deaths. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 09:41 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 09:39
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PederP posted:I remember being corrected by other posters in the past, when I claim the labor unions aren't doing enough to combat this, but I still feel unions have failed by letting this happen in sectors with low-to-no unionization. Now it's spreading to other sectors. I hope they manage to turn it around and eradicate this new proletariate of imported cheap labor (many are on student or cultural exchange visas) with pro forma b2b circumventing all labor laws. I was the one who asked you about your impression, and I'm sorry if you felt like I was trying to correct you. I rarely get the time to properly respond to things on SA these days, but I appreciated that you took the time to describe where your impression of the union efforts came from. And, in the end, I absolutely agree that the situation is incredibly problematic, and that the expansion of the precariat class is the sign of a mortally wounded labor market model. My point was that the unions that I've interacted with or helped direct all agreed with that assessment, but felt powerless to do anything effective about it without the public and political backing of the late 20th century.
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May 29, 2020 10:08
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Regarding Sweden loving up part time employees: When the rights of part time workers were completely gutted, the "safeguard" against rampant abuse was that you have the right to a full employment after two years of employment. Look, there's no risk of employers abusing the lack of employment security now! Only, get this, this two year period is separate depending on if you are hired as a substitute for a fully employed worker or if you are hired for a temporary project. So if you are hired first as a substitute and then for a temporary project, those periods can overlap each other without triggering your right to employment. Other simply solve this by firing people before the two years are up. And that's how I was employed doing the same thing for three years without any employment safety, racking up a total of six separate employments on paper. Basically, unions are relatively strong but the system is extremely FYGM and it sucks a lot if you are on the outside of those iron gates.
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May 29, 2020 10:11
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lilljonas posted:Basically, unions are relatively strong but the system is extremely FYGM and it sucks a lot if you are on the outside of those iron gates. I mean that's not unique to Sweden that's essentially the entire Nordic corporatist/tripartite system (employer-union-state) it works well enough within the framework it's set up for but kind of falls apart completely for anything that goes on outside of it, where there is very little in the terms of security, representation and rights. It's actually pretty loosely regulated overall as the system esssentially empowers unions and employers to work out all the details and regulations that govern the workplace and the rights and obligations of workers and employees. When you work outside of that context, which more and more people do, it's incredibly easy for employers to exploit their employees, especially if the workers are foreigners. Also neither the police or Arbeidstilsynet (in Norway) seem to have the resources or expertise needed to actually investigate and punish breaches when they occur so they typically end up in legal limbo, the employer can say they've adressed the issue and then carry on as before. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 10:29 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 10:18
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lilljonas posted:Basically, unions are relatively strong but the system is extremely FYGM and it sucks a lot if you are on the outside of those iron gates. My experience with the labor movement showed me that you can divide unions (and those active in and around them) into two groups, that can pretty appropriately be described as progressive and conservative. Progressive unions maintain an awareness of their socialist roots - sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly - and see the labor movement as a global cause, across nations, professions, and so on. The conservative unions are almost entirely invested in fighting for their own members, and often have an almost hostile relationship with other unions, with the larger organizations the unions are part of, and with non-unionized professionals in their field. Sadly, the conservative unions are often more effective at fighting for their members and securing good collective agreements in the here and now, even if they potentially undermine the labor movement in the long run.
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May 29, 2020 10:23
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Unions are also getting a bit lazy in Sweden. Part of my job is reading old labor disputes and citing court results. Unions would send lawyers to defend a case worth 24 SEK on principle. These days you got cases where employers screw workers out of 10 thousand SEK and the worker has evidence to back it up and the union is like "uhhh give and take. Work it out or whatevs" Maybe the union rep guys went full boughie. Katt fucked around with this message at 10:45 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 10:24
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e: posted in the wrong wrong thread!
Randarkman fucked around with this message at 10:50 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 10:43
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Katt posted:Maybe the union rep guys went full boughie. One thing that's certainly happened, is that unions have started to become more traditional service providers than political organizations. It used to be that they were largely driven by members - some of which were elected to work full-time for the union - and with few employees from outside of the field that they represented. These days, all the Danish unions of a certain size have a growing number of employees with no ties to the field they represent, and very few members who care to involve themselves in the union work. You can see this in how the unions compete with each other over things like the cost of being a member, and the types of consumer discounts and (non-political) courses they offer. In my experience, the above creates an environment where decisions are a lot less ideologically and politically motivated, and are much more about business strategy and the all-important member numbers. While decisions are still ultimately in the hands of the members and boards, there is this strange fear of rocking the boat: If we make too big of a mess for ideological reasons, we may end up disturbing the regular-business-with-employees-and-customers-and-KPIs side of things. This may just reflect my own experiences, of course.
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May 29, 2020 10:45
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lilljonas posted:Regarding Sweden loving up part time employees: And it is not only private companies that use these tactics. Good luck getting employed at a university if you work in any position that is dependent on grant money. One of my recent employed co-workers had basically a working contract updated on a monthly basis. Meanwhile, kicking a researcher for fraud is apparently really hard. All these things are actual examples from Lund university.
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May 29, 2020 10:45
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Katt posted:Unions are also getting a bit lazy in Sweden. Part of my job is reading old labor disputes and citing court results. Unions would send lawyers to defend a case worth 24 SEK on principle. Maybe. I've never seen the unions go to war gor any single member in any of the cases I handled, and always had to file suit and find a settlement on their own. My perception is that unions are more and more in the pocket of the employers and don't care to rock the boat, or run by bloodless networking blåruss that couldn't care less either way. But I might be wrong, it's purely anecdotal after all. E: Norway famously doesn't have a minimum wage. That really ought to tell you who the unions are busy looking out for. Randarkman posted:
Well, the expertise, sure. I've worked on stuff related to work-time violations and, it usually sorts in as an ØKOKRIM matter and those guys... Well, let's just say there aren't a lot of them. But it's a relatively simple matter to prosecute. Only trouble is, if they contest the fine there aren't enough prosecutors to try all the cases they'd like to try. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 11:01 on May 29, 2020 |
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May 29, 2020 10:56
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Azram Legion posted:One thing that's certainly happened, is that unions have started to become more traditional service providers than political organizations. <snip> And strangely, to the extent that they're still political organizations, it's often as training-wheels for up-and-coming politicians. Rather than the labor unions championing a political cause, they've (and I'm grossly simplifying and leaving out some examples to the contrary) become this weird mix of old-school non-internationalist labor unions (which was the direction chosen after Slaget på Fælleden, etc.), the things you describe and a weird almost lodge-like place that career politicians can go get a few lines on their resumés to create a connection to the working class. Thanks for the clarification in the other post - I am not bitter about the comments I got in the past, even if it sounded like that, re-reading what I wrote above. I was trying to nuance that I am now aware that there has been some effort to combat the gig economy. But I appreciate the clarification all the same. Speaking of labor unions I often wonder when the break-up between S and the big public sector labor unions will happen. The government has increasingly abandoned the traditional negotiation-based model - when it comes to the public sector there really are only two parties, the delineation between employer and state is a sham, and it's showing more and more. At some point the labor unions are going to be upset at being dictated wages and working conditions. It's the great paradox of public employment - a divide between labor unions and the political parties claiming to represent the interests of these is inevitable. Labor unions and state capitalism doesn't really mix well. I don't expect syndicalist urges to suddenly manifest, so I'm waiting for the mother of all strikes when the divide manifests fully. I wonder what the aftermath will be. On a personal level I find it no less oppressive to be a wage slave of the public sector than the private sector. But that's absolutely not the mainstream sentiment. I just don't see how labor unions can continue to accept politicians lying over and over about they'll reward public sector employees, and then go do the opposite once it's time to negotiate wages and working conditions.
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May 29, 2020 11:07
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i maintain that the minimum wage thing is, in sum, good, and i worked jobs which would've been sub-minimum wage for years including a call center which made me want to genuinely kill myself - under those circumstances you'd think it was easy to organise people, but nope, nobody wants to rock the boat there are two big-big problems that i've run into in terms of labour organising. the first, as has been noted, casualisation and smaller workplaces. this means that it's easier for people to just leave than it is to stand and fight the often gruelling battle for a tariffavtale. in addition, these businesses love hiring foreigners with often-shaky norwegian for non-costumer-facing roles, making the organisation looser. all of this makes collective action more difficult the other is that the unions have tended to pivot to formal qualifications as a means of adjusting to neoliberal administration. that means that they really want you to get a fagbrev and to commit to whatever you're doing - basically this is the union response to casualisation as far as i've been able to tell, and it's understandable but it means that non-qualified labour is *hosed*. in addition, there's been a big cultural change. people don't think in broader, collective terms anymore, and you have to teach everyone what the rules are, why we can't just strike right now, why you can't just exclude the slightly creepy guy nobody likes etc. if the business wants, it can drag the process out for *months*, and it can and will demonise the union and organisers in creative ways. business has a lot of slack in the rules - workers don't. all workers have is the collective discipline, and that is culturally very foreign to young norwegians these days there are other issues connected to the professionalisation of the great unions (i think that the point about the unions starting to see themselves as service providers more than a social movement was very poignant), but they're more secondary IMO. the union represents its members, and large parts of the new working class are for various reasons deeply individualist and very skeptical of unions. it's hard, expensive work to organise them - it's more efficient to spend that money elsewhere i do get the impression that this stuff is receding somewhat and that there's an internal discussion about what we're supposed to be etc. i also suspect that as things get more structurally precarious and it becomes harder to get new jobs (and thus simply quitting in protest is less viable) people are going to come back to solidarity and discipline as the only way out. but we're not there yet
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May 29, 2020 11:24
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people just not bothering with civil society organisations in general is also a huge problem, though. i blame the internet, personally
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May 29, 2020 11:26
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Nice piece of fish posted:E: Norway famously doesn't have a minimum wage. That really ought to tell you who the unions are busy looking out for.   
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May 29, 2020 11:33
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V. Illych L. posted:i blame the internet, personally Oh, I do too. The loving thing should be banned
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May 29, 2020 11:39
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TheFluff posted:Socialstyrelsen reports that as of April 28th, 50% of the Covid-19 deaths in Sweden were elderly in some kind of nursing home and another 25% were elderly with some kind of home care service (hemtjänst).
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May 29, 2020 11:48
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I don't think minimum wage is even a good idea. I imagine it would be raised at about the same rate as the A-kassa and then 10 years from now you got the exact same minimum wage issues as the Americans have. Minimum wage doesn't even cover rent but instead of unions confronting employers you instead have to take it up with Regeringen.
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May 29, 2020 11:59
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yeah having the parties have to put minimum wage policies on their electoral platforms is something i dread under present conditions where nobody tries to justify things from principles anyway
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May 29, 2020 12:02
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There's some good people volunteering for the unions, but Norwegians do care to "not rock the boat". I've had some weird conversations with my reps about "being fair to the employer" which I don't understand at all. I'm also skeptical to the way using company email / networks / offices for communication is pretty much standard, and how bosses are allowed to sit in / be members of the union. I wonder if it's the result of people not staying in the unions long term, people having short memories or if we're really that docile. When unions started moving away from collective bargaining to individual bargaining in order to "stay competitive" with how things are done in the private sector and to reward particularly educated or skilled employees is when things really started bursting at the seams, I believe. Still, it's better than no union? Probably?
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May 29, 2020 12:06
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Meanwhile no minimum wage legislation lets shell companies hire out foreign workers, paying them a pittance through another shell company and pocketing the difference. Which is a different problem for tax evasion and wage slavery reasons but that's not my point right now. poo poo ain't exactly working as is.
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May 29, 2020 12:09
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thotsky posted:There's some good people volunteering for the unions, but Norwegians do care to "not rock the boat". I've had some weird conversations with my reps about "being fair to the employer" which I don't understand at all. I'm also skeptical to the way using company email / networks / offices for communication is pretty much standard, and how bosses are allowed to sit in / be members of the union. I wonder if it's the result of people not staying in the unions long term, people having short memories or if we're really that docile. if your management is part of the same union as you you're either in a really big company where the local clubs will tend to have their own arrangements or something is very wrong forbund for ledelse og teknikk is the middle-management union where middle-managers are supposed to hang out and have their people represent them re: LO's relatively passive attitude, i think it's a function of having a whole bunch of non-ideological members. they try to mobilise internally through the magazines, but there's no stomach among the rank and file for a revolutionary general strike. i do think LO should be more aggressively litigious, though, including going hard after wage theft, which is absolutely rife in working-class jobs
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May 29, 2020 12:16
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Nice piece of fish posted:Meanwhile no minimum wage legislation lets shell companies hire out foreign workers, paying them a pittance through another shell company and pocketing the difference. Which is a different problem for tax evasion and wage slavery reasons but that's not my point right now. tbf LO isn't exactly being quiet about what they think of agencies, that's been a big push for a while now
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May 29, 2020 12:17
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the union defender has logged on
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May 29, 2020 12:17
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V. Illych L. posted:if your management is part of the same union as you you're either in a really big company where the local clubs will tend to have their own arrangements or something is very wrong It's not huge. Let's say in the order of 100-150 employees, maybe 30% of those in the union in question (Tekna/Akademikerne). It's not just middle managers; even director level people.
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May 29, 2020 12:34
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ohhhh the yellow unions, yeah those are different my experience is mostly in the LO-verse, sorry. i got out of tekna over some forgotten political stance years and years ago
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May 29, 2020 12:37
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My experience working in tourism when I first came to Norway is that if your industry is outside of the collective bargaining agreements you will be treated like poo poo, have no job security, be paid badly in the first place and with plenty of opportunity for the employer to claw back more. Examples of that that I experienced or heard about included requiring you to undergo unpaid training, being present at work and "on call" without pay, having to buy work clothing from the employer, in some cases even having to accept "free" employer provided accommodation (with a commensurate reduction in wages, of course). This is an area with a lot of foreign workers, many of whom won't stay in Norway more than a season or two. Consequently they don't know what rights they might have, and anyway have a strong incentive to just take what money they can in the few months they're working and leave without rocking the boat. Not so many Norwegians are working in this area and even most of the companies in my experience were foreign owned and run, so maybe there is no big desire in Norway to improve this situation. It's probably much like seasonal foreign agricultural workers. I can imagine that things seem work very nicely to a lot of the Norwegian professional class - now that I've joined that class, with collective bargaining, a secure contract and a union, I have to admit that conditions seem very good. I guess we'll see what I'm complaining about a few years down the line.
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May 29, 2020 12:39
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big scary monsters posted:My experience working in tourism when I first came to Norway is that if your industry is outside of the collective bargaining agreements you will be treated like poo poo, have no job security, be paid badly in the first place and with plenty of opportunity for the employer to claw back more. Examples of that that I experienced or heard about included requiring you to undergo unpaid training, being present at work and "on call" without pay, having to buy work clothing from the employer, in some cases even having to accept "free" employer provided accommodation (with a commensurate reduction in wages, of course). This is an area with a lot of foreign workers, many of whom won't stay in Norway more than a season or two. Consequently they don't know what rights they might have, and anyway have a strong incentive to just take what money they can in the few months they're working and leave without rocking the boat. Yep. And we're doing fuckall about it. Which is why nobody should ever vote right of Rødt.
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May 29, 2020 12:45
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yeah the de-facto disenfranchisement of a huge sector of our actual working class is a massive problem and we really really need drastic reform. IMO LO should be pushing hard for voting rights for residents, not just citizens, and we should be arranging courses in the norwegian model to recently arrived immigrants
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May 29, 2020 12:47
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V. Illych L. posted:ohhhh the yellow unions, yeah those are different  Is there a better possibility? I looked at IWW Norge as a possible additional option but they seem basically defunct.
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May 29, 2020 12:47
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big scary monsters posted:Tekna is by far the largest union at my employer so I joined them too. I have to admit it was odd to me that my boss and boss's boss are also members. My rep at least talks a good game, but when I was first looking at joining I asked when they had last taken industrial action and they said that as far as they knew the answer was "never". Tekna is a union? Only thing I remember of them is that they were around campus when I studied physics. Kind of just seemed like some organization for STEM students for whatever when I saw them. Though I guess it makes sense when I think back on it (I think they advertised on innboforsikring which is very much a kind of thing that unions provide).
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May 29, 2020 12:50
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i don't know your job, but i would join whichever LO-forbund has a presence if politics are important to you. the norwegian syndicalist tendency got gobbled up in that system long ago. as a norsk folkehjelp guy, i would also be remiss if i didn't plug the labour movement's own solidarity organisation. it's got its issues, but it's ideologically sound and does some good work, especially wrt refugees and au pairs
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May 29, 2020 12:52
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evil_bunnY posted:"protect the vulnerable!" Well, the current union discussion started roughly with one of the reasons why protecting the elderly in Sweden was always going to be a massive problem. 20% part time workers in Stockholm compared to 10% down here.
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May 29, 2020 12:53
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Apologies if this is personal, but since you seem to be all about that union and socialist stuff V.I.L., you didn't happen to attend AFR did you?
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May 29, 2020 12:54
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Randarkman posted:Tekna is a union? Only thing I remember of them is that they were around campus when I studied physics. Kind of just seemed like some organization for STEM students for whatever when I saw them. Though I guess it makes sense when I think back on it (I think they advertised on innboforsikring which is very much a kind of thing that unions provide). V. Illych L. posted:i don't know your job, but i would join whichever LO-forbund has a presence if politics are important to you. the norwegian syndicalist tendency got gobbled up in that system long ago.
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May 29, 2020 12:56
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Randarkman posted:Apologies if this is personal, but since you seem to be all about that union and socialist stuff V.I.L., you didn't happen to attend AFR did you? i don't know what that is so, uh, no i don't think so
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May 29, 2020 12:58
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big scary monsters posted:Yeah. I mean, I'd rather get my 3% annual increment and reduced insurance premiums than not, but I feel like unions should be about more than just that and awful sounding networking events. if you're working for the state (e.g. a university), you want NTL. if you're in the private sector i have no idea who's relevant NTL is an interesting conglomerate, very old-fashioned sectoral union, so you have university professors in the same union as the cleaning crew. it's probably the one place where you might find your supervisor in the same union as you, though it's very rare
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May 29, 2020 13:02
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V. Illych L. posted:i don't know what that is so, uh, no i don't think so Folkehøgskole in Ringsaker, owned by LO and does some stuff with Norsk Folkehjelp and such. I figured if you didn't know the initials you didn't go. Just got curious since I sent there and know others who did before and after as well. Again, sorry if the question bothered you.
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May 29, 2020 13:07
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Randarkman posted:Folkehøgskole in Ringsaker, owned by LO and does some stuff with Norsk Folkehjelp and such. I figured if you didn't know the initials you didn't go. Just got curious since I sent there and know others who did before and after as well. nah i'm pretty sure i'm doxxable if someone really wants to anyway, don't worry about it
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May 29, 2020 13:09
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 03:48 |
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V. Illych L. posted:nah i'm pretty sure i'm doxxable if someone really wants to anyway, don't worry about it
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May 29, 2020 13:25
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