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Comment by ecmascript | Hacker News Reader

As a person born in Sweden myself I have to say that the two times I have gone from a non-union contract to a union-contract the terms has been worse in a union.

Pretty much all unions are left leaning politically, exclude members if you are connected to the wrong political party (Sweden Democrats) and don't offer many benefits for at least programmers.

The workers don't want to strike obviously because they are satisfied with the contracts and have better terms and pay than in their previous jobs for the same age group according to themselves. It's illegal for employers to punish people for participating in unions in Sweden so anyone could go on strike without getting punished for it.

Unions have outplayed their role in society for the most part. The jobs in Sweden that really need unions rarely have them (service jobs).

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> As a person born in Sweden myself I have to say that the two times I > have gone from a non-union contract to a union-contract the terms > has been worse in a union.

There is no such thing as a "union-contract". What you meant is that there was a collective bargaining agreement in place at one employer which prevented them from paying you less than some minimum. That you then failed to negotiate a higher salary than the minimum is on you and not the union.

> Pretty much all unions are left leaning politically, exclude members > if you are connected to the wrong political party (Sweden Democrats) > and don't offer many benefits for at least programmers.

Nope. Unions have barred active members of Sweden Democrats from becoming functionaries, but have not terminated their memberships. For developers, unions still offer insurances and have pretty good lawyers which can negotiate agreements if there are disputes over, for example, IP, patents, or severance packages.

> There is no such thing as a "union-contract". What you meant is that there was a collective bargaining agreement in place at one employer which prevented them from paying you less than some minimum. That you then failed to negotiate a higher salary than the minimum is on you and not the union.

Whatever dude, you know what I meant. I am not talking about salary really, the problem is that the unions and the employers tried to convince me and others to accept a shittier contract (which we didn't do) but ultimately we finally got the choice to accept or get fired. Although at one of these jobs we got them to improve the terms since no one wanted to sign it and they couldn't fire everybody.

The unions don't work for the employees, they work for themselves only. They don't care about the employees which was very obvious both of the times when the companies I worked in got unionized.

> Nope. Unions have barred active members of Sweden Democrats from becoming functionaries, but have not terminated their memberships. For developers, unions still offer insurances and have pretty good lawyers which can negotiate agreements if there are disputes over, for example, IP, patents, or severance packages.

Again nitpicking (and you're wrong [1]) also since still being allowed to pay for a membership where you don't get anything to say because of your political affiliations is disgusting and just adding insult to injury. I don't want to be a member of such a disgusting organisation. If I get badly treated on a job I'd never stay and try to fight, I just leave for another job since there is plenty of jobs as a developer with most companies being really nice and most companies will give you good terms. If I really wanted to fight (over an IP or similar) I would never trust a shitty union to take care of it, I would just use my saved money (instead of wasting hundreds of SEK on a worthless union every month) and employ my own lawyer that _actually_ works for me and my interests.

As a dev there is absolutely no need to be part of a union. I have never been part of one and never will unless they radically change a lot. The idea of unions is good but the practice is horrible, mostly because they themselves has gotten so big and greedy they have forgotten where they came from and what their purpose was.

[1]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/dom-i-hovratten...

> Whatever dude, you know what I meant.

No, I didn't knew what you meant. There is no such thing as a "union contract" in Sweden. Your employment contract is between employee and employer and is only indirectly affected by the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the employer. That is, your employment contract may not specify lower salary or worse benefits than what the union and the employer agreed upon.

Due to inflation, collective bargaining rarely results in worse agreements than previously negotiated. But it can happen if the company faces bankruptcy and needs to urgently cut costs to survive. Apparently, this has happened to you more than once since you claim that "unions" and "employers" tried to convince you to accept a "shittier contract". Tough luck, I guess.

> Again nitpicking (and you're wrong [1]) also since still being allowed to pay for a membership where you don't get anything to say because of your political affiliations is disgusting and just adding insult to injury.

Well, the excluded member was an elected official of the Sweden Democrats. It wasn't solely due to his membership in that party that the union excluded him.

Unions generally lean left politically for the same reason business organisations tend to lean right. It would be strange for them to advocate for worse policies for their members.

The unions and the employer organizations both ensure we have strong businesses in Sweden.

The unions doesn’t always try to get the most out of the companies in the short term but rather plays the long game and helps out in ensuring the company are healthy as well.

In times of economic trouble they can eg collectively negotiate solutions that minimize the amount of job cuts by temporarily worsen the policies for the employees.

The collective bargains applies to both members and non-members at the work place though.

How can the unions exclude members, let alone based what political party they are connected to? At least here in Finland my union has no idea about my politics.

The Sweden Democrats counterpart Finns party can and do enlist in union elections just like anybody. Their success isn't great, but that may be explained e.g. by the party being quite anti-union? For example as we speak they are trying to push laws to restrict strikes and union representation.

Maybe there's similar dynamic in Sweden?

The overlap between working politicaly and working in unions is pretty big, the unions in Sweden have to a large extent socialized with the center-left parties. The concrete issue was with a local union chairman, who was a front figure for the far right wing SD. He had to choose, and choose the party above the union.

That unions and political parties founded by Nazis might have issues with each other have historical reasons.

In Finland the white collar unions are more slanted to center-right. The previous white collar "union boss" was a card carrying Coalition party (economically rightmost party) member, and in right wing of that. (And that party was quite cozy with the original Nazis and formed for the purpose to put Finland under rule of a German king.)

If the local union chairman was thrown out just for being SD, that's fucked up.

As I said he was not just a member he was a prominent figure in that party, too much of a conflict of interest IMO.

According to Wikipedia, the "Sweden Democrats" party is a nationalist and right-wing populist party, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Democrats

I may not support that party but it is huge; it’s not a fringe party. I’m surprised unions don’t allow them, it’s the second largest party and 90% of workers are in unions. I’m skeptical of the original point

Well you may be as skeptical as you want, you can still be a member of an union if you vote SD but why would you when they will actively work against your interests and may exclude you at any time?

Famous example:

https://www-svt-se.translate.goog/nyheter/lokalt/norrbotten/...

Right wing parties rarely benefit workers as soon they are in power.

Not doubting that! I’m doubting they outright ban members based purely on numbers of MPs vs number of employed workforce in unions

We have voter secrecy in Sweden there is no way to ban members who vote for parties that actively works against unions. This is a good thing, unions should not know what I vote for.

But if they do know, like if you do work for a political party or are open with where your sympathies lies, they can easily exclude you and prevent you from working within the union.

Besides if you do vote for SD and don't tell anyone why would you want to pay someone that is actively work against your interests?

I doubt they ban voters but members of that party is a possibility

I’m new to Sweden so I don’t know the technicalities of voting but I assumed that’d be the case, to get banned from a union seems to be very extreme

Happening in Finland right now. Our right-populist party in power is busting unions in scale not seen at least since WW2.

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