Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Social Movements - 1. Labour Questions and Social politics - Organization of Workmen and Employers. By O. Järte and B. Nyström
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organization of workmen and employers.
645
and fully paying members ranges from 3)5 to 3 kronor. The higher annual
contributions are, as a rule, due, to the fact that certain federations, especially
those of skilled workers, pay benefits for unemployed, travelling and sick members,
and therefore make greater demands on their members. As to the entrance fees,
they vary from 50 ore to 10 kronor per member. The federations which have
joined the "Landsorganisation" are obliged to demand an annual contribution per
member of at least 15’60 kronor. If the regular income does not suffice, an
additional contribution is levied on the members. During the recent fifteen
years, the Swedish trade unions have levied on their members 20 kronor on an
average, in ordinary and extra annual contributions.
In 1912 all the federations had a total income of 2 157 937 kronor, and a
total expenditure of 1 733 032 kronor, distributed in the folloving manner:
Administration 323 854, contributions to the "Landsorganisation" and other
Swedish and foreign trade unions 370 321, labour disputes 522 656, unemployed
benefits and payments to members, travelling in search of employment 235 560,
agitation 50 358, trade papers 92 613, and miscellaneous 137 670, all in kronor.
The funds in hand were at the end of the same year 1 545 888 kronor.
The revenue of the "Landsorganisation" — a regular annual contribution of
19’20 kronor for every fully paying and working member of a joint federation
— and its expenditure — for administration, agitation, and labour disputes —
was in 1912 373 897 and 297 670 kronor respectively; the funds in hand
were 522 712 kronor. The "Landsorganisation" likewise subsidises from a special
fund the erection of People’s Palaces for the organized workers in the provinces.
Up till 1914 loans had been granted by this fund to 88 of these enterprises,
to the amount of 216 920 kronor.
Apart from these principal trade unions there are two separatist
organizations. One of them, the "Svenska Arbetarförbundet" (the Swedish
Workmen’s Federation), formed in 1899, maintains the independence of
trade unionism from party politics, while the other and younger body,
Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, cherishes anti-parliamentary,
revolutionary, and syndicalist ideas. However, owing to the paucity of
their members, neither of these organizations have been able to exercise
any great influence.
Employers’ Associations. During the General Strike of 1902 trade
unionism, centred in the recentlj^ formed "Landsorganisationen", the
General Federation of Swedish Trade Unions, exhibited its might and the
wide range of its influence. It was then that the lurking misgivings as
to the feeble "fighting" efficiency of the employers’ associations as
hitherto organized, misgivings already engendered by the experience gained
in the labour disputes of the previous decades, matured in to the full force
of conviction. Out of the earlier unions of masters, which were
something in the nature of social clubs or debating societies, devoting themselves
in a general way to the promotion of trade interests, there now rapidly
developed organizations with well-defined purposes, and among them
employ ers’ organizations in the real sense of the term, formed
with the set aim of counteracting the workmen’s unions, and working for
the regulation of labour conditions in the interests of the employers. These
new organizations were not, like the earlier ones, based solely on fellow-
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