The formation of the care workers’ association in the elderly homes of Partille must be understood in the context of broader transformations in the municipal service sector in Sweden and the intensification of neoliberal policies in local governments. Over recent decades, privatization, cuts in social spending, increased managerial control, and intensifying workloads in public welfare services—particularly in elder care—have significantly worsened the working conditions of workers in this sector. Under these conditions many workers have faced the necessity of organizing independently in order to defend their collective interests.
The association of care workers in the elderly homes of Partille was formed in 2016 after a prolonged period of collective workplace struggles and ongoing discussions among the workers who had taken the lead in these protests. The association emerged in a climate where repression in the workplace and management’s sensitivity toward any form of collective worker action made open organizing difficult. For this reason the association has operated largely in a semi-public form and functioned as a protest nucleus within the workplace
The main objective of this nucleus has been to help the leading groups of protesting workers develop toward an independent workers’ organization—one capable of defending workers’ interests and strengthening solidarity without reliance on the official union structures. In practice this nucleus evolved into a network of active workers who, through continuous discussions, exchange of experiences, and coordination within the workplace, created the conditions for collective protests.
Over the years, the united actions of workers in the elderly homes of Partille have organized several waves of collective struggle against employer pressure and divide-and-rule tactics. In certain cases these struggles forced management to retreat and led to the resignation of several supervisors and administrators, many of whom were linked to right-wing conservative forces within the local political structure. These developments represent an important stage in strengthening collective worker struggle and have helped move the movement beyond scattered protests toward more organized forms of resistance.
The united workers’ struggle in Partille gradually became a recognized experience within the Swedish labor movement. In practice it functioned as a barrier against the implementation of neoliberal policies pursued by local authorities in this municipality neighboring the city of Gothenburg. Continued worker mobilization, combined with a crisis within the management structure, caused several projects—such as austerity measures, changes in work-time schedules, and attempts to introduce new models of labor organization in municipal services—to encounter strong resistance and in some cases fail.
During the past two years the scale of workers’ protests has increased even further. One important tool during this period has been the collection of petitions and the publication of open letters—methods that had previously been relatively uncommon in the Swedish labor movement. These initiatives have served both to unite workers around concrete demands and to circumvent the mechanisms of control imposed by both the employer and the official union Kommunal.
Bringing local newspapers into the workplace and making workers’ voices heard in the media has also played a crucial role. Public exposure of workplace conflicts increased pressure on local authorities and forced them to retreat on several occasions. Since most labor conflicts in Sweden are usually organized under the control of established unions, the fact that the struggle in Partille has largely developed outside the control of Kommunal has attracted attention from national and labor media alike. This process has also strengthened workers’ solidarity and self-confidence.
An important part of this experience has its roots in an earlier tradition of struggle that developed years ago in the rehabilitation sector within the same municipality. There, workers had created a workplace association—the Pedagogical Workers’ Association—as a form of organized resistance to management policies. Care workers in the elderly homes were able to draw lessons from this experience and develop more conscious forms of organization, enabling them to sustain a long-term struggle against both the employer and local authorities. The Pedagogical Workers’ Association has in turn sought to support this struggle by sharing past experiences and publicizing the protests of care workers
It is also important to note that the majority of workers in the elder care sector are women. The struggle in the elderly homes of Partille therefore also represents an example of the crucial role of women workers in organizing collective resistance within the service sector—an area that plays a decisive role in social reproduction but is often characterized by low wages, heavy workloads, and precarious employment.
After nearly two decades of organized struggle in this municipality—and as the anti-worker policies of employers and local authorities have become increasingly visible—the demand for freedom of expression and communication in the workplace has emerged as a central demand among the most active workers. This demand once again demonstrates that the separation between economic and political struggle is an illusion. The experience of Partille shows that even in societies often portrayed as stable democracies, freedom of expression and organization in the workplace remains severely limited.
The struggle for freedom of expression at work has therefore become a crucial arena where economic and political struggle intersect. This experience demonstrates that capitalist democracy in practice means freedom for capital owners and ruling-class parties to organize production and control labor, while real democracy for the working class can only emerge through independent organization and strengthened solidarity in workplaces and society.
Long live organized workers’ struggle
Long live workers’ class solidarity
April 1, 2023
Internationalist Workers’ Organization
Further Reading
For more information about independent workers’ struggles organized through workers’ nuclei, visit the page of the movement supporting the independent struggles of workers in Partille.
