A free fighting trade union

The last few years have witnessed a drastic financial redistribution
in society, transferring money from the ones worst off to those
already living in the lap of luxury. The owners of corporations
receive record profits, while protesting that there isn't enough to
finance pay rises, increased overtime compensation, getting women up
on a level with men's wages, improved working conditions, fewer
working hours, unemployment benefits and the public sector. The
largest trade union confederation in Sweden, LO, produces one
alarming report after the other pointing out how the gap between the
classes is growing wider. But they do nothing about it.

The corporate profits can be used for financing pay rises and other
improvements for us employees, or they can be put in the owners'
pockets. That is the tug-of-war. Fighting to make sure that the
surplus ends up in our pockets falls upon the trade union. SAC, the
Central Organization of Swedish Workers, is an independent fighting
trade union that fights aggressively for its members and all wage
earners.

A DEMOCRATIC TRADE UNION
Unlike other trade union organizations, SAC is not content with
making proud statements about democracy on solemn occasions. We
practise democracy in our daily work, on all levels of the
organization.

Local self-determination is one of the cornerstones of the
syndicalist movement. Our organization is built on internal democracy
and self-determination. The workers who will be affected are the ones
who democratically decide about for instance whether to approve of
negotiation deals and when to go on strike. Naturally there is
cooperation concerning issues that are common to members working in
the same group of companies or locally in the same district. Taking
the long view, SAC strives to build a non-authoritarian socialist
society based on these principles. A society characterized by
solidarity, consideration and justice.

Representatives and officials do not have the same powers in SAC as
they do in other unions, since they are elected by their closest
fellow members for a limited term. Representatives are elected in
their districts for five years and officials are elected at a
conference for one period. They are paid an average industrial
worker's wages and of course they do not receive any "golden
parachutes"; if they lose the members' confidence in a vote they have
to resign.

THE WAY WE ACT AS A TRADE UNION
SAC is also a trade union organization aiming to transfer the power
over companies from the owners to the employees. We combine the
struggle for higher wages and improved conditions with a struggle for
ever-increasing influence over production. All in all we emphasize
the struggle as both the means and the end. Our organization is a
tool to help us achieve better terms in our places of work, and in
the long run a completely new society. There is very little of a
service organization or an insurance company selling services to
passive consumers about us. We are more often than not in the heat,
gaining members where working conditions are the worst and the need
for fighting the greatest. Don't let that stop you from joining even
if your current job situation is decent. One day you may be in need
of a fighting organization worth its salt, and this very day there
are comrades who need your solidarity!

A TRADE UNION FREE FROM PARTY-POLITICAL TIES
Needless to say, SAC is free from ties to political parties. It has
been demonstrated time after time what a poison party-political
fights can be, when the party card becomes of greater decisive
importance than knowledge and qualifications. According to our
syndicalist outlook it is primarily trade unions and other popular
movements that can force the political evolution to take a democratic
socialist path, not parties.

Within SAC, it is up to the members themselves whether they want to
participate in party politics at the same time as they are active in
the union. But within the organization no party propaganda or
agitation against members belonging to the "wrong" party is allowed.
It is hardly necessary to add that SAC does not practice mandatory
collective affiliation with political parties, making monetary
contributions to election campaigns or giving recommendations to the
members about who to vote for.

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES TRADE UNION
The trade union movement has been dominated by men far too long. This
shows plainly in that the struggle to improve working conditions for
women has been neglected. Activists in SAC have steadily and
successfully laboured to end the male dominance in our organization,
to make SAC a movement meant for all our members.

Our goal is to abolish class society. But no classless society is
possible if other forms of discrimination are allowed to continue.
Besides, discriminatory treatment of women, immigrants, homosexuals
or other groups divides us in our struggle against class society. It
should therefore not come as a surprise that we are against all forms
of discrimination. Discrimination against women is still widely
spread in society and the low wages of female workers illustrates why
feminism is an important issue for a trade union. That is why SAC is
a feminist trade union.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE
The trade union movement cannot passively accept unchecked economic
growth. The results will be a waste of resources, environmental
disasters and exploitation of workers in poor countries. Instead,
growth must be based on environmentally friendly technology and
acceptable working conditions everywhere.

By ensuring that the environmental demands have a firm support from
the trade union movement, greater weight will be put to them. The
villain of the piece is as a rule the business world's pursuit of
increasingly huge profits and unwillingness to invest in plants and
equipment that are unprofitable in the short run but in the long run
completely indispensable from an environmental point of view. SAC's
Forestry Federation has taken sides against pesticide sprayings from
the air and the ruthless exploitation of the large forestry
corporations.

FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
Syndicalism is an internationalist movement, which means that we will
allow no national borders to limit our solidarity with people in
other parts of the world -- east, west, south or north. We support
all wage earners' struggle for better working conditions and economic
justice, even if it should affect Swedish financial interests
negatively.

The transnational corporations are continuously extending their
economic and political power all over the world. Improved
international cooperation between trade unions is necessary if we are
to defend what we have gained and to stop workers in different parts
of the world from being played off against each other. The unfair
economic world order that consistently puts the third world in the
last place must inevitably be reformed.

Our international solidarity also means that we think it is natural
to support people who have been forced to flee their native
countries. Everyone is of equal worth and entitled to dignified
living conditions regardless of ethnic origin. Racism and xenophobia
are incompatible with the fundamental principles of SAC. SAC takes
exception to all forms of jingoism and fascism wherever in the world
they appear. In their effort to make the world more human and fair,
all workers share a mutual interest, regardless of nationality. By
discriminating against immigrants, legal and illegal alike, companies
can force down conditions for all wage earners. SAC fights on behalf
of all wage earners in Sweden, also for those born abroad or without
a residence permit.

A SOCIALIST TRADE UNION
The fact that SAC is free from ties to political parties does not
mean that we are apolitical. Syndicalism is a democratic and
libertarian socialist creed that maintains that natural assets, trade
and industry should be publically owned and managed by the workers
with extensive direct democracy. This means that we repudiate both
consultation and cooperation between trade unions and employers (as
in Scandinavia) and bureaucratic dictatorships of the type that
previously ruled the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and still rule
China, North Korea and Cuba.

The socialism that SAC advocates signifies among other things that:

* The employees of every company shall hold direct power over
selecting company and local management and making decisions about
production, investment and work environment. Libertarian socialism
does not imply switching a few company bigwigs for Government experts
or party bosses.
* Society's influence is focussed on long-term planning, to guarantee
that production is not governed by a quest for quick profits, but
instead by society's needs and everyone's right to a meaningful job.
* The ones directly concerned are given direct influence over for
instance house-building, educational politics and energy politics.

This kind of socialism can only work if the common man is politically
committed and well-informed. The passiveness in society must be
overcome and the oldtime spirit of the working-class movement
re-awakened. SAC means that this will not be achieved by voting for a
set of politicians every fourth year and thus giving up one's right
to make decisions. A certain degree of representation is needed in a
society, but SAC maintains that this should be as small as possible,
and be conditioned when used. Only through democratic trade unions
and by having people take possession of their own lives can we not
only seize influence in society but also learn how to assume
responsibility for preserving this influence.

BEING A MEMBER OF SAC
There are many who sympathize with SAC and syndicalism but hesitate
to go the whole way and become members of the organization. Perhaps
they believe that members of SAC are more or less without legal
rights? This notion is completely false. Members of SAC enjoy the
same basic legal protection that members of other trade unions do.
SAC has its own unemployment benefit fund, governed by the same rules
as all other unemployment benefit funds. SAC offers assistance with
negotiations and legal aid in all trade union matters. SAC is
entitled to negotiate all matters pertaining to its members. The
AFA" insurance package applies to syndicalists the same way it
applies to all other workers. Being a member of SAC does not mean
that you are without legal rights; however, it means among other
things that you become a member of an organization:

* where the local coorganizations, sections and syndicates have full
right of local self-determination
* with local strike funds and a local right to strike
* where you and your comrades make the decisions yourselves, for
example about whether to go on strike or not
* where no agreements or settlements can be made before the members
concerned have given their approval
* with effective safeguards against boss rule
* where no representatives and officials are elected for life.
Officials are elected at a conference for one period and
representatives are elected for five years.

By way of conclusion we could say: Nothing will change overnight if
you join SAC, but we will give you the democratic means to make a
difference, in your place of work as well as in society.

HOW DO I JOIN?
Fill out a membership application form (download it from
coopsite.sac.se/res/ansokan.pdf or order it from the Secretariat of SAC)
and send it to your nearest Local Coorganisation (LS). Addresses to
the LSs can be found at coopsite.sac.se/ls or by contacting the
Secretariat of SAC:

SAC
Box 6507
113 83 Stockholm
08-673 35 59
Fax: 08-673 35 80
coopsite.sac.se
sekretariatet@sac.se