Welcome back JDMF!
Do you have any more on this by any chance? It looks interesting and I'd like to hear more.
greetings from sweden
aye, but our flight was leavin at the same time so we didn't go.
But even better action while we were there:
a hotel which employs "illegal" immigrants was blocaded by the SAC. There are couple of SAC members among the workers, but because of their vulnerable position strike action was not going to work.
Instead the hotel was blockaded and picketed, and the campaign was won last monday and hotel was forced to start paying better wages to the workers including things like sick pay.
Direct action and solidarity gets the goods!
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
I'm moving to Sweden, and getting involved in the SAC is one of the things I'm looking forward to the most 8)
hey man, when are you moving and where?
I think thats where we end up as well in few years time, swedish would be much easier for my partner in crime to learn than my native language finnish 
JDMF wrote:
I think thats where we end up as well in few years time, swedish would be much easier for my partner in crime to learn than my native language finnish
Yes, one of our mutual vegan friends says he'll move to Finland and I tell him - you'll never learn the language.
Planning to move early next year; not fixed a date. Would be great if you moved as well 8) Where would you live? I'll be in Stockholm.
JDMF What a timely thread, I've recently decided that SAC is my most-favorite syndicalist union in the world, and I've been devouring information on them (I curse myself for not reading swedish, though their website does have some interesting spanish articles).
I look forward to your article, when I have some time I'll post some thoughts that i'd like to discuss with you.
PS I'm so jealous, you're always traveling and meeting badass anarchist groups like ZACF and SAC
PPS the IWW also has locals with 70+ members (though those are our flagships, not our off-the-beaten-track ones).
lol, it does sound like i am always on the go, but thats what happens when you marry a south african and live in a third country 
Just visiting families basically takes most of our holidays!
this local was actually fairly small one, there are many locals with 250+ members, including Gavle which is not a big city by all means.
Also the syndicates are where the stuff happens really. For instance the stockholm postal worker syndicate has "only" 80 members, but have had two strikes this year already. They were suprised when i asked how come you can do a strike with just few members in a sorting office, i guess it makes a lot of sense: take just couple workers out of an already stretched workforce, if the reformist union members do not scab that means chaos already.
I am writing the article as we speak, will advertise it here as well when it is ready.
Lazlo, aye, stockholm would be the area where we would end up as well because it would be easy for me to visit my family in finland from there. But i'd rather live in one of the nearby municipalities, Eskilstuna, Sodertalje, Solna, Uppsala etc than the city. I used to live in Sodertalje when i was 2 years old, it has a big finnish migrant worker community so i should be sorted.
SAC does some good work, but you shoudn't have any illusions about them being a "badass anarchist group". They are very reformist, and have a fairly broad leftist outlook. Lately they have gotten an influx of some younger and more activist types, which has lead to increased militancy in some places, but unfortunately also to more leftism. The most depressing example of this is that their weekly paper, Arbetaren, have recently turned into cheerleaders for Hezbollah.
I can't read swedish - can you translate anything about hezbollah that they've written, Felix?
Anyways syndicalists, unlike the rest of the (ultra)left, have activity beyond their newspaper. To my understanding Arbetaren is given wide berth - if they have "cheered for Hezbollah" (which could mean a lot of things depending on who's saying it and how hard they feel they need to discredit syndicalism- I could see revol being accused of it), then that's unfortunate but it doesn't exactly define them as an organization.
For example, in the IWW there is a controversy because a regular columnist for the "Industrial Worker" wrote an article supporting Israel on his website. Obviously I think that's stupid but we are an organization which does things beyond just our newspaper, in fact our paper is currently far from our highest priority activity. However meager they are, we have some roots in the self-activity of the class and I think that is a claim that only syndicalists can make these days.
For instance this is from a 2002 congress report of SAC. It quite impressed me because it showed how a serious revolutionary organization with 10,000 members comes to decisions and debates. Also keep in mind that the SAC has gotten more politicall radical at every congress since the 70s. Here is text which is interesting to me:
Quote:
The wording “the struggle against sexism is of the same priority and importance
as the class struggle” was removed. Instead the sentence “SAC considers all
people of equal worth and is against every form of oppression”. Among the women
who have driven feminism inside the SAC the views on the change were split.- One could think that the change means that feminism is toned down, but it is
just the opposite. It is a consequence of the realization that women’s struggle
is class struggle and not something which needs to be put against each other,
said resigning secretary Hannele Peltonen.
Quite sophisticated stuff considering this is coming from an organization with 10000 members.
Oh yeah:
Quote:
What could be better than reformist "anarcho" syndicalists cheering on hezbullah?
Only a dogmatic spanish organization which is determined to spend all of the political capital that its historic legacy affords it by making sure that its 'international' becomes a series of fan clubs?
revol68 wrote:
What could be better than reformist "anarcho" syndicalists cheering on hezbullah?
well, i guess we could play this game forever mate. Someone says that SAC's weekly newspaper cheered hezbollah - you not knowing the details will take that as truth and will from now on use that every time it is convenient for you. And so goes on the mighty anarchist movement here.
reality could be different though, perhaps there was an article written by someone who was sympatethic with Hez, perhaps there was only a column, or just a letter to the editor? Certainly there is no collective position on the subject.
In the 8k members there are people who cheer for all kinds of national liberation groups, but they are in a minority from the discussion that i have seen. Same goes for things like Cuba, there are couple members in SAC who think anarchists shouldn't criticise Cuba, but fortunately majority dont agree with them and they remain vocally critical against cuba (of course!).
I think the difference here is that "we" are so used to be so tiny and insignificant in numbers that "we" do not have to tolerate even smallest amount of ideological or political differences. our groups are so tiny that they can be all sing from the same hymnsheet and plough along.
SAC on the other hand organises workplaces and recruit members who have not done the anarcho syndicalism 101 before joining. This is difficult sometimes for obvious reasons but a lot of emphasis is placed on internal education.
Actually the diversity of opinions is one of the things that impressed me the most in SAC. There are fierce discussions about all kinds of things, the stuff Oliver quoted is one which used to be a hot issue, now SAC is a feminist organisation and that issue seems to have died down at least from what i can see in their internal magazines. Despite the fierce debates and fights there is no immediate threths of splits and throwing toys out of prams. They are anarcho syndicalists who fight class struggle first and foremost and thats what matters the most.
revol, im curious, what is the criteria that makes an anarcho syndicalist group reformist (that is, seeking reforms rather than revolution)? I think i know what you mean though: SAC administers unemployment benefit for their members. If they get unemployed they will receive 80% of their former salary as unemployment benefit. Now there are some anarchists who think that it is better for our class to be living on the minimum benefits from the state, perhaps around the same than in UK, £75 week, than getting 80% of your former income as unemployment benefit for two years, but luckily majority of anarchists are not that cruel 
JDMF wrote:
reality could be different though, perhaps there was an article written by someone who was sympatethic with Hez, perhaps there was only a column, or just a letter to the editor? Certainly there is no collective position on the subject.
Unfortunately, it was an official position of the paper to support Hezbollah. They printed an editorial about this when the war started a month ago. Two weeks later, they let the author of the original editorial use the paper's debate column to defend his position against criticism leveled against him elsewhere, but they have refused to print articles criticizing Hezbollah. This is very unusual, as their debate column is usually open to the whole spectrum of the Swedish left, from social democrats to Maoists. They also defended their pro-Hezbollah position in an editorial in their latest issue.
Here are some quick and probably not very good translations together with links to the articles in Swedish:
Editorial, issue 29: http://www.arbetaren.se/2006/29/ledare1.html
Quote:
So what should one's position to the war be? A Right worth its name will be on the side of Power. And a Left worth its name - what does it do? It can't support a Hamas which is Islamic, or a Hezbollah which are supported by Islamic Republic of Iran, can it? Only a left which turns its back to what is actually at stake, are persuaded by such arguments. Freedom on the ground is, in any given situation, the cause of the left; not to be able to support freedom struggle in Islamic clothes is secular puritanism, anchored in islamophobia, disqualified from any relevance in the eyes of the masses in Rafah, in Shatila, in Dahiya…
Debate column, issue 31: http://www.arbetaren.se/2006/31/debatt.html
Quote:
Personally I will with joy and pride march again together with thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese under the banners of Hezbollah...
Editorial issue 33: http://www.arbetaren.se/2006/33/ledare1.html
Quote:
It may therefore be prudent to clarify that Arbetaren's support for Hezbollah's resistance is not a general support for Hezbollah, does not include the movement's Islamism, not their anti-semitism, doesn't include any sympathy for the dictatorships in Syria and Iran. But as far as we know, Hezbollah is the only force who now defends the Lebanese society, including their working class, and this has to be supported.
I should note that this is the position of Arbetaren and not of SAC. I imagine that there will be a lot of fuss about this in the organization, and hopefully the editors of Arbetaren will be booted out at the next SAC congress.
JDMF wrote:
I think the difference here is that "we" are so used to be so tiny and insignificant in numbers that "we" do not have to tolerate even smallest amount of ideological or political differences. our groups are so tiny that they can be all sing from the same hymnsheet and plough along.SAC on the other hand organises workplaces and recruit members who have not done the anarcho syndicalism 101 before joining. This is difficult sometimes for obvious reasons but a lot of emphasis is placed on internal education.
The problem isn't that they are recruiting members who haven't done the anarcho syndicalism 101. The problem is that they are recruiting leftists, and see themselves as a part of the left. It's not like support for Hezbollah run rampant among your average Swedish proletarians.
aye, arbetaren mag got a lot of criticism from many SAC members i spoke to as well, also because they are keen on using professional journalists. Good that you pointed out that it is the position of the editor, not SAC.
Hope the editor will indeed get the boot.
Felix Frost wrote:
The problem isn't that they are recruiting members who haven't done the anarcho syndicalism 101. The problem is that they are recruiting leftists, and see themselves as a part of the left. It's not like support for Hezbollah run rampant among your average Swedish proletarians.
this is not the impression i have, though it could vary from local to local (which local do you know about?).
For instance, the local i visited just organised cinema workers in SAC, Uppsala local got joined by 7 out of 8 newspaper deliverers. These are not organising drives among politicos, but rather on the job.
But arbetaren sounds often like it is written to left leaning activist scene, that is true.
In a bigger organisation you are always bound to get diversity of people and organising methods - i am sure there are loads of people in SAC who recruit from leftist events as well. I mean, isn't it blatantly obvious that you will have all sorts in an organisation of that size especially if you are going to have relevant presence within a work place? So it should not come as a suprise.
What matters are the official positions and the general politics of the group, and those kick fucking arse in SAC.
oi JDMF don't be so sensitive, as you well know if i lived in Sweden i'd probably be involved in the SAC at some level.
My problem is the inability of people to see their limitations . Their connection to the state via social security and works councils puts them in a vulnerable position in the face of any systemised assault on working class living standard. I'm quite prepared to accept the social security thing as something of a necessary evil, rather like i'd probably be in some shitey union here if their was one in my work, just for basic legal protection etc. But with the SAC's full timers and it's entanglement in state structures I'd be certainly advocating for work place structures that will be able to sustain themselves with autonomy in any struggle. Afterall in a serious showdown the State could remove social security payments from the SAC, freeze it's funds and the full timers would be calling for calm before you could say ABBA.
The SAC maybe an intregal part of workers struggle in Sweden and a decent fighting union but it is not anarcho syndicalist, and I would be more sympathetic if they just fucking admitted this.
I'm unaware that there are works councils in Sweden, or that the SAC participate in them.
And you make it sound like the full-timers tricked the members into getting the social security insurance. I't obviously something the members want. Any anarcho-syndicalist union that tries to make sure its members are impoverished so that they will revolt is an AS union that will soon be replaced by social-democratic unions.
I think you've been listening to the NSF too much- unfortunately their line of thinking means they have 9 members to SACs 9000.
yes, the question needs to be asked why there are only handful of members in NSF, but thousands in SAC.
But there are people who think it is better to have a group of 5 members which is pure than group of thousands with annoying diversity of opinions. I find this thinking bizarre.
I dont actually think the unemployment benefit issue is contradicting with anarcho syndicalism in a fundamental way. It is not ideal - and no SAC activist would claim otherwise (that i have met and know!) - but it is not really an issue either. I dont think anyone can suggest that there is an alternative to this in Sweden.
The autonomy of the struggle comes from the direct democracy and devolved decision making structures within SAC which get people used to use their voice and opinions, get them involved in the fighting union and gets them used to having decision making power (and reversely responsibility). All typical and common sense stuff really for any anarchist really.
There are fulltimers in the SAC office handling the admin work, but not on local organising etc level as far as i know, perhaps Felix Frost knows more about this?
OliverTwister wrote:
I'm unaware that there are works councils in Sweden, or that the SAC participate in them.And you make it sound like the full-timers tricked the members into getting the social security insurance. I't obviously something the members want. Any anarcho-syndicalist union that tries to make sure its members are impoverished so that they will revolt is an AS union that will soon be replaced by social-democratic unions.
I think you've been listening to the NSF too much- unfortunately their line of thinking means they have 9 members to SACs 9000.
A) I'm not for a minute suggesting that the social security insurance was something fulltimers wanted to have to deal with nevermind trick their members into. Rather I said that the reality of it meant that the SAC were somewhat compromised by it, even if they don't want to be.
B) It's not about "impoverishing anyone", did you not read my post?
C) Yeah the Works councils thing isn't correct in Sweden as far as i know and was more do with my gripe with other pseudo "anarcho syndicalist" unions they are very close to. my bad.
D) I don't listen to the NSF on jack shit, they have awful jumpers, drink half pints and are a tiny lil propaganda group who'd be better turning themselves into the CNT fan club.
Well i don't think having full time admin staff is fine, I mean the point about the CNT only having one full time secretary is that it is the exception that proves the rule. I don't know how many times the SAC seeks to prove the rule through it's exception but I'm pretty certain it's in double figures.
I do know however that the SAC have a number of full time experts in Labour Law and there were was some controversy over their decision to cut off a few in order to keep funding their paper.
revol68 wrote:
Well i don't think having full time admin staff is fine
Why not? How else can admin work be done? Or is mass revolutionary organisation just impossible?
I'm going take the info about full-time lawyers and double-figures staff with a big pinch of salt since you seem happy to spout NSF/CNT-esque heresay as fact (works councils, etc.)...
the fulltimers were listed in their internal mag Syndikalisten and i think there was about 6 of them - i could be wrong though, and they looked pretty much admin related jobs (the unemployment benefit fund admin for instance). No doubt Felix Frost can fill us in if he is a SAC member.
CNT had one full time geezer because it was in the 30's when it was ok to get a reply to your request for more info 2 months later, and most people wouldn't even be writing or contacting the head office anyway. Times have changed just a tad bit since and the admin load accordingly.
Sorry did you miss the point about the CNT (membership 1.5 - 2 million) having one paid full timer in it's history. How did they do it?
Quote:
I'm going take the info about full-time lawyers and double-figures staff with a big pinch of salt since you seem happy to spout NSF/CNT-esque heresay as fact (works councils, etc.)...
The Law experts is fucking true, the WSM reported the debate on it.
I already acknowledged the works councils mistake in my post, a mistake that had fuck all to do with CNT/NSF hearsay.
I can assure you I have more criticisms of the IWA than most on here, including yourself.
I'd prefer it if you didn't imply i'm a liar or a stooge of IWA sectarianism.
Dickhead.
John. wrote:
Why not? How else can admin work be done? Or is mass revolutionary organisation just impossible?I'm going take the info about full-time lawyers and double-figures staff with a big pinch of salt since you seem happy to spout NSF/CNT-esque heresay as fact (works councils, etc.)...
Why are full time labour law experts any worse than admin staff?
tbh, I think full time legal stuff is more accpetable - I mean the membership could (inefficiently) do the admin stuff themselves, but I don't really think they could do the law stuff...
JDMF wrote:
CNT had one full time geezer because it was in the 30's when it was ok to get a reply to your request for more info 2 months later, and most people wouldn't even be writing or contacting the head office anyway. Times have changed just a tad bit since and the admin load accordingly.
revol68 wrote:
Sorry did you miss the point about the CNT (membership 1.5 - 2 million) having one paid full timer in it's history. How did they do it? (...)Dickhead.
turn your flames inward young man 
alright comrades,
just came back from sweden and have burning desire to rant about how awesome SAC are! It was great to see a proper anarcho syndicalist union in action and hear from the members what they do, how they organise and so on.
I met comrades from Solna local SAC group, which was great because it was better to visit folks outside of the main big locals like Stockholm and Gothenburg who get loads of international visits. It was also funny that this small wee municipality had a syndicalist local with about the same amount of members than SolFed has, 70.
It was also inspiring to hear how the practical organising takes place and how the union is a fighting union with disputes and confrontations at workplaces taking place pretty much weekly basis.
I took loads of notes, article will follow!
Now lets get organised!