Health care strikes in Sweden and Denmark

Tomorrow the danish nurses will start their strike and on monday the swedes will start. On the actual strikes I haven´t got much to say, they are just the regular "central bargaining" strikes and initiated by the unions (well, in both cases the grassroots militants have forced the unions to strike it seems), But in both countries there have been some interested organizing and demands outside the unions. And I think we will see more of these kinds of actions in the future. As the class communicates in a different way, its also possible to coordinate and struggle in a different way.

There have been mobilizations outside the unions based on homepages where, in the swedish case, some 15 000 nurses (and students studying to become nurses) have vowed to quit their job and seek other jobs ( Denmark and Norway have been mentioned as the wages are hired there) unless their (very high) demands are met. There is no doubt that this have forced the unions to make higher demands as well.

In Denmark, the union for the pedagogical staff (working at kindergartens and stuff like that) have proposed their members to accept an offer and this have triggered a fast response where employees are going to demonstrate against their own union tomorrow (as the offer is considered peanuts, the demonstrators will take peanuts with them and give the union representatives). In only two days, the website of this initiative have got 400 comments from the over 14 000 visitors, no doubt many of them workings in kindergartens.

And some nurses have taken wildcat action "in frustration" in Denmark as they are not called out to strike by their union.

Maybe this post was a bit confusing. For more info in Swedish check my blog:
http://kimmuller.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/internet-och-klasskamp-vardstrejker-i-sverige-och-danmark/