Sweden: Help syndicalists against IKEA
May 14 2007
A part of the swedish anarchosyndicalist union Jönköping LS of SAC have come in to conflict with IKEA. The famous furniture company that exist almost all over the world. We are soon going to start a campaign against them and if you got an IKEA in your town we would be very happy to hear from you. Check out http://www.ikea.com/ to see if you got one.
If you or your group wants to help send an e-mail as soon as you can to ikea-sektionen.jkpg@sac.se and you will get more information on how to help.
IKEA-section in Jönköping, Sweden
May 14 2007
#2
jason wrote:
I know for fact there is an IKEA in my town because I've bought a couple of bits of shit furniture from them.Why not just post up some more info here?
this is all the info i have....
May 14 2007
#3
I noticed that article on infoshop and was about to repost it here. I wish SAC was a bit more forthcoming, cause of the dispute, demands, etc.
I'm more than willing to try to build a solidarity picket here, but i'd like to know what to put on the signs for gawds sake!
May 15 2007
#4
Quote:
i'd like to know what to put on the signs for gawds sake!
May 16 2007
#5
----Original Message Follows----
From: "IKEA arbetare" <ikea-sektionen.jkpg@sac.se>
To: "Victor Chernov" <wsany@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Ikea-sektionen-jkpg] IKEA struggle
Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 23:48:44 +0200
It is so great to hear from you. I am writing an information package
right now and I will send it to you so you will know what the conflikt
is about. We will also write a flyer to you that you can/should give
out in front of IKEA stores.
The campain should start saturday the 26 and 27 and will be going on
for two or three week after that.
More info will come this week
What city are you living in?
Thank you for helping!
May 17 2007
#6
yup, about the same answer i got when i wrote them for CTC.
this could be fun!
May 20 2007
#7
Laeflet from IKEA - Union Section of Swedish Centralworkers Organization (SAC)
IKEA claims to be a very good employer Workers at IKEA in Sweden disagree
Right now, the Swedish company is attempting to squeeze
extra profits out of the workers in one of its warehouses in Torsvik in
Sweden. By introducing a new schedule where the workers get less free
time, are forced too work some weekends and therefore do not have time
to rest, IKEA cuts into their salary costs. At the same time, the work time
is regulated harder and "minibreaks" have been partly forbidden, all of
this to increase the production. This in a workplace that demands heavy
physical labor and is often dangerous.
IKEA makes every effort that our reality not collides with their picture of
reality. IKEA demands total silence and no criticism. A silence both at the
warehouses and at IKEA
in public. Internally IKEA often says that workers should raise
their voice and say what they think and that management is willing to
compromise. In reality, the management largely chooses ignore
other points of view other than their own. Criticism is silenced. For
guarantying obedience all people who have some kind of boss position
get to go on secret courses and they cannot reveal information that
they learn at the course. In Swedish media, the founder, Ingvar
Kamprad is honored for his way of doing business and how good of an
employer he is. How is it in your country?
The IKEA - Union Section of Swedish Centralworkers Organization (SAC) are
denied the right to put up leaflets on the information boards, which provides
information our activities. Union members are also getting warnings for
expressing their views on IKEA-policy.
We ask, "At what cost do YOU want to have cheap furniture?
For more information about the IKEA-sections view on IKEA mail
ikea-sektionen.jkpg@sac.se
May 22 2007
#8
i suppose an obvious problem with pickets on Ikea is that people will make a proper plan to go there, have a few things they want to buy etc, so a leaflet at the door probably won't make you turn away, especially if you have to drive half an hour to get there. good stuff though, hope it works out.
May 23 2007
#9
hmmm... what would an effort to actually organize ikea look like?
May 23 2007
#10
criminalsyndicalist wrote:
hmmm... what would an effort to actually organize ikea look like?
hello fellow worker.
May 27 2007
#11
I think people have been misunderstanding the point of a campaign such as this. IF people turn away from the store, great, but thats not really the idea. I think what you're wanting is to get store managements attention with maybe fliers left lying around, maybe a "confused customer" asking them whats going on, maybe if you're feeling bold a flat out confrontation, that kind of thing. They then call or email their superiors to report, which trickles up stream to corporate headquarters in Sweden. Pretty standard support capaign stuff, it's not sexy, it's not really direct action, but it works. Sometimes.
As to organizing ikea, lets take one store. From what i've heard the typical location has several hundred workers, so a dozen or so carefully prepared salts scattered around in all the different shifts and departments, a good outside organizer who could put 24/7 on it, a budget..... pre-existing inside contacts would be good but i wouldn't think really neccesary.
May 27 2007
#12
will there be downloadable fliers?
i don't see any mention of this at the SAC website
May 27 2007
#13
newyawker, see leaflet above.
The idea of the campaign is to bring attention to the workplace practices going on. To point out the hypocrycy of IKEA policies and to inform the general public. I agree with the other things David said.
May 27 2007
#14
yeah, i noticed that myself.It doesn't worry me too much, the local workers seem to have bypassed the SAC international structure for some reason.
The flier is what syndicalist posted above.
Quote:
IKEA claims to be a very good employer Workers at IKEA in Sweden disagreeRight now, the Swedish company is attempting to squeeze
extra profits out of the workers in one of its warehouses in Torsvik in
Sweden. By introducing a new schedule where the workers get less free
time, are forced too work some weekends and therefore do not have time
to rest, IKEA cuts into their salary costs. At the same time, the work time
is regulated harder and "minibreaks" have been partly forbidden, all of
this to increase the production. This in a workplace that demands heavy physical labor and is often dangerous.IKEA makes every effort that our reality not collides with their picture of reality. IKEA demands total silence and no criticism. A silence both at the warehouses and at IKEA
in public. Internally IKEA often says that workers should raise
their voice and say what they think and that management is willing to
compromise. In reality, the management largely chooses ignore
other points of view other than their own. Criticism is silenced. For
guarantying obedience all people who have some kind of boss position
get to go on secret courses and they cannot reveal information that
they learn at the course. In Swedish media, the founder, Ingvar
Kamprad is honored for his way of doing business and how good of an
employer he is. How is it in your country?The IKEA - Union Section of Swedish Centralworkers Organization (SAC) are denied the right to put up leaflets on the information boards, which provides information our activities. Union members are also getting warnings for expressing their views on IKEA-policy.
We ask, "At what cost do YOU want to have cheap furniture?
For more information about the IKEA-sections view on IKEA mail
ikea-sektionen.jkpg@sac.se
I suppose you could put the sac black and red flames on top to dress it up
May 27 2007
#15
Quote:
the local workers seem to have bypassed the SAC international structure for some reason.
right.
there's one near here, i too had the thought of leaving flyers around. the place is mobbed, a good few people would get the info.
May 31 2007
#16
Hello friends,
First of all would it be nice if someone posted lists of planned stuff so that other people lurking on libcom (like me) can show up. from reading in an other thread i got the impression that there is a picket planned for London this weekend - if that is the case it would be nice to get the information. Getting information out to people outside the getto seems to be a problem in the UK "scene" - i almost missed your first of may march because i dont hang out with other lefties and there were no posters/stickers/info online 
Anyway, back to the IKEA vs SAC thing:
Its really good that comrades outside are picking up on this. as someone previously said it is not a call to organise IKEA workers wherever you live - you hardly need syndicalist swedes to tell you that it would be a good idea to organise workers in this company, you can figure it out by ourselves. I am not completely updated on the specifics on the IKEA situation [i can translate the pressrelase on SAC.se if someone wants me to, but thats all i know], but to me it seems like this is part of a over all strategy of SAC that has been working quite well. Basically minority unions still have pretty damn good rights in Sweden, which means that you can bitch about pretty much anything that a company do if they forget to inform your officiall union rep about it - "unfair treatment of minorty union" etc. Since SAC is so small and the larger Social Dem unions are so large most bosses dont know the fine print of the labour related laws and screw these things up.
To go crazy and start suing every time they do this is not always a clever thing (it makes you a target). Since SACs members are usually very well educated about their rights, it makes it possible to strike back whenever the company tries to push back workerks collectives (in or outside of SAC) and use SAC and the labour-laws around "unfair treatment" to fight back other issues that are impossible to make a legal case of and that directly involves workers outside the SAC-branch as well(in this case the pace of production it seems). This is where international actions come in - it makes it even scarier for big companies that easily could pay the fines and just give our members the sack to do that if they are faced by syndicalists all around the globe picketing them. Its basically a PR war where IKEA has a lot to loose and SAC/syndicalists anywhere has a lot to win. IKEA will look like evil union busters, SAC will look like a pretty crazy union taking on giants for minor stuff. This will make companies more prone to listen to SAC despite its small size since they think of them as lunatics with mad friends all over the planet ready to really mess shit up. this has worked beatifully in other cases, where we have won both the legal struggle and scared the company to back down, altho never on this scale (IKEA is HUGE).
Basically: the local SAC branch wants the execs at IKEA HQ to get repports from all over the place about syndicalists in the next few weeks, so that the next time they are messing with a local branch they dont even consider it an option to get rid of syndicalists and pay the fines, which is what usually happens otherwise with other unions that just sue or ununionised troublemakers.
So what about the organising bit? Well, as i said this is a defensive Public Relations war. but its a tad bit more complicated than that. some comrades from the Malmö branch of SAC (the fastest growing one, i think) made a graph of new members, and every time there was a local dispute the rate of growth of the union trippled. the numbers were to small to break down withing industrial branches - but it seemed that when nurses were involved in strikes more nurses tended to join - when resturant workers struck more resturant workers joined up, etc. it seems highly likely that trying to recruite new members, especially in Jönköping where there allready is a branch, is part of the over all strategy and that it hopefully will work since what people look for in union is willingness to unconditionally defend their members. the best thing would obvously be if there was syndicalist/base-democratic/whatever union that focused on trying increase the leverl of class struggle in non-swedish IKEA-stores (this will scare them more than any losses due to boycots or bad PR) and then made the connection with the Jönköping case so that the IKEA bosses repport this to their Execs and they in turn ponder the option of not messing with small but internationally well connected and damn militant workers. in that way the defensive and the offensive action can reinforce each other.
uh, guess thats my 2 cents.
see you this weekend?
Jun 1 2007
#17
Johan wrote:
Anyway, back to the IKEA vs SAC thing:
Its really good that comrades outside are picking up on this. as someone previously said it is not a call to organise IKEA workers wherever you live - you hardly need syndicalist swedes to tell you that it would be a good idea to organise workers in this company, you can figure it out by ourselves. I am not completely updated on the specifics on the IKEA situation [i can translate the pressrelase on SAC.se if someone wants me to, but thats all i know],
Hi Johan!
That would be very helpful indeed! And anything else from SAC you think might be interesting or useful for us to know.
Jun 1 2007
#18
So this is the press realse in english. it really contains nothing shocking, its the kind of every day shit that most workers have to put up with, only that this time they didnt. as i said before the real issue seems to be reorganising the work force with new working hours, which is what i think most IKEA-workers around the world can relate to, and if anyone is planning to help with getting flyers to IKEA-workers out this would be the thing to focus on.
Syndicalist section breaks the silence at IKEA
The local section of IKEA workers of the SAC union (Syndicalist) at the Torslanada warehouse outside Jönköping (Sweden) protest against the company’s policy to reduce its employees rights to free expression. The manager has given a written warning to the one member of the section without negotiating with the union branch as set out in the “MBL”-labour laws. This transgression continued when the management sent a copy of the warning to another union, Handels branch 9, knowing very well that the worker was a syndicalist.
- A written warning was given to our member in relation to a discussion on the section’s right to have a notice board of their own to be used to inform their members on union issues, says Claes Gerleman from the Jönköping branch of SAC. This shouldn’t be controversial, but IKEA are afraid that this conflict will start to involve the new working hours.
During negotiations on the 9th of May IKEA refused to tell on what grounds the warning had been issued. The manager simply said it was according to “the law”, but could not mention which article or clause. The manager referred to an oral agreement with another union, Handels branch 9 [Social Democrats], whereby they can give warnings to employees without contacting the union.
- This does not seem reasonable as the collective bargaining rights have just been transferred from another [Social democratic] union, Transport [Teamsters], and this agreement would not concern us anyway since we belong to a different, syndicalist, union that has not signed any such agreement. We are willing to fight for any of our members, says Claes Gerleman.
IKEA continues to violate freedom of speech by giving warnings to those that have opinions about the workplace. That they waited until our member’s birthday to give the warning should be seen as lacking any form of refinement. To send this warning to another union is a trying to provoke conflict, it is making sensitive and personal information available to the public and a threat to personal integrity.
- This is just a way to stigmatise our member and trying to create bad blood among workers, continues Claes Gerleman.
During the following weeks will syndicalists continue distributing flyers about this all over the world.
Sincerely,
The section of IKEA workers of the Jönköping branch of SAC, Sweden.
NB. So far flyers have been handed out in Jönköping, Malmö, Stockholm, Göteborg, Gävle, and Växjö.
Jun 1 2007
#19
I've put this info up on anarchosyndicalism.net and added downloadable pdf versions of the flyer in different languages.
Jun 1 2007
#20
Some of you might have met the guy who got in trouble with IKEA management, as he attended the recent I07 conference in Paris.
Interview with him here (in Swedish): http://www.yelah.net/articles/intervju20070523
I know for fact there is an IKEA in my town because I've bought a couple of bits of shit furniture from them.
Why not just post up some more info here?