Love, power and sisterhood

The struggle for work

Working conditions

Women’s situation in the labour market was a central issue for the women’s groups. Women working at hospitals, at offices, and in industry, began to make demands and discuss how they were affected by the oppression directed against them simply because they were women. The rhetoric used by these groups was usually inspired by the new women’s movement.

Arbeta - inte slita ut sig

On 8 September 1971, some local groups in Stockholm arranged a low-wage teach-in, where women, invited from various workplaces, reported on their work situation. They got the opportunity to pose questions or demands to a panel of representatives of LO (The Swedish Trade Union Confederation), SAF (The Swedish Employers’ Confederation), a private cleaning firm, and the minister of education. The meeting was intended to initiate a debate on the currently much discussed investigation of low income while at the same time supporting the women working at these companies. The demand for a six-hour working day was another important issue. The women were willing to work, but with sufficient time for households and children, and for interests of their own. "We want six, we want six, we want six-hour working days", was their slogan at the demonstrations. This demand, as we know, remains unfulfilled.

The right to full-time employment

The frequency of women’s work had increased from 38 percent in 1960 to 60 percent in 1970; however, as many as 40 percent of these were working part-time. For many women, part-time work was a solution that enabled them to combine work and child care. When low-paid, single women appeared to tell about their social and economic situation in a TV show in November 1968, the newly formed Group 8 saw this as an opportunity to form an ' opinion on the injustice associated with part-time employments, and to present their politics on this issue. They argued that part-time employment was the “ultimate exploitation” of women workers as women were used as workers only when necessary, and that their social conditions were much worse than those of a full-time worker.

The women activists distributed leaflets entitled "Who are those who make a profit on part-time work?" outside the big department stores in Stockholm, in the hope that employed women would identify with the rhetoric in the leaflet, and inviting them to a debate evening on 6 March 1969. Employer representatives and representatives of Handelsanställdas förbund (The Commercial Employees’ Union) were invited too. The assembly room was crowded with people (over 200) and an elderly woman, working as a shop assistant for more than 30 years, got up, saying: "Well done, girls. This is only the beginning … Remember that … Only the beginning".

The shop assistant was right. The meeting led to a new way of struggling, where women were expected to fight for their own emancipation and to find potential strategies for this struggle. Group 8 had thus laid a ground for women’s political struggle, which Ulla Torpe described as follows: "… demands concerning the rights to work, wages, working environment are hardly new in themselves. What, however, was new about Group 8 and the other groups, was that they made connections with earlier Marxist theory and analysis of women’s oppression while adding a new dimension. A new epoch requires a new strategy". (Vi Människor 1981:1, p. 28).

Unemployment

In the late 1970s, women’s struggle against unemployment escalated. This led to the only joint national manifestation among the various women’s groups: the campaign against women’s unemployment in 1978. In Malmö, the collaboration between Group 8, Arbetets Kvinnor and Lesbisk Front resulted, among other things, in an exhibition on women’s unemployment at the libraries in Malmö. In Nässjö, Group 8 kept open house on 8 March 1978, with a panel consisting of an immigrant woman, a female textile worker, and a young woman who had just finished school, reporting on their experiences of working life and unemployment. Over 100 visitors attended the meeting, which led to more than two full pages in the local press and to intense debates in the letters-to-the-editor column.

As a result of the campaign against women’s unemployment, women activists across Sweden made contact with unemployed women, holding municipalities and companies responsible for the massive women’s (primarily concealed) unemployment, and inviting women who did not normally appear publicly. The campaign also demonstrated one of the new women’s movement’s problems: the difficulty of allying itself in its actions to broader groups of women, such as trade unions, low-paid women and immigrant women. Seeing their employments threatened in the late 1970s, female ironworks employees created a women’s group at Domnarvets Järnverk. Together with the women’s group in Borlänge, they arranged several women’s festivals between 1982 and 1986 about women’s rights to work, with demands for a six-hour workday with retained salary.

Strikes

The years around 1970 were a turbulent period in the Swedish labour market, including strikes and demonstrations. The big miners’ strike at the LKAB mines in Svappavaara, Kiruna and Malmberget was the most famous strike. It began on 9 December 1969 and was called off on 4 February 1970. The mass media paid considerable attention to the strike, and people across Sweden demonstrated their support, collecting money for the miners’ families - in total about 5 million Swedish kronor. As for the women’s movement, the most famous actions were the 1974/75 cleaners’ strike and the fight for employment at Algots Nord in Skellefteå in 1976.

The cleaners’ strike emanated from their discontent with the employer, the multinational company ASAB, which offered hard work for low pay and difficult working hours. The strike started at Domnarvets Järnverk in Borlänge in November 1974 with the cleaners’ demand for a wage-increase of 5 Swedish kronor per hour. They got immediate support by the ironworkers at Domnarvet, who initiated a fund-raising. The strike continued in Svappavaara, Kiruna, Malmfälten, Arlanda, and Skövde. When the cleaners in Skövde were dismissed, their colleagues in Umeå went on strike. The cleaners in Borlänge succeeded in increasing their hourly wages. One of the striking women expressed it thus: “This was a complete victory. However, our trade union was against us throughout the strike”. The strike in Malmfälten lasted for four weeks. Here, the entire mining production came to be threatened by the strike as the safety inspection closed untidy canteens and toilets; the cleaners, however, were strongly supported by the miners. In 1974, shortly before Christmas, ASAB had to make concessions after pressure from LKAB. The cleaners gained another 5 Swedish kronor per hour.

In Skövde, twelve ASAB cleaners went on strike on 11 December. Two cleaners were singled out as strike leaders by ASAB, and all cleaners were immediately dismissed from their jobs. Their strike lasted from December until the Swedish Labour Court pronounced its final verdict in May. People from all over the country showed solidarity with the cleaners. The strikes attracted much attention in the mass media, and supporting actions, including fund-raising, were arranged. Dockers in Gothenburg arranged a solidarity meeting and the women’s movement organized an extensive supporting committee work. Funds were raised for the cleaners every Saturday on market places around the country. Apart from improving their self-confidence, the cleaners gained increased hourly wages and better working conditions. Women from the bottom of the hierarchy stood up for themselves and insisted on being treated as human beings. During the course of the following years, this inspired other low-paid women to go on strike; to improve wage-conditions or to fight for their right to employment.

Algots

In 1976, the textile company Algots declared that its factory in Västerbotten was unprofitable. Activities - started to save employments by seamstresses who were threatened with dismissal - were intense. They lasted for nearly two years. The seamstresses turned to the government, insisting on keeping their jobs and demanding that their trade union, Beklädnadsarbetarförbundet, should act in their interest. They explored the possibilities for alternative production, e.g. of working-clothes and clothes for disabled people, and they threatened to occupy the factory. Supporting committees for the Algots workers were formed in many places. Unlike the cleaners, the seamstresses were also supported by the established trade union movement – the entire department 11 of Kommunal in Umeå was a member of the supporting committee. Margareta Garpe and Suzanne Osten wrote the play “Fabriksflickorna” (Factory Girls) about the seamstresses’ struggle. The long battle resulted in the government’s grant of one million Swedish Kronor for enabling the seamstresses to develop an alternative production; this was, however, never realized. The factory closed down and its activities were moved abroad. The club management was forced to become the initiator of a workers’ cooperative, Norrkläder, which was established in 1979.

To increase their pay, some 40 seamstresses at the Brason factory in Gällivare went on strike for nearly three months in the spring of 1975. Declarations were made in a leaflet that the aim of their strike was that women should get the same chances as men to earn their living as gainfully employed workers. Their strike, however, was not successful and more than half of the women lost their employments. In Karlskrona, women went on strike at the factory Lumalampan of Kooperativa Förbundet (The Swedish Cooperative Union) in 1977. The women referred to the complete absence of recent years’ debate on equality in local wage negotiations. In Sollefteå, 13 seamstresses at Eiser occupied the factory in the summer of 1981. The seamstresses refused to accept the factory’s shutdown, and, when the last day came, they stayed there. The seamstresses took turns in occupying the factory; some ten women were always present. The occupation continued for about nine months. As a result of this struggle, some of the seamstresses started a cooperative.

Even though the strikes were not always successful they were nevertheless important for those women who were taking part in them. The self-esteem of former housewives increased. Kerstin Lindbäck, who experienced the strike at Algots Nord, received a cultural prize from Aftonbladet in 1980 for her struggle to save the works, and she was later charged with the responsibility of equality issues at the LO district in Norrbotten. She wrote, with reference to the seamstresses’ struggle: "At times I have pondered whether it might have been our ignorance of trade union tradition that encouraged us".

The right to child care

Eliminate the day-care waiting list

In the 1960s and 1970s, the number of women in the Swedish labour market increased significantly. About 30 % of women with children below seven were gainfully employed; the corresponding percentage in the late seventies was 80. Women were needed in the labour market but the lack of child care made this difficult despite women’s willingness to work. In the sixties, solutions to this problem were often individual and temporary. The struggle for more and better day-care centres was a crucial item on the new women’s movement’s agenda, and there were frequent demands for these at the 8 March demonstrations. "Ropen skalla – daghem åt alla" (approx. translation: Hear our call – day-care centres for all) was a popular slogan.

The day-care investigation appointed in 1968 presented its report in 1972. The report underlines the day-care centres’ pedagogical function and declares that these are not to serve as mere storehouses of children. There was an expansion of day-care centres in the seventies, and the supply of preschool places increased from about 72,000 to about 330,000 between 1975 and 1985.