Planned merger of four white-collar unions continues

In 2001, four Swedish white-collar trade unions decided to continue work on a planned merger, possibly to commence in 2002. The merger would create a single union with some 500,000 members in the public and private services, affiliated to the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO).

On 11 and 19 September 2001 respectively, the boards of the Swedish Union of Local Government Officers (Svenska Kommunaltjänstemannaförbundet, SKTF) and the Union of Civil Servants (Statstjänstemannaförbundet, ST) decided to move towards the establishment of a new merged trade union with two other white-collar unions, possibly starting in 2002, following some two years of preparatory work on the merger. SKTF and ST are currently affiliated to the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation, TCO), as is a third union involved, the Salaried Employees' Union (Tjänstemannaförbundet, HTF). The fourth union is the Social Insurance Employees' and Insurance Agents' Union (Försäkringsanställdas Förbund, FF), which is currently affiliated to the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO) but is due to join TCO from 1 January 2002. At present, TCO has 18 affiliates with a total of 1.2 million members.

The merger between the four unions would create a single union with 460,000 members:

• SKTF's 175,000 or so members work for local authorities and county councils, mostly in the schools system and in the health service sector (hospitals, care centres, nursing homes etc). About 75 % of members are women;

• ST has about 85,000 members among civil servants in almost all government authorities, publicly-owned companies and other governmental bodies, with the exception of civil servants in national defence. ST also organises employees of the Swedish Church. About 65% of members are women;

• HTF has about 160,000 members working at about 31,000 workplaces in the private sector. Its members are to be found mostly in wholesale and retail, transport, freight-forwarding, civil aviation, travel agencies, associations and media companies. About 60% of members are women; and

• FF is currently affiliated to the blue-collar LO, but from 1 January 2002 it will join TCO. FF has 16,000 members in social insurance offices, of whom 85% are women.

During the 1990s, all the unions involved except HTF lost members. Within the municipal and governmental sectors, this decrease mostly reflected major redundancies. HTF increased its membership by about 30,000 over the decade. The wages of the four unions' members are about at the same level. The average age of the members, both men and women, is in their late 40s or early 50s, and they have an average monthly salary of between SEK 14,000 and SEK 16,000 (1998 figures).

Structure and activities

The structures of three of the trade unions involved in the planned merger do not differ very much in practice at the local level. However, HTF is organised in local unions at individual workplaces whereas the other three unions are organised in 'departments' or 'divisions' at local level, which cover practically all workplaces with members in a particular county or town. HTF's local unions are often rather small as its members tend to work in small units. Indeed, a majority of HTF members work in workplaces which are so small that it is not possible to form a local union, as the lower limit for establishing such a structure is seven to 10 members. The other trade unions have a single local 'division' per authority, county council, bank or social insurance office. In other words, for the private sector HTF the average membership unit is a local union or 'club' with 20 members. A division of about 150-200 members is normal for the civil servants organised in ST, while the SKTF members in the municipalities are organised in divisions of 250-300 members. FF has an average division of about 350 members.

The difference in size of the local union structures is mirrored in the four unions' working methods. The local units of SKTF, FF and ST normally conduct more extensive activities than HTF's workplace units. In all four unions, elected trade union representatives carry out trade union work at both local and central levels, with about one in 10 members of each unions having some kind of elected position. However, although all four unions have about the same proportion of elected representatives overall, there are major difference in the amount of time off they receive to perform their duties. For example, ST has 400 elected representatives working full time on their duties whereas SKTF has 200. HTF has about 15 full-time representatives and FF about 20. In order to conduct their extensive activities, the local divisions of SKTF, ST and FF receive about 20% of their unions' incomes (mostly from membership subscriptions). (All the figures above are taken from an internal survey commissioned by a joint union working group, known as TRIO, in 2000 - see below).

Given their smaller size and resources, it is almost impossible for the HTF's local unions to conduct the same level of activities as the local structures of the other three unions. However, HTF members have the same need for education and other services. This has been solved by HTF having a substantial regional office organisation. However, the resources given to the local unions by the central organisation are relatively low. Within HTF, 238 full-time employed officials perform much of the union's work and service provision, at central and regional levels. SKTF employs 192 full-time officials, ST 117 and FF 17 (not including staff in the union-linked unemployment benefit funds).

Advantages and disadvantages

The four trade unions involved have now all taken decisions during 2001 to continue work on the planned merger. This work is being carried out by the TRIO project, which was started about two years ago, involving representatives from the four unions.

The main reasons behind the proposed merger include overcoming some of the 'artificial' barriers in the labour market. Workers in the service sector are increasingly moving between jobs in the municipal, government and private sectors, either through choice or because they are employed on non-permanent contracts and are thus forced to be mobile. These changes, it is believed, demand that an employee's existing trade union should be able to provide support even when they change jobs. 'It is not good to switch members between trade unions. The service we give to members when they want to change their job situation is often of bad quality,' the SKTF chair, Inger Efraimsson, stated when the union decided to continue with the TRIO project in September 2001.

In September 2001, the four unions all accepted a report on the financial conditions for a merger drawn up by the TRIO group. This provides for:

• decreasing membership fees by a total of SEK 50 million;

• keeping the costs of the local divisions at SEK100 million;

• saving SEK 50 million in the central organisation and administration;

• keeping about SEK 30 million available for various investments; and

• developing regional activities

These plans presuppose that the joint income of the merged union, mostly made up of membership contributions, will continue at present levels. The chairs of the four unions are optimistic on this point. Ms Efraimsson of SKTF said in September 2001 that a merger would mean considerable benefits: 'The members will not have to pay higher fees than necessary for union support. And we will not have to waste time in recruiting members from each other. Instead we can concentrate on recruiting new members, especially among the workers that currently do not see membership of a trade union as something self-evident.'

Commentary

The planned merger involves four white-collar trade unions dominated by women members and with an average age among members of about 50, and would create a very large (in Swedish terms) service sector union. As to whether this will be a good thing for the trade union movement, some critical voices have stated that it is not in line with modern thinking to merge small units into a giant unit. Others say that the unions should concentrate on core activities and outsource other services. It is also said that the identity of a trade union is today very important, and that a vertical union organising all the white-collar workers in one workplace will face problems in this area as the members will no longer have anything in common. Educational level and profession are instead the most important common points of reference.

It seems, however, that the four trade unions in question are not paying much attention to the critical views. Other mergers are already in progress among LO-affiliated unions, where small trade unions evidently see possible advantages in merging with larger ones in the same area. The Swedish Transport Workers' Union (Svenska Transportarbetareförbundet) is talking with the Commercial Employees' Union (Handelsanställdas förbund); the Agricultural Workers' Union is in discussions with the Municipal Workers' Union (Svenska Kommunalarbetareförbundet); and the Electricians' Union (Elektrikerförbundet) and the Graphic Workers' Union (Grafikerförbundet) want to join the Union for Service and Communication (Facket för Service och Kommunikation, Seko). (Annika Berg, Arbetslivsinstitutet)