Women Wage Earners and the Future of Swedish Unions

The deepening crisis in which Swedish unions found themselves in the 1980s created an opening for wage earner feminists within the LO to press their cause. Issues like parity, pay equity and worktime reduction have thus been placed on the agenda. Yet the union leadership's main interest in its newly discovered women members is as a force to be harnessed behind its strategy for shaping post-Fordist relations. Unlike the British unions, the LO's understanding of the post-Fordist labour market does not take precarious work as the emergent norm whose pernicious effects must be countered. Rather, the Swedish unions' strategy presumes that they can promote 'rewarding work' for all workers by harnessing the political energy generated by wage earner feminists behind their strategy of 'solidaristic work'. This article examines some of the tensions that have arisen as wage earner feminists try to make room for their own claims within this vision of the future.