Sweden: dock strikes test new government

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Dock workers in Sweden are striking for their trade union rights. The employers have closed down their union offices and stopped recognising elected representatives of their main union.

The employers have already won support from the government to limit the right to strike - in a country with the lowest numbers of strikes of all OECD countries! Now they want that law to be introduced earlier, to end the present strike.

They have also answered the strikes with lock-outs.

The struggle takes place in the context of a new Social Democrat-Green government, backed by junior right-wing parties, pressing for a sharp increase in neoliberal attacks. This includes public sector cuts, deregulating rents - and degrading employment protection laws.

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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

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