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by hnbad 924 days ago
We say "voters" when we mean their representatives too so this doesn't strike me as surprising even if you could argue that it's not really their decision if it's a representative system rather than one of delegation (where each delegate represents one or more people directly who can at any time withdraw their vote from them and vote directly or choose a different delegate). I don't know how Swedish unions are structured though.

But yes, this is a solidarity strike and should be described as such to avoid confusion or ambiguity. It's interesting to see this play out as solidarity strikes are explicitly forbidden by law in my country (Germany) and while strikes and unions are granted many legal protections (e.g. a company under strike is not allowed to hire temporary strike breakers to substitute the striking workers, though they can use their existing non-striking workers), the law also explicitly restricts strikes to the company the workers are employed by. This is presumably meant to "tame" unions and prevent larger organized action, solidarity strikes or even a general strike (which would not be placing demands on the employer but e.g. the government).

3 comments

The point I wanted to clarify is that if I worked at PostNord I couldn't decide to stop sending post to a company I disagree with, or a political party I dislike, etc. This is union-led industrial action. I saw some confusion in other posts on the topic where people thought this was individual action.
In Sweden it’d be illegal if there was a collective bargaining agreement in place and the strike wasn’t aligned with the terms set out therein. The law explicitly doesn’t extend the same protections for companies that don’t sign a CBA.
> We say "voters" when we mean their representatives too

Not to say that this kind of decision tends to be non-biding and decided by vote. So all the influences the representatives have is deciding what vote to call; it's the workers casting the votes and deciding to follow them.

Saying the workers are doing it is more than fair.