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20 October, 2008
Following the merger in October 2007 between SIF and HTF to create Unionen, an AICEM affiliate and Sweden’s largest private-sector union held its First Congress 6-9 October in Örebro, Sweden. The 530,000-member union, made up of salaried, technical, and clerical workers across nearly all of Swedish employers, adopted a vision statement and elected Cecilia Fahlberg as the new President.
The Congress opened by giving Unionen President Mari-Ann Krantz a rousing send-off., who retired. Selected to head the union at the 2007 extraordinary merger congresses, Krantz is retiring. She presided over the initial structural changes in making the merger between the two unions work.
New Unionen President Cecilia Fahlberg
Fahlberg, 48, has been a Deputy Vice President of Unionen and she comes to union leadership after serving as a Vice President and previously, in the collective bargaining department of HTF, the former Salaried Employees’ Union. She is an economics major from a business school and is a resident of Sigtuna, Sweden.
“A big and strong union is what is needed today,” stated Fahlberg, “especially with conditions facing the Swedish labour market and a global financial crisis that is shaking all societies.”
Also elected at Congress was a 16-member Executive Committee, equally represented by eight men and eight women. The union boasted that the average age of this Executive Committee had been reduced to 45 from the previous board’s average age of 53.
Unionen’s vision statement is built around democracy, solidarity, and political engagement. Due to the enormous amount of business before this First Congress, not all questions before it got addressed. Thus, Unionen will conduct an extraordinary Congress as soon as possible to finish proceedings. ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda was a guest at the Congress.