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12 December, 2000Mari-Ann Krantz, SIF, Sweden, is one of three female trade union presidents within the IMF. She is critizing the old-fashioned trade union structure with different organisations for manual and non-manual workers.
BY STIG JUTTERSTRÖM
The industrial elite is mainly made up of men. The same applies to the higher ranks of trade unions. Mari-Ann Krantz, the president of the Swedish Union of Clerical and Technical Employees in Industry (SIF), has for long been used to being the only woman, both at meetings with her employer counterparts in industry, and her contemporaries at the top of the trade union ladder.
It was in 1979 that she was the first woman to be elected president of the local SIF branch at Electrolux Storkök in the small town of Alingsås, in southwestern Sweden. In 1984, she became president of the union organisation of the Electrolux Group in Sweden, covering around 40 branches. She was elected to the SIF national executive committee in 1990, and in 1996 she became the first woman fulltime president.
SHE REGRETS NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE PART IN THE ELK HUNT
Mari-Ann grew up on a farm outside Alingsås. She now lives close to the farm and often visits her childhood home. She commutes weekly to the union headquarters in Stockholm, where we met her on a mild autumn day. She regrets not being able to take part in the local elk hunt the following week, due to the annual salary negotiations. Mari-Ann started participating as a small girl with her father in the elk hunt, one of the largest and most sacrosanct events in the Swedish rural calendar. She is still a member of the hunting group, and recreational activities in the forest mean a great deal to her. In October next year she will be back with her friends in the hunt.
Q: You were quite young when you started at Electrolux. Why did you become a local trade union activist?
A: I was 16 when I started working at Electrolux. As I am a committed person who wants to take part in influencing matters, I was often the spokesperson at school, when the whole class had something to tell the teachers. When I started working at Electrolux, I got interested in what the local union branch was up to. And the local branch in Alingsås organised such lovely parties and I enjoyed dancing, which made the trade union work seem good fun.
"I FEEL AS ONE OF THE GANG"
Q: Has it been a disadvantage for you to be a woman in a man's world? Do men listen to you as well as they listen to other men?
A: There's no difference. It is all about how you react, regardless of whether you are a woman or a man.
Q: Might it even be to your advantage to be the only woman among the men?
A: I am sure it is. When you are a woman on your own, men are usually polite, and you are often given prominent positions and opportunities to put your ideas to people with whom it may otherwise be hard to get in touch. With other trade unionists, I feel as one of the gang -- I am myself.
Q: Your career started with doing simple bookkeeping jobs at the Electrolux office. How has IT changed staff working conditions?
A: Many of the traditional office jobs have disappeared, such as invoicing and letter writing. New jobs have arisen demanding greater skills. Working in front of a computer screen has also given rise to new kinds of occupational injuries. Stress and overtime at the workplace have increased, leading to far more long-term sick leave. People as young as 35-40 years are suffering from burnout.
HARD TO ORGANISE THE IT INDUSTRY
Q: How are you going to organise white-collar workers in the new professions in the IT industry?
A: It is harder than in the traditional white-collar occupations, where 85 percent of the workforce is unionised -- we only have 50 percent union membership in the IT industry. It is hardest in the many, new small companies, which take on young people with a different culture and no tradition of trade union membership. But it is by no means impossible; we have to create a union which fulfils young, college-educated people's demands on what membership of a modern union should offer. We have a special department in SIF working with IT companies and have reserved 560 million Swedish krona (US$56 million) in a fund for future activities. This money is to be used to finance strategic initiatives in various areas during the next four years and may be used for projects in the IT industry, information campaigns or efforts to recruit new members. And we have already noticed a growing interest in getting involved in union activities.
Q: SIF accentuates the individual members, their salaries, their right to professional training, their career development. Does this not risk breaking up trade union solidarity?
A: That's a problem we have always lived with. Our members aren't a homogenous group, and we have to intertwine individual and collective strands. There is no doubt that there is now a stronger focus on individual solutions, as young people want to see their own roles and advantages for themselves in being union members.
"ONE WORKPLACE, ONE UNION"
Q: Is the division between blue- and white-collar workers still relevant?
A: No, it is old-fashioned to have branches of several different unions in the same workplace. I have been promoting the idea of "one workplace, one union" for many years, and done so with a great deal of enthusiasm. A lot of time is taken up with the various branches doing essentially the same thing, wasting time competing with each other instead of cooperating. We have to change the union structure using the approach currently being tried at Ericsson Microwave at Mölndal, near Gothenburg (see also the article below). This is accelerating locally and will soon gather pace elsewhere. Nor is it, in the long term, rational to have different national unions for workers and white-collar staff, especially as those of us in the private sector industry unions have for many years been working together very well. This has strengthened us against the employers.
Q: Isn't there a risk that white-collar union members will lose their trade union identity if they merge with the large and strong Metalworkers' Union?
A: You shouldn't think in these terms. It really doesn't matter if you are working at a lathe on the shop floor or at a desk in the drawing office. It is the affinity of the workplace which is important. We must focus on what unites us in the workplace. A united union at every workplace would give us enormous strength. I am not talking about merging unions, rather about creating something new.
IMPOSSIBLE TO SUPPORT ANY POLITICAL PARTY
Q: The Metalworkers' Union and others belonging to Landsorganisationen (the Swedish blue-collar trade union centre, LO) have traditionally supported the Social Democratic Party through their intra-union/party collaboration. The fact is that some of the LO unions started the Social Democratic Party once upon a time, while SIF has always been non-political. What are your thoughts about this matter?
A: SIF has no party political affiliation. This makes it impossible for SIF to support any political party. The problem has to be resolved in case of any merger with a union belonging to LO.
THE IMF IS CONCENTRATED ON TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIAL MATTERS
Q: You chair the IMF's white-collar union group. How would you want to organise international collaboration within the framework of the IMF?
A: Matters relating to work organisation have dominated the group, but the IMF must now place the problems of white-collar workers higher on the agenda. Much of the IMF's work has been concentrated on traditional industrial matters; this is understandable, as white-collar workers nearly everywhere have been much less unionised than the blue-collar workers. But the IMF must now increase its activities in this area, and for example pay much more attention to health and safety matters and new occupational injuries, which largely affect white-collar workers, such as stress and becoming burned out. SIF brought this matter up at the IMF's Central Committee meeting in Birmingham last summer, and we have proposed that the IMF arrange a seminar on stress-related injuries next spring to promote this work. I want the Congress in Sydney next November to take clear decisions about the future work of the IMF's white-collar group.
The industrial elite is mainly made up of men. The same applies to the higher ranks of trade unions. Mari-Ann Krantz, the president of the Swedish Union of Clerical and Technical Employees in Industry (SIF), has for long been used to being the only woman, both at meetings with her employer counterparts in industry, and her contemporaries at the top of the trade union ladder.
It was in 1979 that she was the first woman to be elected president of the local SIF branch at Electrolux Storkök in the small town of Alingsås, in southwestern Sweden. In 1984, she became president of the union organisation of the Electrolux Group in Sweden, covering around 40 branches. She was elected to the SIF national executive committee in 1990, and in 1996 she became the first woman fulltime president.
SHE REGRETS NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE PART IN THE ELK HUNT
Mari-Ann grew up on a farm outside Alingsås. She now lives close to the farm and often visits her childhood home. She commutes weekly to the union headquarters in Stockholm, where we met her on a mild autumn day. She regrets not being able to take part in the local elk hunt the following week, due to the annual salary negotiations. Mari-Ann started participating as a small girl with her father in the elk hunt, one of the largest and most sacrosanct events in the Swedish rural calendar. She is still a member of the hunting group, and recreational activities in the forest mean a great deal to her. In October next year she will be back with her friends in the hunt.
Q: You were quite young when you started at Electrolux. Why did you become a local trade union activist?
A: I was 16 when I started working at Electrolux. As I am a committed person who wants to take part in influencing matters, I was often the spokesperson at school, when the whole class had something to tell the teachers. When I started working at Electrolux, I got interested in what the local union branch was up to. And the local branch in Alingsås organised such lovely parties and I enjoyed dancing, which made the trade union work seem good fun.
"I FEEL AS ONE OF THE GANG"
Q: Has it been a disadvantage for you to be a woman in a man's world? Do men listen to you as well as they listen to other men?
A: There's no difference. It is all about how you react, regardless of whether you are a woman or a man.
Q: Might it even be to your advantage to be the only woman among the men?
A: I am sure it is. When you are a woman on your own, men are usually polite, and you are often given prominent positions and opportunities to put your ideas to people with whom it may otherwise be hard to get in touch. With other trade unionists, I feel as one of the gang -- I am myself.
Q: Your career started with doing simple bookkeeping jobs at the Electrolux office. How has IT changed staff working conditions?
A: Many of the traditional office jobs have disappeared, such as invoicing and letter writing. New jobs have arisen demanding greater skills. Working in front of a computer screen has also given rise to new kinds of occupational injuries. Stress and overtime at the workplace have increased, leading to far more long-term sick leave. People as young as 35-40 years are suffering from burnout.
HARD TO ORGANISE THE IT INDUSTRY
Q: How are you going to organise white-collar workers in the new professions in the IT industry?
A: It is harder than in the traditional white-collar occupations, where 85 percent of the workforce is unionised -- we only have 50 percent union membership in the IT industry. It is hardest in the many, new small companies, which take on young people with a different culture and no tradition of trade union membership. But it is by no means impossible; we have to create a union which fulfils young, college-educated people's demands on what membership of a modern union should offer. We have a special department in SIF working with IT companies and have reserved 560 million Swedish krona (US$56 million) in a fund for future activities. This money is to be used to finance strategic initiatives in various areas during the next four years and may be used for projects in the IT industry, information campaigns or efforts to recruit new members. And we have already noticed a growing interest in getting involved in union activities.
Q: SIF accentuates the individual members, their salaries, their right to professional training, their career development. Does this not risk breaking up trade union solidarity?
A: That's a problem we have always lived with. Our members aren't a homogenous group, and we have to intertwine individual and collective strands. There is no doubt that there is now a stronger focus on individual solutions, as young people want to see their own roles and advantages for themselves in being union members.
"ONE WORKPLACE, ONE UNION"
Q: Is the division between blue- and white-collar workers still relevant?
A: No, it is old-fashioned to have branches of several different unions in the same workplace. I have been promoting the idea of "one workplace, one union" for many years, and done so with a great deal of enthusiasm. A lot of time is taken up with the various branches doing essentially the same thing, wasting time competing with each other instead of cooperating. We have to change the union structure using the approach currently being tried at Ericsson Microwave at Mölndal, near Gothenburg (see also the article below). This is accelerating locally and will soon gather pace elsewhere. Nor is it, in the long term, rational to have different national unions for workers and white-collar staff, especially as those of us in the private sector industry unions have for many years been working together very well. This has strengthened us against the employers.
Q: Isn't there a risk that white-collar union members will lose their trade union identity if they merge with the large and strong Metalworkers' Union?
A: You shouldn't think in these terms. It really doesn't matter if you are working at a lathe on the shop floor or at a desk in the drawing office. It is the affinity of the workplace which is important. We must focus on what unites us in the workplace. A united union at every workplace would give us enormous strength. I am not talking about merging unions, rather about creating something new.
IMPOSSIBLE TO SUPPORT ANY POLITICAL PARTY
Q: The Metalworkers' Union and others belonging to Landsorganisationen (the Swedish blue-collar trade union centre, LO) have traditionally supported the Social Democratic Party through their intra-union/party collaboration. The fact is that some of the LO unions started the Social Democratic Party once upon a time, while SIF has always been non-political. What are your thoughts about this matter?
A: SIF has no party political affiliation. This makes it impossible for SIF to support any political party. The problem has to be resolved in case of any merger with a union belonging to LO.
THE IMF IS CONCENTRATED ON TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIAL MATTERS
Q: You chair the IMF's white-collar union group. How would you want to organise international collaboration within the framework of the IMF?
A: Matters relating to work organisation have dominated the group, but the IMF must now place the problems of white-collar workers higher on the agenda. Much of the IMF's work has been concentrated on traditional industrial matters; this is understandable, as white-collar workers nearly everywhere have been much less unionised than the blue-collar workers. But the IMF must now increase its activities in this area, and for example pay much more attention to health and safety matters and new occupational injuries, which largely affect white-collar workers, such as stress and becoming burned out. SIF brought this matter up at the IMF's Central Committee meeting in Birmingham last summer, and we have proposed that the IMF arrange a seminar on stress-related injuries next spring to promote this work. I want the Congress in Sydney next November to take clear decisions about the future work of the IMF's white-collar group.