Swedish Unions revive recruitment efforts

"We had already begun to commit ourselves to membership recruitment," says Kjell Johnson, who is in charge of long-term development work in Unionen. "And then, I think that Unionen's image may also have attracted new members. With the merger, the new union is perceived as a stronger and more attractive force."

At ABB there are many engineers. Most of them belong to Sveriges Ingenjörer (the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers). At the ABB Corporate Research centre, union recruitment work has been quite successful. Out of 180 engineers, about 150 belong to Sveriges Ingenjörer.

"We don't seek out individuals to try to recruit them [into the union]. We don't believe in that model," says Shiva Sander-Tavallaey, the union representative for Sveriges Ingenjörer at ABB Corporate Research.

"For us the important thing is to show that we are attractive and accessible. We have to show that members can benefit from union membership."

Shiva explains that the union gets good cooperation from the company. Whenever the company has an introductory meeting for new employees, the union is given an opportunity to present its work for 15-30 minutes.

"That is an opportunity that my union colleagues succeeded in achieving some 30-40 years ago. Over time it has become part of the corporate culture. The company is positive toward the union," says Shiva.

The union activity of ABB engineers is adapted to the company.

According to Shiva, "ABB has an 'activity clock' to which we adapt. We make our own union 'activity clock' so our members can get the most from their union membership."

Before management meets with members to discuss salary, the union makes sure that material is available to equip members before individual meetings. To help them, the union has a local database where members can obtain current pay statistics.

"There they can see where their salaries stand in relation to the average for comparable groups, taking into account experience and educational background," Shiva explains.