Swedish Nurse Employees Announce Strike

During this period, the numbers of beds in the hospitals have reduced to half; additionally the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners have faced 30% staffing cutbacks.  The wave of current privatization across Sweden has deteriorated the health system and consequently has brought huge burdens on the rest of the employees.  During this period and parallel to the daily reductions within the health care facilities for different reasons which includes the worsening work conditions which are consequently affecting the socio-economic and psycho-social  symptoms such as unemployment, addiction, lack of social security and job security.  In this situation, nurses and other hospital employees in this field are under two different destructive factors, on one hand, the increase of the numbers of patients and on the other hand, cutting the number of employees in the hospital.  Conditions such as this create a situation of unrest.  During the last two decades the wave of workers struggling within this sector was more powerful than other sectors, and either shows itself in the long-term as a strike locally or across Sweden.  The impending strike for 300 hospital employees in Uppsala-Sweden is an example of such dissent and unrest.  This strike, however, has important characteristics.  The fundamental and obvious one is the spontaneous organizing of the nurses outside of the Union framework.   Three hundred nurses organized this strike through their direct network and council discourse during a short period.  They called this dissent “L�NEUPPRORET 2008”.  Their demands are;

1.    Immediate wage increase for all - 5000 Krona.

2.    5% wage increase starting in January 2009.

3.    The minimum wage must increase from 18000 Krona to 23000 Krona every month.

L�NEUPPRORET 2008 has announced that if their demands are not met, they will collectively resign from their jobs and emigrate to other nations for work.  More than 30,000 health care workers in Sweden support these demands and are giving the same deadline to their employers.  At the same time about 4800 nurse students support this strike.

On the other side of the coin there is their union that is trying to make a conspiracy against this strike.  The Union made a proposal that the nurses should consider a lower wage increase either for this year or for next year.  The union hirelings asked from both the municipalities and the county councils to immediately respond to this strike as well as give their support to the Unions demands.  Also, the union presents its demands to nurses, but the nurses throw such proposals from union into the garbage and insist on their own demands.  Consequently, the union had to make some changes to their demands by increasing them to a 1700 Krona monthly wage increase for this year, and a 1700 Krona increase for next year and 22000 Krona as a minimum wage.  These are also being rejected by the nurses.

All of the evidence is indicating that these nurses in clinical research are insisting on their demands.  These nurses are remembering that their fellow health care workers in Finland - when almost 13,000 nurses threatened to resign before Nov. 19, 2007 if the government did not increase their wages 24%.  Also, the Swedish nurses are witnessing what is happening in Denmark where the nurses rejected a 12.5% wage increase and followed with a high wage increase.

“Akademiska sjukhuset” – this research hospital is the largest research hospital not only in Scandinavia but in all of Europe.  The announcement of the strike by the nurses of this hospital on April 21, 2008 brings chaos to the entire health system in Sweden; for example, 1700 daily surgeries have been re-scheduled.    At least 50 important surgeries have been delayed.  Twelve of the seventeen hospital emergency departments are being shut down.  If the nurses’ demands are not met, they will be on strike on Monday April 21^st, 2008 and every week this costs 10,000,000 Krona per week for the government and employers.