Dilemmas of representation and solidarity: Trade unions and extreme right-wing parties

Abstract

Research on trade unions has identified the crises and challenges trade unions face, not only in relation to employers and the state, but also regarding how to keep the trade union and workers together. One particular challenge is how to build solidarity in a context in which the number of migrant workers is increasing and working class support for anti-immigrant extreme right parties is growing.

The research question framing this proposal is how an important organisation for Swedish industrial relations negotiate what seems to be a fundamental contradiction among its members. The aim is to analyse the strategies and actions taken by trade unions in relation to migrant workers, ethnic diversity and members and activists displaying support for extreme right parties.

The theoretical framework is drawn from labour studies and industrial relations research along with migration and ethnic studies, supplemented with gender studies.. Methodologically, the project is an ethnographic study of five blue collar trade unions and Landsorganisationen, employing semi-structured interviews and participant observation, complemented with document analysis.

Keywords

Class, Industrial relations, Racialisation/Racism/"race", Trade unions, Extreme right

Publications

Ålund, A., Schierup, C. U., & Neergaard, A. (Eds.). (2017). Reimagineering the Nation. Essays on Twenty First Century Sweden. Peter Lang.

Ålund, A., Schierup, C.-U., & Neergaard, A. (2018). Nation i ombildning: Essäer om 2000-talets Sverige. Boréa AB.

Dahlstedt, M., & Neergaard, A. (2019). Crisis of Solidarity? Changing Welfare and Migration Regimes in Sweden. Critical Sociology, 45(1), 121–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920516675204

Mulinari, D., & Neergaard, A. (2017). From racial to racist state? The Sweden Democrats reimagining the nation. In A. Ålund, C. U. Schierup, & A. Neergaard (Eds.), Reimagineering the Nation. Essays on Twenty First Century Sweden (pp. 257–284). Peter Lang.

Mulinari, D., & Neergaard, A. (2018a). Sverigedemokraternas Sverige—Från rasifierande politik till en rasistisk stat? In A. Ålund, C.-U. Schierup, & A. Neergaard (Eds.), Nation i ombildning: Essäer om 2000-talets Sverige (pp. 225–259). Boréa AB.

Neergaard, A. (2017). The Swedish Model in transition: Trade unions and racialised workers. In Aleksandra Ålund, Carl Ulrik Schierup, & Anders Neergaard (Eds.), Reimagineering the Nation. Essays on Twenty First Century Sweden (pp. 85–118). Peter Lang.

Neergaard, A. (2018). Den svenska modellen av idag—Facken och rasifierade arbetare. In A. Ålund, C.-U. Schierup, & A. Neergaard (Eds.), Nation i ombildning: Essäer om 2000-talets Sverige (pp. 79–220). Boréa AB.

Neergaard, A., & Woolfson, C. (2017). Sweden: A model in dissolution? In Stefania Marino, Judith Roosblad, & Rinus Penninx (Eds.), Trade Unions and Migrant Workers: New Contexts and Challenges in Europe (pp. 200–223). Edward Elgar-ILO.

Schierup, C.-U., Ålund, A., & Neergaard, A. (2017). “Race” and the upsurge of antagonistic popular movements in Sweden. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 0(0), 1837–1854. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1361541