Dear Social Democrats, LO umbrella union members, Byggnad union construction workers:
Eleven months ago, at the height of the Byggnads blockade of Latvian construction company Laval in Vaxholm, I told youIt was a three-part series:
The obstruction industry, parts I, II, III. that “your leaders are either being demagogues or dumb.” Now we know the answerFor non-Swedish speakers: It turns out that Byggnads union leaders lied when they denied Laval’s claims they had presented a highly cynical ultimatum to the Latvian company: Pay some of the country’s highest construction wages, or face a blockade. At the time, much of the country chose to believe Byggnad’s denial over the Latvians’ claims, and the story subsided. The people’s trust turns out to have been misplaced..
Hopefully, Byggnads will prove to have been dumb as well. The European Court of Justice awaits.
This is a tricky one, essentially at the centre of everything the EU has achieved/wants to achieve over the past half century: free movement of goods and services while retaining the unique European social model. If we avoid the foggy waters of LO demagoguery here, what is really the answer: should any company be able to dump prices and rock in and to a job in another country, without respecting laws and regulations that protect both workers and companies (and are there for a reason)?