Docks and Defeat: The 1909 General Strike in Sweden and the Role of Port Labour

Abstract

Swedish trade unions’ most devastating defeat was the general strike of 1909. In response to several lockouts, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) had launched a general strike in August that year, a decision taken without first consulting its affiliates or individual union members. Yet, according to Knut Backstrom, a central decision had never been so enthusiastically supported by the rank and file. One obvious object of industrial action, both strikes and lockouts, is to damage the opponents’ finances. The general strike struck a considerable blow against core industries such as iron, steel, timber, and pulp, threatening to close them more or less completely. One might think, therefore, that the struck employers and their associations would have been eager to settle the conflict with the LO, even at the cost of an agreement mainly on the workers’ terms. Instead, the general strike ended in a victory for the employers’ association, the Swedish Employers’ Confederation (SAF). The strike was just not powerful enough. There are several reasons for the strike’s ineffectiveness. This article’s focus is the transportation system, an aspect of vital importance for the outcome of the strike, but one that was underestimated at the time by the LO and has continued to be by subsequent research. The railway workers did not take part in the strike for legal reasons – a well-known and often discussed weakness. Even more crucial was the lack of labour resistance on the docks. HSIR 34 (2013) 1–27