i'm not who you asked for, but i've worked a lot with people in Sweden.
first, let's talk about options. you don't really have any negotiating power unless you are a member of one of the big three unions, and even then: only if you're in the union which your employer has a collective agreement with, and even then: you don't have any say in negotiations.
there's TCO, which is the Liberal's Choice™ confederation of unions, ranging from cops, to office workers, to insurance scammers. within TCO is the largest: Unionen (lit. 'The Union'), whose unofficial motto is 'if the boss could pick' (om chefen själv för välja). Unionen is the default character's choice for anyone who's ever touched a keyboard.
there's LO, best known for their hit single IF Metall, and they're right-wing blue-collar productivists.
there's Saco, best known for uhhhh. and they primarily represent the elite, lawyers, quacks, and other priests (such as religious ones).
the main alternative is the Syndicalists. they're anticapitalist, they have few agreements with anybody, and they're a great way to get blacklisted and wiretapped. their ideology is outlined here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rasmus-hastbacka-swedish-syndicalism
the independent Dockworkers Union is a great example of a functioning union. but they're only for one industry, and many of their members give off national syndicalism vibes.
Is it a viable method of unions getting stuff done or is it just a pacifier that slowly traps them in a state-controlled "no fun allowed" box?
it's definitely a pacifier.
the unions primarily serve to maintain a minimum level of comfort for the middle class, while acting on behalf of employers to crush left-wing organising and militancy. they give leeway to the largest employers, while ignoring the plight of employees at small companies. they follow the party line of the socdems, which in recent years is 'whatever the far-right is on about this week'. the general view toward salary negotiations is 'the highest paid jobs should be paid even more, and the lowest paid jobs should be paid even less so we can pay the highest paid jobs even more'.
whenever there's any criticism of the unions, the socdems, or the Swedish government/economy overall: you'll get union leaders and politicians across the spectrum snapping back that 'hEre in SweDeN, wE hAvE a ModEl' and then passing/proposing laws to criminalise and punch down at criticisms of 'the Swedish System' as some kind of foreign threat. you can't criticise or protest 'elected' leadership, because that's 'undemocratic' and 'strongarm', and 'you should just shut the fuck up and wait till the next vote'.
there's two short English essays here (from a syndicalist perspective):
in most places i've lived, my physical neighbours did not want to be known, and did not want to know anyone else, either. granted, most of them really only used their apartments/houses as a very expensive sleeping place and nothing more. they didn't really live in their houses; it was just where they usually slept between working.
even when the neighbours were friendly, there were no common spaces and the housing too small to accommodate get-togethers, and no third places to go to. and the friendly neighbours were always apart of the conspicuously racist pensioner cabal.
i think it would be more symbolic to extend the rainbow peace flag over it.
growing up, the most common 'counterargument' (read: dismission) to 'global warming' i heard was 'great, i love summer!'
i had to become a singer before i had the lung capacity to sigh hard enough.
that was my first guess, but after i tried getting back on the path they only kept putting grass on my feet. i tried holding still, backing away, moving toward them, moving back into the grass, making noises, and checked in the bush — it just kept putting grass on me. i didn't immediately see anything. i was afraid of scaring or upsetting them, so i left.
someone else suggested they're a juvenile that doesn't know how to feed themself.
aside from the autotherapeutic, vibes-based and reactionary 'veganism' mentioned here, i've often encountered the misanthropic 'vegan'.
they've typically experienced chronic complex interpersonal trauma and have arrived at some quasiconsequentialist position that animals — as a category representing the 'opposite' of humans, and lacking the same capacity for evil — represents the apex of innocence and morality. they assume anything bad brought upon a human is brought upon themselves, and would see humans collectively punished(/ put into collective suffering) for [insert list of examples of decadence] or as repentance for animal cruelty. it doesn't matter how humans suffer, or that they all suffer the exact same way. it only matters that everyone everywhere is feeling like shit. even better if the suffering is caused by another human, which they warpedly see as some kind of 'irony', so it makes sense they'd promote hateful ideology. at the far end of the spectrum: they dip into ecofascist accelerationism territory.
the reality is that this is an outlet for their hatred for their own (varied) abusers, and their hopes that a ubiquitous suffering will extend far enough to reach even these abusers and bring everyone down to their level.
(i speak a tiny bit from my own past experience)
she's alluding to the fact that these characters — the 'soyjack' and 'gigachad' — are historically, and still actively are, alt-right charicatures. together with their friends, 'tradwife' and 'doomer (girl)': they represent misogynistic, racist, antisemitic, and white supremacist tropes.
this one's for you peepaw r.i.p.
🛏💤
onoira
joined 1 year ago