BY CATHARINA TIRSÉN AND DANIEL AHL
KIRUNA, Sweden - "When I started to work as a bus driver
again in 1996, I looked at the work schedules and said to my
co-workers, `My god, why aren't you on strike?' It was a
joke, but it was serious at the same time," said Siw
Hellberg, one of close to 16,000 bus drivers on strike in
Sweden.
Hellberg, 46, was talking to these reporters at a bus depot in this iron ore mining town in the far north of Sweden. She is one of 15 drivers on strike against the private company Swebus here. All bus drivers and depot workers who are members of the Municipal Workers Union went on strike against the privately owned bus companies in this country at midnight, February 25. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) has called a strike of the 5,000 bus drivers that belong to it, starting at midnight, March 4. On February 24, 15 bus drivers in Malmo affiliated to the TWU joined the Municipal Workers Union so they could strike immediately.
The main union demands are a 10-minute break for every two hours, a 3 percent wage increase comparable to other national contracts, and an increase in overtime pay.
Most strikers also point to their work schedules as a central issue. Many of them work split shifts that can span up to 16 hours a day. The drivers are demanding that a day's work be set within a 12-hour period; the employers want to stick to a more "flexible" schedule. Throughout the 1990s, local governments who used to provide public transportation have contracted it out to private companies, which have pressed for tighter schedules and longer shifts without breaks for the drivers.
Stockholm bus driver Bernt Westerberg described a typical workday in an interview in the paper Dagens Nyheter. He gets up at 4:15 a.m. Between 6:00 and 9:30 he drives without getting out of the seat. He waits in the garage for five hours without pay, then gets into the bus once more, and keeps driving until 6:30 p.m.
"You're always late and you don't have any time to take a break," striker Anka Milenovic told Militant reporters February 26 in front of the Hornsberg bus depot in Stockholm. "We're demanding a 10-minute break every other hour. An eight- hour working day is the reasonable thing. We don't get paid for the time that we work. We're standing here until our demands are met."
The striking drivers have received massive support from working people across the country, contrary to a hope expressed by the capitalist media that there would be a reaction against "strike chaos."
In Kiruna, Hellberg described the friendly waves she got from a regular passenger as she passed in her bus marked "School bus only." The union has made exceptions from the strike only for school buses and transporting for the handicapped. "It feels good that we have support in this," Hellberg said. "You didn't expect this kind of support. People have found out other ways to get to work -hitchhiking and all sorts of things."
"It's almost impossible to keep the timetable," said Borje Lindstrom, 45, who joined Hellberg in talking to these reporters in the coffee room at the garage in Kiruna. "Those making the decisions could try it out for themselves. I think it is going to take several months" to win the strike. The two strikers explained that Swebus drivers have only 10 minutes paid time to check the bus before they have to start driving. "The employers know the drivers get there on time anyway, that we don't want to be late," said Lindstrom. "If we are, the day gets ruined. That means we work a lot of unpaid hours."
"No wonder accidents happen," Hellberg added.
"That's the thing we're really mad about," Lindstrom continued. "Then the drivers get the blame." They were commenting on the fact that a Stockholm bus driver was recently convicted for the death of a boy who got stuck in the back door of her bus and run over. "It's about safe traffic as well," Lindstrom said. "We should have done this several years ago. We should be more like workers in France. They're tough."
In a February 27 column oozing with contempt for the bus drivers in the conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet, editor Marie Soderqvist declared, "The bus drivers' launching of their conflict action as a strike for toilet breaks is an ingenious move." Since people have found other ways of getting to work, Soderqvist concludes, "many bus drivers might be allowed to take a very long toilet break."
Outside the LKAB mine in Kiruna miners expressed their support for the bus drivers. "It's a good thing somebody gets started, so that things can start spreading," said one miner. Workers there also described how the mining company had demanded that every underground miner work night shifts every fifth week. "We put down the shovels one afternoon. They get a bit soft when the shaft is empty," said another miner. The company has withheld its proposal.
Daniel Ahl is a member of the Young Socialists and Catharina Tirsén is a member of the Metal Workers Union in Stockholm.