To Stabilize a Movement – Managing Identity Formation in the Swedish Trade Union Movement in the 1920s

Posted: 1 Dec 2011

See all articles by Jenny Jansson

Jenny Jansson

Uppsala University - Department of Government

Date Written: November 30, 2011

Abstract

This paper aims at examining the role of leaders in the construction of a strong cohesive class identity and its implications for the formation of a unitary labor movement. Class identity and mobilization constitute important factors for developing unitary class organizations which in turn play an important role for the establishment and sustainability of the welfare state. However previous research has ignored the role of the leadership in the class formation process. Based on a study of minutes, letters, annual reports and diaries I argue that the leadership of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation for blue collar workers, the LO, strategically decided to construct a strong reformist and consensus promoting identity as a response to the growing left wing threat in the organization and the troublesome high strike level. Through image management, the leadership implemented the reformist consensus image of the organization on the grass root level in Sweden in the 1930s using the newly established adult education system. Thus the leadership became the driving force in the class identity formation process using education as the tool for the identity formation process. This enabled the leadership to establish a closer cooperation with the employers and to build a strong trade union movement, as it turns out, the strongest in the world.

Keywords: organizational identity, labor movement, trade unions, Sweden, strategy

Suggested Citation

Jansson, Jenny, To Stabilize a Movement – Managing Identity Formation in the Swedish Trade Union Movement in the 1920s (November 30, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1966694

Jenny Jansson (Contact Author)

Uppsala University - Department of Government ( email )

Box 513
Uppsala, 751 20
Sweden

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