The Swedish Metalworkers' Union ( often shortened in text and speech to simply ''Metall'') was a

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

History

The union was founded in Stockholm on 21 May 1888, and had 555 members by the end of the year. Although the Swedish Foundry Workers' Union and the Swedish Sheet Metal Workers' Union both split away in 1893, the union grew rapidly. From 1895, it was able to support a full-time president, while in 1897 it set up an unemployment fund. The union affiliated to the

Swedish Trade Union Confederation The Swedish Trade Union Confederation ( ; literally "The National Organisation in Sweden"), commonly referred to as LO (), is a national trade union centre, an umbrella organisation for fourteen Swedish trade unions that organise mainly "blue-c ...

in 1904, and although the Swedish Electricians' Union split away in 1906, by 1908, it had 33,826 members. Membership continued to grow steadily, with the foundry workers rejoining in 1962, and in 1975 it reached an all-time peak of 409,412 members. After that, it gradually declined, despite the affiliation of the Swedish Miners' Union in 1994, and by 2005 the membership number stood at 276,068. In January 2006, it merged with the Swedish Industrial Union to form

IF Metall Industrifacket Metall (IF Metall) is a trade union in Sweden. It was formed in a 2006 merger between the Swedish Industrial Union (Industrifacket) and the Swedish Metalworkers' Union (Metall). Its roots in Metall trace back to 1888. IF Metall ...

Presidents

:1925: Fritjof Ekman :1932: Gunnar Andersson :1937: Oscar Westerlund :1948: Arne Geijer :1956: Åke Nilsson :1971: Bert Lundin :1982: Leif Blomberg :1993: Göran Johnsson

External links

References

Swedish Trade Union Confederation Metal trade unions Trade unions in Sweden 1888 establishments in Sweden Trade unions established in 1888 Trade unions disestablished in 2006 2006 disestablishments in Sweden {{Sweden-org-stub