The Multinational Monitor

JUNE 1981 - VOLUME 2 - NUMBER 6


G L O B A L   N E W S W A T C H

Sweden: Metalworkers Support Strike at U.S. Alfa-Laval Plant

In the latest response by international labor to multinational power, Swedish workers are planning secondary strikes against Alfa-Laval, a Swedish multinational that is engaged in anti-union activities in the United States.

All 75 workers at the G and H Products Company, an Alfa-Laval subsidiary that makes dairy machinery in Kenosha, Wisconsin, have been on strike since last July 1. They object to G and H's refusal to grant them wage increases after four years and to the company's rollback of benefits. The workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), also protest the company's use of scab labor.

Swedish metalworkers have not stood idly by. They have already collected close to $4,000 in strike assistance funds and have pledged an additional $5,000. More threatening to Alfa-Laval, they have announced plans for a two-hour work stoppage on June 24 at an Alfa-Laval plant in Sweden. "If the company still refuses to change its position after this solidarity strike, we will continue with another two-hour strike" at another Alfa-Laval plant, announced the Swedish Metalworkers Federation.

"Multinational companies must be taught the lesson that' they cannot evade responsibility for the anti-union activities of their subsidiaries in other countries," said William Winpisinger, International President of IAM, in a cable thanking the Swedish workers for their "self-sacrificing support of striking IAM members."


Table of Contents