The Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden or Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, SAC - Syndikalisterna or SAC for short is an anarcho-syndicalist trade union federation in Sweden. It has over 3,000 members active in 20 local organizations across the country.
History
The SAC began following the failure of the 1909 General Strike in Sweden as much of the working class felt dissatisfied with the results and angry at the situation in the country. A conference in 1910 held by the Woodworkers' union in Lund led to its formation by a combination of trade union activists and socialist groups. The early SAC was inspired by the French CGT and the IWW. It was a founding member of the IWA in 1922 and reached a peak membership of 37,000 members in 1925.[1]
The SAC took part in the Lossmen-Ekträsk Conflict from 1924 to 1931. In 1928, a splinter and more militant organisation called the Syndicalist Workers’ Federation. In 1936, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, more than 500 SAC members joined the CNT to fight in Spain. It was the main organization opposed to Nazism in neutral-Sweden during World War II, organizing boycotts of Nazi-made goods and providing shelter for resistance fighters in the country.
In the 1950s the SAC was offered to managed a state-funded unemployment benefits scheme, which they accepted. Leading to their exit from the IWA in 1956, nearly destroying the IWA. Albert Camus visited the SAC to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.[1] In 1958, the SAC set up a youth wing, the Syndicalist Group Movement, which collapsed in 1970 from infighting.
In 1998, the SAC was the first openly feminist union in Sweden. In 1999, SAC activist Björn Söderberg was shot dead in his home by three neo-nazis, leading to the creation of the Citizenship Pride Award, given yearly to social justice and trade union activists in Sweden. In 2006, the SAC organized Malmö26 to protest the unjust dismissal of a cook from a sushi restaurant.
Notable Members
Contact
- SAC website (in Swedish)