Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden
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| Full name | Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden |
|---|---|
| Native name | Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation |
| Founded | 1910 |
| Members | 7.500 in 2004 |
| Affiliation | Red and Black Coordination |
| Office location | , Sweden |
| Country | Sweden |
| Website | www.sac.se |
Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (in Swedish: Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, SAC - Syndikalisterna) is a syndicalist trade union federation in Sweden. Unlike other Swedish unions, SAC organizes people from all occupations and industries in one single federation, including the unemployed, students, and the retired. SAC also publishes the weekly newspaper Arbetaren ("the Worker"), owns the publishing house Federativs and runs the unemployment fund Sveriges Arbetares Arbetslöshetskassa (SAAK).
Its long-term goal is to realize libertarian socialism, a society without classes and hierarchies, where the means of production are owned commonly and administrated by the workers: in effect, abolition of capitalism, wage slavery, and sexism. As such, SAC is an anti-sexist and anti-militarist organization, which in 1998 also became the first Swedish openly feminist trade union. Short-term goals are improved salaries and working environments. It frequently cooperates with other libertarian socialist organizations, such as the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation (SUF), although SUF is not a part of SAC.
The SAC was founded in 1910 by disgruntled members of the Social Democratic LO trade union central after its failure to carry out a Swedish General Strike, and were joined by large sections of the youth wing of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, who also had come under the influence of the revolutionary syndicalism of the French Confédération Générale du Travail. In 1922 the newly formed union confederation also became founding member organization of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers Association; however, conflicts erupted between the organizations in the 1950s as SAC set up a state-supported unemployment fund, something which the IWA regarded as state collaboration and reformist. From 1956 and onwards the SAC stopped paying its membership fees to the IWA, effectively letting its affiliation lapse.
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