Gabriel Kuhn is a writer and the general secretary of SAC Syndikalisterna, a Swedish syndicalist labour union federation. The SAC is a union for workers from all professions and nationalities, as well as for unemployed and retired people. Unlike other labour unions in Sweden, the SAC is run by its members. Kuhn talked to us about his life in politics, the idea behind SAC, and how to improve workers’ organizing in Sweden and Finland.

Ending up in Sweden

Gabriel Kuhn’s journey to become the general secretary of a Swedish labour union has not been straightforward. He grew up in Austria and has lived in the Middle East as well as the South Pacific Islands. For the past 20 years he has lived in Sweden. As a high schooler he became active in the autonomous left in Austria, and continued his political work after moving to Sweden, where alongside joining the SAC he took part in anti-racist and migrant justice movements. In 2018, he joined the central committee of the SAC, an organ that makes most decisions between the congresses of the federation. In 2023 he became its general secretary. 

As a general secretary Kuhn has a lot on his plate, although the actual decision-making lies with the central committee. Kuhn quips a better job title would be ’secretary’. His work falls into roughly two categories. One is secretarial tasks like answering emails, organizing meetings, filing reports and looking for minutes, and protocols. Kuhn describes this office-type work tedious and says that even though bureaucracy is expected in a large organisation, there is room for improvement in this regard in SAC. His other duties are more exciting, he tells us, and include representing the SAC. This means talking to the media and writing articles. 

Writing and publishing has been important for Kuhn throughout his life. When living abroad, he published zines under a one-man collective, Alpine Anarchist Productions, which were distributed by AK Press. He has also written many books in German and English. Kuhn tells us that although he works 40 hours a week for the SAC he tries to do some writing on the side, as he enjoys it. After his term as general secretary he will also spend more time on publishing.

What is the SAC?

The SAC has been around for a while. Founded in 1910, it was part of a wave of new syndicalist unions, of which the International Workers of the World, founded only five years before, is most widely known. Kuhn traces the origins of the SAC to the Swedish general strike of 1909, which came to be known as Storstrejken, the Great Strike: ”[the strike] was lost and some of the more radical factions of the union movement felt that the union leadership wasn’t stern and committed enough so they left and formed their own union.” Out of the radicals’ frustration rose a labour union unique both in Sweden and globally.

To summarize what makes the SAC different from other unions, Kuhn highlights its democratic nature. Operating on the basis of federalism, local chapters of the union hold decisive power in the union, while the central organisation keeps its focus on administrative matters. Other key distinctions are the SAC’s principle of direct action and its outspoken goal of libertarian socialism.

In regards to political parties, the SAC remains an independent organisation, unlike most major unions. This position, stemming from the rejection of the early 20th century shift towards close ties between unions and social democratic parties, became a defining feature of syndicalism. The term has its roots in the French syndicate, synonymous to labour union.

After 115 years of existence, the SAC seems to be one of the last of its kind, a dying breed of union organising. ”There really isn’t any other union like that worldwide that has survived to this day without any major splits or without any major interruptions in their activities”, Kuhn says. To an extent, the SAC owes its continuity to factors outside of its own control: ”Sweden didn’t get involved in the fighting in neither World Wars and there was never a fascist regime, so the SAC could continue what they were doing”, Kuhn points out.

How the SAC operates

The organisation of the SAC operates at various levels; the union acts on both a geographical and an industrial basis. Once encompassing hundreds of local units, there are now around 25 SAC locals in cities such as Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, as well as in smaller places. The units working on an industry basis can be tied to either a workplace or an occupation. ”For example a workplace section at Umeå University: that can be cleaners, that can be professors, anyone who works there is in the same section. And then there is the industrial branches that’s tied to your profession, the biggest one we have are the construction workers in Stockholm, so it doesn’t matter where they work but they’re united in a branch as construction workers”, Kuhn explains. All SAC members belong to a local, but in Kuhn’s view, the industrial branches are the ones of most importance.

Helping workers from wages to anti-fascist support

The most common problem that the members of the SAC deal with is outstanding wages, Kuhn tells us. This affects a lot of the migrant workers, who get contracted but then don’t get paid what they were promised to. Parts of the wages are missing, are ”put into services” or are just not paid at all. These cases are usually won, Kuhn says, because they are usually fairly clear cut. Workers don’t get paid what they were promised, which is against the Swedish labour law, and the union only points that out. The union calls the employer, tells them about the problem and shows the evidence, and then calls them for negotiation, to which the employer must agree within two weeks according to the law. Kuhn says that the negotiation is where the case usually gets solved. If it doesn’t, the union goes to court, where it wins most of the cases. But sometimes the first phone call is enough. Kuhn speculates that this is because there is a lot of media coverage on the union, so a lot of people will hear about the cases, and the employers get a bad reputation. Going to court would usually become more expensive for the employers, as they would also end up paying for the court costs.

But this type of traditional union work is not all the SAC does. As Kuhn tells us, the union offers financial support to many initiatives and groups, or lets them use their offices. They give money and propaganda support to other strikers, like in the Port of Gothenburg a few years ago. The SAC has a strong anti-fascist tradition, and historically some chapters have done a lot of anti-fascist work. Some of the tradition goes back to World War II, but some stems from more recent history. ”We had a member, Björn Söderberg, who was murdered in 1999 because of a conflict with an organized neo-Nazi at his workplace. So there’s that, that’s a proud tradition. Like in the case of Björn Söderberg, often it is tied to something that happens at the workplace”. On top of all that there is constant collaboration with others, through local groups and individuals.

Widening the concept of ’class’

The SAC operates on a broadened conceptualization of class. The federation has organized undocumented workers, students, the unemployed, the retired, the self-employed and so on. Kuhn stresses that the SAC is a labour union, not a trade union, because they do not organize according to trades; ”I suppose the original idea is just that there’s no need to divide the working class. That everyone, every worker should organize together”.

The class structures within society have also changed, with the emergence of ”the precariat” or ”a new underclass”, consisting mainly of migrant workers, and people who don’t fit the traditional Swedish working class base. By the traditional class base Kuhn means the ”white Swedish born workers with permanent long term contracts, big workplaces, same workplace for a long time – nowadays lots of people don’t fit into that at all”. Sometimes it is impossible to join a mainstream union if one is undocumented, and even if they can their problems are usually so specific that mainstream unions are not able to address them. Or they might just not be willing to, like in many cases of systematic racist discrimination, Kuhn explains.

Organizing in Finland

Kuhn says he’s not very familiar with unions in Finland, but can comment on a general situation where there is no radical union alternatives, as in most countries. ”You could try to radicalize at least the grassroots of the existing unions, or form new unions, or form something else that’s kind of like a union but not really a union, a worker center or something. I think all options have advantages and disadvantages, that’s just my approach.”

Kuhn underlines that he is not a sectarian on these issues, and the best option depends on one’s specific time and place. However, building a union alternative from scratch is very difficult, mostly because the organizational work it requires, he points out. He sees radicalizing the grassroots of big unions as possibly more of a realistic chance. Some unions have little tolerance for that, so collaborations of local groups and workers’ centers like Husby Arbetarcentrum might be one pathway. 

There are some benefits to being like a union, but not formally being one. Husby Arbetarcentrum could be a small union, but they don’t want to, because of strike laws in Sweden. As they are not officially a union they have more freedom in actions they take, such as blockades, without them being seen as ”illegal industrial actions”, Kuhn explains.

The big challenge, according to Kuhn, is balancing two aspects: having actual organisational capacity, and raising class consciousness. It’s difficult to politicise the people coming to a union, and without the capability to actually help workers the most radical statements won’t make anyone interested in you. But then again, just keeping organizational structures running, like in the SAC, takes a lot of resources, some to parts that Kuhn feels are unnecessary.

Going back to the Husby Arbetarcentrum, Kuhn feels that it’s an example that works really well, with impressive numbers. Out of 100 cases they had in a year they won about 92. And very rarely do they run into the problem of employers not taking them seriously. ”That’s just because the employers know what the problem is. They know they’re guilty. And Husby Arbetarcentrum has its website, if employers get curious and look it up, they come to a website where you see people doing blockades and know the deal”, he says. ”But then, who pays for their meeting space? Right now, the SAC it is helping them. So that’s what I mean. There is that organizational structure and those resources, it helps to have that.”

Reflecting on unionizing strategies

Talking about the SAC, Kuhn also has reflections on its practice, ideology, strategy and potential.

On a practical level, he explains that the current SAC has basically inherited a bureaucratic structure meant to accommodate 35 000 members, while currently holding 4000. According to him the structure is too big, and its reproduction takes a lot of resources. In Kuhn’s opinion, cutting down formal parts of the structure would make the organization more effective. He mentions that on top of the formal parts, the SAC manages two companies, one for their newspaper and one for the management of the building they own in Stockholm, both of which take resources.

Kuhn also feels the SAC can be very service oriented: ”People come because they haven’t gotten their wages, and they hear from a friend that they can go to the SAC and get help, so they join, they get their wages and then, often, they leave”, he explains. ”In terms of ’union consciousness’ there is a problem in that approach, because its individual problem solving rather than building  ’collective power’ or ’working class power’ or whatever you want to call it”.

Kuhn is not too critical of this however, as some who join to get help understand that they get help because there is a union behind it, and then they stay. ”And it’s the only thing that’s really working right now, the thing we do have successes with”, he adds. In terms of raising class or union consciousness, he feels that it’s impossible without these practical parts to gain trust and interest and to politicise.

Reflecting ideologically, Kuhn sees that instead of building some sort of a revolutionary section of the working class, they are currently rather at the forefront of defending Swedish labor law. ”Maybe that’s only a problem if you are a stubborn radical like myself.” He explains that instead of helping workers to fight for better rights, the SAC nowadays often just helps workers to be treated according to the rights they already have on paper.

In general he wishes that the SAC would have more class-analysis. ”There’s a lot of class rhetoric, but while some people respond on a practical level to the new class formation in Sweden, like the industrial branch of construction workers does, there’s no real analytical background to recruitment or union building”. He explains that the SAC does not do a lot of research and does not look for workers and problems to organize around. There are no workers inquiries and no general research on today’s work or working class. ”Again, this is me speaking from a more revolutionary perspective, but there is no strategic perspective really”.

To make the point more concrete, Kuhn says that they could focus on building a membership base able to win strikes or do industrial actions in industries important for today’s pattern of production in Sweden. ”Let’s say in transport, you have strikes in transport that would disrupt capitalism in Sweden more significantly than having for example hair dressers striking. Not to demean hair dressers, I mean, it’s great if they fight for their rights, but there’s a different level of impact”, he says, ”and from a revolutionary perspective, if you are a revolutionary union, that would be part of what you should be doing. Saying ’this is an industry we should be focusing on’. This is really key. We have too little of that”. Right now, he feels that any strength they build is largely coincidental, based on individuals and local historical circumstances.

Our discussion briefly turns to the Angry Workers collective, and their book Class Power On Zero Hours. The collective tried to organize work place struggles on the grass roots level in West London for six years, by taking jobs in key industries and going from there. Kuhn would like to see more work like that happen in Sweden, and says that it would be beneficial to connect it to the union organizational infrastructure. ”That to me is one of the biggest advantages of having a union. I mean, there’s a lot of money. There are offices. If you think strategically and politically, the SAC has a name. Certainly in the Swedish union movement everyone knows who the SAC is”, he says. ”There are certain things that the SAC has that can be used, but that’s just the form. You’ve got to fill that form with content. And this is, what I believe, where we are fairly weak. If we could bring in stuff like what the Angry Workers do, and more analysis, and more strategic thinking, then I think we could get much, much more out of this organization than what we get out now”. And reflecting on the Angry Workers, Kuhn finds that maybe they might have benefited from that kind of collaboration, too.. ”There wasn’t a revolutionary movement in West London when they left after six years”, he says, ”and I’m simplifying, but I feel like one of the reasons is because they were lacking an organizational structure that could be used”. This is why ideally Kuhn would like to see these two aspects brought together.

On a general level, Kuhn reflects on the synergy between organisation and politics, the lack of which he sees as a reason why the SAC is limited in its revolutionary possibilities. ”With my anarchist and autonomous background, I believe that to radically transform the mass societies we live in, a certain level of organization is needed. I’m a big supporter of the subculture and the info shops, but that alone is not a big enough infrastructure to radically change this world we live in. You need a certain level of organization. And the SAC is the organization in Sweden that’s related to my personal political ideas and principles.” But he finds political organization important, too. ”I believe that working class struggles are key for any revolutionary movement, and in union organizing those kind of struggles are the focus. So it’s important for revolutionary development, but so is political organisation.”

To drive the point home, he turns to the Spanish revolution. ”Not to romanticize it, but seriously, that combination at the time of having the CNT [Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, anarcho-syndicalist trade union confederation​​​​​​] as a strong union and the FAI [Federaión Anarquista Ibérica, a Spanish anarchist organization] as a strong political organization, I think that was a key factor of why the revolution, at least for a short time, was successful on a bigger scale. Because you need those two elements. Without the FAI, I don’t think the CNT would have had that success. And just to add, what’s traditionally the syndicalist path to revolution? We don’t need the parties or nothing, we’ll just take over the factories, do a general strike, then we’ve changed the mode of production and then there’s socialism. It hasn’t happened. Of course things sometimes take time, but even after 100 years, it’s not like you’re feeling you’ve made a significant step towards that. There’s all sorts of different reasons for that, but it does challenge us to adjust our approach.”