We hereby report on some developments in the political situation and the class struggle in the various Nordic Countries.

Norway:

Tjen Folket Media reports that the Norwegian Government has put forwards its new long-term defense plans, which will add 2 billion Norwegian Crowns to the defense budget, every year until 2028. Fighter jets, rescue helicopters and maritime reconnaissance planes, are among the new purchases planned for the next few years. The government is planning to increase the number of employees with 2500 and the number of conscripted with 3700 by 2028, the majority of the new personnel will be located in northern Norway.

A major focus is on increasing the military presence in the Arctic, preparing the Ramsund Navy Base for more NATO exercises, establishing higher military organization in the Northern Brigade and strengthening other sectors of the army defense in the north of Norway.

The Defense Minister stated the following:

“Our northernmost sea territories have achieved a higher strategic importance. It poses increased demands for the ability of the Royal Norwegian Navy to appreciate the situation and exercise its authority. The government will therefore strengthen the Royal Norwegian Navy with increasing personnel and upgraded vessels.”

The plan was revised after the parliament required that defense and “civil safety” be more fused together in the plans, and combined with the fact that for the first time, the plan was made in collaboration between both the justice and defense ministries, the tendency is clear towards breaking the barrier between civil and military matters.

Finland:

Workers in food delivery, working for “app services”, have achieved a symbolic victory in the Finnish Labor Council, since a ruling now states that the workers are in practice employees and not “independent contractors” (who have no rights as workers). The ruling is not binding and so the delivery companies are protesting that it will be too complicated to hire the workers properly and that the workers will actually get worsened conditions, they falsely claim. The old unions have failed to adapt to the new methods of exploitation of the Imperialists, but now increasingly it is seen that workers are organizing despite this, even though they have not been given rights as full-time workers and don’t have a traditional workplace to organize in.

Sweden:

Negotiations between the employer organization (imperialists dependent on exploiting labor) and the large union LO (that is dominated by the worker-aristocracy) are taking place, to discuss whether or not to take away basic rights that were granted in the Law on Employment Protection (LAS) in 1974. These rights were achieved on the basis of the great struggles initiated with the harbor worker strike in 1969. The Imperialists wants to especially have the right to fire older workers and hire younger ones, which they claim will “create jobs”, but in reality make it so that the old workers will have a hard time to find a new job and make it much harder to keep a stable job. Another important point is the possibility to be fired without the possibility of the Union objecting, in workplaces with less than 15 workers.

Currently the employer organization has voted yes for the proposal, while the LO has voted no, but the agreement can be made by decision in the parliament, if the unions do not comply with the demands of the Imperialists. The Communist League in Sweden points out that many workers are resisting these changes.

Denmark:

The Parliament has just opened after the summer break and the prime minister has announced in her opening speech, how the government will target “criminal youths”. The new measure proposed is to issue area bans where the youths are “having a behavior that creates an unsafe atmosphere”, if the ban is broken, a fine of 10.000 Danish Crowns can be given and the second time it can result in 30 days of jail. The police will also have the authority to contact the tax authorities, to find out if suspects have any debt to the State and if so the police may seize their personal items, in the words of prime minister Mette Frederiksen they will seize: “(…) gold chains, expensive watches and dune jackets”. The Social-democratic party is showing more and more its true face as social-chauvinists, doing their best effort to divide the class and people.