Norway

Tjen Folket Media reports that in Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand demonstrations against rising electricity prices were held, with the demand of maximum 50 cents (norwegian crown) per kWh. In Bergen about 1000 people were in the demonstration, and a speech from a government party was denounced by the masses. In Stavanger about 300 people were demonstrating, and the “left” and right parliamentarian politicians were denounced by the masses.

In Kristiansand 400-500 people demonstrated, and although right wing parties tried to co-opt the demonstration to harvest voters (since they are in parliamentary opposition), the masses were present with their just demands.

Finland

Punalippu reports that in Jämsänkoski, Lappeenranta, Kouvola, Rauma, Valkeakoski and Pietarsaari, workers at the foresting company UPM are striking, due to worsening working conditions, that are deviating from the current collective union agreement. Now the Helsinki District Court has ruled that certain workers cannot strike, and must continue working or pay a fine. This is mainly for the workers providing utilities, and as the board director said of UPM said: “The right to strike is extensive in Finland, but strikes must also be acted upon responsibly and in the interests of society”. The strike has now been going on for three weeks and the union expects to continue for at least two weeks more. UPM refuses to negotiate, unless it is on their terms.

This constitutes a change in the usual functioning of the labor agreements, since the company refuses to follow the agreement and the state is approving this. As the comrades write this will surely cause many workers to open their eyes, that the proletariat cannot depend on the bourgeoisie to dictate its working conditions.

Sweden

In Gothenburg the city council is proposing to convert more public housing apartments (state owned apartments), into apartments that can only be rented if a share in the housing association is bought (non-ownership co-operative housing), which would make the apartments harder to afford. This will also mean that the shares bought are subject to speculation, which eventually contributes to the overall rising cost of housing in all types of housing, so that more and more of wages have to be used for housing, acting as an effective wage decrease, leading to further exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Already the waiting lists for these public apartments are many years long, since they make up most of rental housing that is available for the deepest and broadest masses, with the only alternative expensive private rentals.

This shows the disdain the state has for the masses, a low-income family can hardly survive if they can’t get public housing and the demand is high, but the city council pretends that making even less housing units available for rental is a solution. It is obviously just a move to squeeze even more money out of the masses, to fatten the slumlords wallet and in the long term to end the system of public housing. These attacks take several forms, whether it is converting rentals to “co-operative housing”, introducing “market rent” or any other attempt to dismantle the housing rights won by the proletariat, the attacks from the bourgeoisie are manifold, and one must not get caught in the defeatist web spun by the revisionists, who claim that only defense of the current state can be done, such as how the “Left Party” tries to co-opt these struggles to gain voters.

The public housing system only came to be as a result of class struggle, now the bourgeoisie is trying to reverse these achievements by stealing the homes from the masses, but this has already lead to the increased class struggle for housing, for now the movement has been focused on defending what has been already won, we must have faith in the masses that even more can be conquered, if the proletarian revolutionaries heed the call.