IF Metall continues its crusade against the Sweden Democrats and SD politicians. Now, a person active in the party has been removed from their role as secretary of the IF Metall club at a company in southern Sweden.

According to IF Metall, a position of trust with them is not compatible with assignments in other organizations “that actively oppose the trade union movement and do not share our fundamental values on the equal value of all people,” and they consider the Sweden Democrats to be such an organization.

For the past two years, Magnus Lennartsson has been the secretary and safety representative at the Pipelife IF Metall club. In addition to his work, he is also the chairman for the Sweden Democrats in Herrljunga. When the union branch visited the workplace last autumn, he was suddenly told that he had to either give up politics or resign from his position of trust for IF Metall. Lennartsson did neither, and a couple of weeks ago, he received a letter stating that he was removed from his positions of trust within IF Metall.

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“It’s tragic. Am I not worth as much as others? I’m skilled and have been doing this for many years, and I’ve been active in unions since the early ’90s in many different unions,” says Magnus Lennartsson to Dagens Arbete.

Lennartsson thinks it’s ridiculous to claim that the Sweden Democrats would oppose the trade union movement and not share fundamental values on the equal value of all people, and he states that he pursues more social democratic politics than the Social Democrats themselves.

IF Metall’s federation leadership. From left; Tomas With, deputy federal chairman, Simon Petersson, contract secretary, Marie Nilsson, federation chairman, Martin Gunnarsson, federal secretary. Photo: Stefan Jerrevång

Did a good job

Jan Laine is the head safety representative for IF Metall at Pipelife and regrets that Lennartsson cannot keep his position of trust. Laine confirms that he has done a good job and that no one had anything bad to say about Lennartsson.

Mika Andersson, chairman of the board for IF Metall’s chapter in Borås, however, sees nothing wrong with the decision.

“We have members with roots all over the world. And we are their union. They need to be able to trust that at every hour of the day, in every place in the country, they can be represented by people who are also chosen because they stand for the shared values,” he says.

According to Andersson, the Sweden Democrats see people from non-European and non-Nordic countries as a problem, “while we in IF Metall see them as colleagues.”

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