Here comes the written transcript of the lecture I gave about the Trondheim Model at the ESU in Saarbrücken in the Forum “Which economic concept gives power to the people?” 08-03-08. (It may vary slightly from the verbal talk) You can download an mp3-file of the entire Forum here:
http://www.european-summer-university.eu/media/documentation/sonntag/dem...

This short contribution will perhaps be more about a method for accomplishing change than about the change itself, but I will briefly touch in on what I believe to be a viable alternative to new public management.

I was asked to speak about the labor unions as they have had a certain sucess in Trondheim – norways 3d. largest city, and I believe this model can be exported – in fact it is already. I spoke to the secretary of the LO (the largest union) in Trondheim just last week, and he was going to Finland to hold a lecture on it, and the swedish author Aron Etzler has also written a book on it. It's only available in swedish but its quite easy swedish so I have no problems recommendingit. And I also believe it could form a good starting point for some discussions in Attac as well.

I'll say two lines about myself as its slightly relevant. In addition to being an Attacie in Trondheim, I am also a Labor Unionist in Trondheim, and I am a politician in the County Council representing a small socialist party – so I have both an Attac-perspective – a union perspective, and a politicians perspective to local politics. Luckily - there are no conflicting interests.

Then I will try to give you the political postwar history of Norway in two minutes to give you the necessary background.

From 45 till the 80s norway was dominated by a large social democratic labor party – similar to many european countries. Then came neoliberalism – I dont think I need to tell you that story. Mainly instated by the labor party (and shifting conservative coalitions) 80s till 2000s.

The unions naturally reacted to neoliberalism – their main point of focus initially was privatization which worked to undermine workers rights fought for for many years. So during the latter half of the nineties the Trondheim Conference which has left opposition roots, but has grown to be the second largest labor congress in norway, second only to the national congress, was an important workshop to work out a manifest against privatisation. This manifest overcame a traditional boundary between the public and private sector unions by a common understanding that privatization in the public sector was similar to outsourcing in the private sector.

So to the strategy – what has the labor union in trondheim done?

1. Be an independent political force!

Traditionally the labor unions in norway have been working politically by giving financial support to the social democratic labor party. This has continued although the bonds between the party and the unions has been loosende and there has been an increasing unrest in the labor unions with the political development of the labor party from the 80s and throughout the nineties.

The labor unions in trondheim sought to change this by applying the following principles:

* No money to the parties! Spend everything on the unions OWN campaign!
* Make demands and support the parties who support the unions demands
* Be concrete in your demands. Yes/no questions (option of additional remarks from the parties)
* And thus – Leaflets were made and distributed.

2. Build alliances!

In Norway as in most countries we have different unions. One important task is to bring as many of them together as possible to get the full width of the labor unions backing the demands. Also as I mentioned earlier – bridging gaps between public and private sector unions.

And here I have a job for Attac! I believe that an important role for Attac can be to widen the perspective beyond the labor movement and be the glue between the unions and the NGOs, the solidarity/envirinmental org. and so on...

In Norway we partially managed this in the 2005 elections, where we made coalitions between Attac the unions and other org. in Oslo Bergen and Trondheim. I was the coordinator of this work in Trondheim. In my experience this is NOT a thing the unions themselves will take the initiative to, and in Trondheim this was a parallell action to the unions own. I'd say we're halfway there , but we still got a bit to go.

3. Be on the Offence!

For a long time, at least in Norway, it has felt like we're always fighting to defend what we have got, and never for offensive goals – the unions and the NGOs have been on the defence.

One of the most central aspects of the Trondheim Model is therefore to make demands that shows it is possible to go forward not just to back up a little more slowly.

4. Show off the results!

To make people come back for more you must show them that it actually worked. In Trondheim the 2003-elections where this started spurred the most ideological political campaign in decades and ended a decade long period of conservative rule.

Many of the demands from the unions «trondheim manifest» were accomplished. F.eks.

- stopped privatization of communal helth services, of the cinema, etc.

- privatized nursing homes were re-communalized. The same with buildings maintenance services, and others

- reversed new public management reformes in city management and all communaly run services

AND:
Instead of New Public Management you got introduced the Model Commune Methodic. Instead of competition in constructed markets you got a 3-party cooperativ model in which the employees, the politicians and the administrative leaders together work out ways to improve the services. Given time I might get back to this.

5. Mobilize!

You need a long democratic process in the organization in working out the demands to the parties prior to the election. This creates ownership and debate on workplaces and in other fora.

6. Establish arenas between the progressive parties and the unions!

The unions must be active also after the elections and follow up on the demands. In trondheim there are currently also 19 trade unionists elected from the 3 parties on the left. The work is not over after the election.

These 6. points in short are the Trondheim Model. I believe the trade unions could be one of the most important partners for Attac in working politically, and if Attac can cooperate with unions along these lines – of course with local diferences – I believe change is possible. We need to take the initiative back from elitist political parties, and get the politics – and our issues – in focus and out to people. This is one way of doing that.

So a shot postamble:

The national LO copied the Trondheim strategy in 2005 and gave Norway perhaps the most radical government in Europe. I'm sorry to say currently that may not tell you much.

But in 2007 the coalition who won Trondheim won again, ths time with an even larger majority.

This was a sunny story – but of course there are also challenges, which I don't have the time for here, but I might get back to in the Q&A if any of you wold like to ask me what they are.