ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the consequences of occupational polarisation in terms of changes in trade union membership levels and attitudes towards unions. The aim is to explore whether such changes have occurred, among which categories, and to what extent they are related to institutional changes in the Swedish industrial relations system. The chapter describes the main institutional changes: the decentralisation of wage formation, and the changes in both the unemployment insurance funds and the regulation of employment forms during the period from the mid-1980s to 2010. Against this background, the chapter analyses the change in union density among different groups on the Swedish labour market. The focus then turns to changes in attitudes to trade unions, based on surveys conducted in 1997, 2006 and 2018. The analyses focus on whether employees prefer to negotiate wages individually or collectively through trade unions, and on what issues workers of different categories think trade unions should pursue.
