• The fundraiser to help the union employ sacked national deputy chairman Erik Helgeson is a huge success. Thanks to solid support from the international dockworker community and the Swedish public, the SDU has received close to 48 000 Euros so far. This will guarantee that the port employers will have to deal with our elected representative Erik on a daily basis for a long time.

• The Swedish Dockworkers’ Union can now prove that the sacking of Erik wasn’t initiated due to the union’s legal blockade against handling weapons going to and from Israel during the assault on Gaza. The Swedish Labour Court has now been informed that the attack on the SDU in general and Erik in particular, was in fact planned by the DFDS-owned Gothenburg Roro Terminal and APM Terminals Gothenburg as far back as 2023.

The company strategy entailed harassing and provoking Erik and other union reps in order to sabotage union activity and provide a cover story for unionbusting layoffs. The companies knew that they lacked the legal grounds for laying off Erik but calculated that they could afford to simply ignore any verdict of wrongful termination and pay the damages.

• The employers’ unionbusting plan involved blacklisting Erik from all work on the Swedish docks, in order to stop him from standing in any future union election. The companies actually studied the SDU’s statues and concluded that it would impossible for him to be re-relected if he was no longer active in the profession.

That part of the plan has now failed. Erik is back working on the docks in another port, after being cleared in all necessary security screenings.