Help yourself and heaven will help you: the unions of employees of the Church of Sweden put an end to an unprecedented strike movement on Wednesday which threatened to extend to priests, after an agreement with their employers' organization.
The call for the strike, which so far only concerned part of the staff (caretakers and crematorium employees) was launched last week in the face of the failure of negotiations with the leadership of the Swedish Lutheran Church. , still in the majority in the country but faced with a decline in its resources.
With 24,000 employees, the former state church has only 5.8 million members – who pay a specific tax to finance it – compared to more than 7 million in the 1970s. The unions, led by the organization Communal,
To discover
YOUR COMMUNE - The results of the second round of the presidential election in your area
Taxes 2022: all about your tax return
Read alsoThe Church of Sweden has elected its new council
On Tuesday evening, the employers' organization of the Church of Sweden finally accepted the new agreement proposed by the unions.
"
We would have liked to go further, but we are taking our responsibility so that the key activity of the Church of Sweden can continue to function
," said the Church's chief negotiator, Cecilia Herm, in a press release.
In the absence of an agreement, the strike threatened to extend to priests and other members of clerical institutions on Friday, which could then disrupt baptisms, weddings and other major events of the faithful.
A historic first
This is the first time in its history that Sweden has had a call for a strike within its Church, even if the social movement has remained limited.
For the unions, this reversal on the part of the Church is a victory.
"
We naturally welcome that the employer has rethought its approach and that it has accepted our proposal
," Markus Furuberg, negotiator for one of the unions that called for the strike, told AFP.
The Church has long played a central role in the lives of Swedes, but religious practice has collapsed in recent decades.
Until the 1950s, Swedes were automatically attached to a religious community at birth.
The introduction of a new religious freedom law in 1951 allowed them to leave the