”Tillmälen och glåpord haglade”. Om dagspressens formering av ”strejkande”, ”strejkbrytare” och ”arbetsvillig”

Abstract

”Epithets and insults rained”. On the daily newspapers formation of”strikers”,”strike breakers” and”willing to work”

The starting point of this article is a violent situation in Malmö 1926 involving three female strikebreakers hired at the Wahlgren & Nordqvists paperstock warehouse, a crowd of hostile pursuers, and a young male. The situation climaxed with the young male physically pushing and hitting one of the female strikebreakers before she could break loose and escape the situation. But why did the young male become violent? As it seems there was no connection between him and the strike in which the women were involved. I have chosen to seek the answer in the ongoing debate about strikes and strikebreaking in the city’s newspapers. The purpose of the article is thus to study the formation of”striker”,”strike-breaker” and”willing to work” (”arbetsvillig”) in Malmö in the daily newspapers in 1926. I use articles first and foremost from the social-democratic newspaper Arbetet and from the conservative Skånska Aftonbladet. Studying the reports of strikes and strikebreaking (though focusing on the strike at Wahlgren & Nordqvists) I conclude that ”striker”, ”strike-breaker” and ”willing to work” were categories very much in contention and debated of whether to be included in the working class at large or not. One strategy used by the newspapers involved the idea of the Swedish working class as well-behaved and rational and thus forming the antagonists, whether labeled ”striker”, ”strike-breaker” or ”willing to work”, as violent and irrational to weaken their position. I also show that the newspapers used metaphors and irony to criminalize, make fun of, and thus, exclude the antagonists as a forming of the Other.