The union The Onion
Unionen ("the Union") is a new Swedish mega-union which was established on Jan 1, 2008 through a merger between HTF and SIF. In its member publication Kollega, a number of people are being compared to animals. Inter forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the peacock of the year for being more eyecandy than an asset on the field. (Yeah right, he's only one of the top football forwards in the world.) Personal coach Mia Törnblom is called a cockroach for being too visible on tv.The union's own chairman, Mari-Ann Krantz, gets a nicer treatment and is named the elephant of the year because she is heading such a grandiose union. Perhaps she should be named the great cormorant (storskarv) of the year instead. The cormorant is, as you may know, a bird that often pollutes the environment with its ammounium rich droppings which kills vegetation.
Mari-Ann Krantz is apparently going against the union's own environmental policy when she choses to fly instead of taking the train, because it is not practically possible for her to travel by any other means.
"Unionen tar sitt ansvar och agerar föredömligt genom att, då det är praktiskt möjligt, välja ett miljövänligare alternativ."
That may of course be ok, I can understand the difficulty of living in Alingsås, working in Stockholm and managing your schedule. But if the union has environmental ambitions, she should lead by example and at least consider her carbon footprint. She says that she never considered compensating for the carbon emissions, which would cost about 1 euro for a flight between Göteborg and Stockholm. The Union or The Onion? The more you peel...
Disclosure: I was once a member of SIF.
