Sweden: School students and parents boycott school meal fees

TV and newspaper covers campaign in Sweden

“Elevkampanjen appeals to every school student to refuse to pay the 500SEK fee for school lunch”, says the front page of ’Mitt i Haninge’, a weekly newspaper distributed to every household in Haninge, south of Stockholm. Regional TV covered the protests on Tuesday night. Elevkampanjen is a socialist youth organisation with young CWI members in the leadership.

Since the 1940s, school lunch has been free in Sweden, as part of the welfare state. Following the destruction of welfare, fees have been introduced in a number of councils, with the effect, in some cases, that between a third and half of the school students do not get any school lunch.

In the mid 90’s Elevkampanjen and Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden) led campaigns which stopped fees in three towns. The campaign now launched has the same purpose.

”We will call for a boycott of this fee. We argue that no one should pay…, says Mattias Bernhardsson, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna”,

reported the daily Stockholm paper ‘Metro’.

In the first week of the campaign, more than 60 parents and school students applied to join the campaign, and more than 240 copies of tej Swedish CWI weekly paper, ‘Offensiv’, have been sold.

Special financial appeal to all readers of socialistworld.net

Support building alternative socialist media Socialistworld.net provides a unique analysis and perspective of world events. Socialistworld.net also plays a crucial role in building the struggle for socialism across all continents. Capitalism has failed! Assist us to build the fight-back and prepare for the stormy period of class struggles ahead. Please make a donation to help us reach more readers and to widen our socialist campaigning work across the world.

Donate via Paypal

Liked this article? We need your support to improve our work. Please become a Patron! and support our work