Bland fackliga strategier och nyliberala villkor - en diskursanalys av Vårdförbundets tal om likalöneprincipen

This thesis investigates how Vårdförbundet, a Swedish trade union organizing nursing personnel, articulates the problem of the wage gap between men and women. Using discourse analysis, it also focuses on through what kind of strategies members are encouraged and assumed to achieve pay equity. The main finding is that a neoliberal discourse is highly present in the way of which the problem is thought of. This in the way of how individual strategies are being advocated, and how the market forces understood as harmonic and legitimate are involved in the construction of meaning. The union expresses that their concern is to strengthen the members, mainly consisting of women in their struggle of being paid equally. But the strong neoliberal discourse influences the strategies that are given at hand and the union expresses ambivalence. In order to require higher pay, the women are constructed as being the ones who has to change and adopt the premises upon which the labour market relies