Hur kommunicerar fackförbundet Unionen med sina medlemmar?
Påverkas kommunikationen av det minskade antalet lokala klubbar?
The purpose of this study is to investigate differences of how the Swedishemployees union ?Unionen? communicates with its members, on one hand thosewho are members of local union clubs and on the other non-club members. Thenumber of non-club members has increased due to labour market changes implyingthat workplaces have been fragmented and hence affect the possibility to form localunion clubs.The questions posed in the study are: How does Unionen communicate with itsmembers? How does the communication differ between club members and non-clubmembers? What are the preferences of Unionen´s members as far as communicationwith the central organization? What kind of information do the members seek andhow do they find it? What values does Unionen represent? Are there differencesbetween the messages that Unionen is sends out and how members and non-clubmembers, respectively, perceive them?A case study method has been used applying both quantitative and qualitativeanalyses. Quantitative methods have been used in illustrating the number ofdiscussion subjects at Unionen´s website, the members needs for receivingcommunication and channel usage while qualitative methodologies have been usedin interviews with Unionen´s members, club chairmen and union representatives aswell as semiotic picture analyses and analyses based on methods of Uses andgratifications theory.One conclusion of the study is that two significant differences of communicationhave been found between members and non-club members. The club chairmen saythat they have less communication with non-club members and the non-clubmembers? claim that Unionen´s messages are more biased. A second conclusion isthat there is a difference in the preferred choice of communication channels. Themembers suggest that e-mail, the member magazine and verbal communication workbest while ?Unionen? put a lot of its faith in electronic channels, such as web-sites.A third conclusion is that members request more locally relevant information andthat they see the Unionen´s communication as too general, creating muchuncertainty of the objectives of ?Unionen´s? communication