Election Guide 2002 - Sweden.se

profit considerations. The same goes for schools, preschool
education and elderly care. Cutbacks, coupled
with privatisation, have led to a deterioration of elderly
care. Staff, a majority of whom are women, are wearing
themselves out and sickness rates are skyrocketing. Now
more money and more employees are needed in
municipalities and county councils, to ensure quality,
reasonable rates of pay and good working conditions.
The people working in caring services and schools must
be able to influence the way in which their work is
organised and their activities develop. Deeper
democracy and participation are important, both for
employees and for users and citizens.
Fair environmental space
The Left Party maintains that infrastructure of vital
importance to the community – energy, utilities and
waterworks, for example – must be owned by the people
together and not operated solely on a profit-making
basis. The wastage of resources can be reduced through
a green taxation shift. Enforcement of environmental
and chemical legislation must be made much more
efficient. Penalties for environmental crimes should be
increased and it must be made easier to secure
convictions against those guilty of such crimes. The Left
Party is also working to achieve gender equality and
coherence in traffic policy. Public transport must be
expanded and transport operations transferred from
roads to railways and shipping.
Global justice
Global co-operation and international solidarity are
necessary if we are to overcome the enormous problems
facing the world today. There are more poor people and
more very rich people in the world than ever before. At
the same time there are resources which mean that
nobody should need to suffer poverty or starvation. The
problem concerns the distribution of those resources.
The Left Party takes the view that the indebtedness of
poor countries to the affluent world must be reduced
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