| 1. |
- Ahnland, Lars, 1974-
(författare)
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The wage share and government job creation in Sweden, 1900–2016
- 2020
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Ingår i: Labor history. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 61:3-4, s. 228-246
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This investigation explores the long-run relationship between the wage share in the non-construction private sector and government efforts to create jobs in public services and construction of infrastructure and houses, in Sweden in 1900 to 2016. In the present article, it is argued that the creation of employment with generous wages by the Swedish government has increased the bargaining power of workers outside of these sectors, thus raising the wage share, up to about 1980. Correspondingly, retrenchment from such policy has been detrimental for the wage share in recent decades. This argument is supported by the results of cointegration tests, estimation of long-run and short-run, speed of adjustment, coefficients, as well as by Impulse-response functions. While government consumption is often found to be an important determinant for the wage share, earlier research has neglected the full labor market effect of government job creation associated with an expansion of the welfare state. Sweden is an ideal case for studying the impact of welfare policy on the wage share, since it has been one of the most extensive welfare states and simultaneously has been one of the most egalitarian countries in the world.
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| 2. |
- Andersson, Lars Fredrik, Docent, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Did statutory insurance improve the welfare of Swedish workers? : The statutory workplace accident insurance act of 1916
- 2022
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Ingår i: Labor history. - : Routledge. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 63, s. 210-233
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Welfare researchers have regarded statutory accident insurance in 1916 as a starting point for the exceptional expansion of the Swedish welfare state. However, rather less attention has been paid to the roles played by mutual insurance societies and employer compensation schemes in offering voluntary welfare protection. We argue that voluntary welfare protection was an integral part of the early-twentieth century welfare system and played a crucial role in protecting workers in the case of sickness and accident. We also examine the limitations of these arrangements and explore the ways in which the design of the statutory scheme ensured that there was a continuing role for voluntary provision after the new Act came into operation. We also explore the impact of the scheme on wage levels, and show how its introduction eroded the wage premiums which had previously been earned by workers in high-risk industries.
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| 3. |
- Broström, Lovisa
(författare)
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The neglected female unemployment in Sweden during the Great Depression
- 2019
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Ingår i: Labor History. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 60, s. 704-715
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The unemployment statistics of the 1930s’ Great Depression have often been used as a way of estimating the endurance and severity of the economic crisis in different countries. The Swedish unemployment data have, among other things, been used in comparison with the American data to describe the different economic development that these two countries experienced during the twentieth century. Sweden’s ‘work approach’ to unemployment during the Great Depression has also been highlighted in earlier research as an answer to the question of why Sweden managed the Great Depression quite well and was able to kick-start the development of the welfare state. Unfortunately, the official unemployment data mainly covered men; female unemployment has been neglected both in the official records and in earlier research, and the praised ‘work approach’ only targeted male unemployment. In this paper, a new and previously neglected source of unemployment data is brought into the light in the form of poor relief statistics. From this information, a new estimation of the female unemployment during the Great Depression is made, which questions the grand conclusions that have been reached regarding the connections of the crisis and the later welfare state construction.
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| 4. |
- Gill-McLure, Whyeda, et al.
(författare)
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Reconstructing resistance and renewal in public service unionism in the twenty-first century : lessons from a century of war and peace
- 2018
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Ingår i: Labor history. - : Routledge. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 59:1, s. 3-14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This special issue uses the occasion of the centenary of the Whitley Commission Reports to illuminate the contemporary crisis in public service industrial relations from a historical perspective. In all six countries studiedBritain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the USApublic service employment is labour intensive and quantitatively significant in the overall economy. Public services have also been major targets of neoliberal reforms, starting in the UK and the USA at the turn of the 1980s and in the other countries about a decade later. In addition, the relatively high union density and the political dimension of public services and public union strategies have been major targets of new public management and more latterly austerity. However, the regressive period has had a differential impact in different countries. In the liberal market economies of the UK and the USA, the neoliberal turn has destabilised traditional patterns of public sector industrial relations to greatest effect. While in the more coordinated market economies, traditional arrangements and values have been more resistant to austerity and neoliberal reforms. We attempt to shed light on these differential impacts through a critical analysis of the historical evolution of public sector industrial relations in each country.
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| 5. |
- Grönberg, Per-Olof, et al.
(författare)
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Desirable skills? : Non-Nordic citizens applying for work permits in Sweden, 1947–1950
- 2015
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Ingår i: Labor history. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 56:4, s. 481-498
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sweden's rapid economic growth after the Second World War meant that the native labour supply was incapable of meeting the high demand, especially for industrial labourers. Three agreements on organised collective transfers were signed, but a large majority of the labour migrants came on their own initiative. Not all applicants were equally welcomed. In this article, logistic regressions are used to investigate a sample of 2830 (every fifth) applications to the National Labour Market Board (AMS) from the years 1947–1950; 1367 had an arrangement with a future Swedish employer, while 1463 applicants lacked such an arrangement. The likelihood of being granted a permit was 11 times higher for the first category. Our hypothesis that the chances were better for high-skilled workers proved true only in part; it was valid if they had an employer agreement. Contrary to our assumptions, women had a better chance than men, partly because domestic servants were always permitted and partly because women did not compete with male labour. However, our assumptions with regard to better chances for the young but experienced, and for those applying for the occupation wherein they had their experience held true. A number of official documents revealed the desirability of Sudeten German labourers. They were viewed as skilled, reliable and loyal by employers, labour unions and governmental authorities. This assumption only held true for applicants lacking an employer. This can be viewed as a prolongation of the practice of helping Sudeten German Social Democrats, established in 1938. The intention to help refugees was, however, also evident in the treatment of Baltic and Polish applicants.
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| 6. |
- Hamark, Jesper, 1973
(författare)
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Strikingly indifferent: the myth of militancy on the docks prior to World War II
- 2013
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Ingår i: Labor History. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 54:3, s. 271-285
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dock workers have a reputation of being particularly strike-prone, across time and space. This is the spectre of Kerr and Siegel: one of the few things that has survived the passage of time since their 1950s article on inter-industry propensity to strike is the dockers' disposition to stop work. But, Kerr and Siegel's own results show that the dockers' militancy was in fact modest. More recent research has taken as an article of faith the strike-proneness of dockers. True, dock workers and their conflicts have attracted much attention. But, the reason is not the frequency of strikes in the ports but dockers' crucial position in distribution.
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| 7. |
- Heinemann, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Unpacking Coercion in Gendered War Labour
- 2023
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Ingår i: Labor history. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 64:3, s. 225-237
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- While in recent decades there have been growing bodies of literature on gender and war, on war and military labor, and on various forms and degrees of labor coercion, rarely have these areas – gender, coercion and war labor – been analyzed together as intersecting and interdependent themes. The special issue on Gender, War and Coerced Labor aims to fill this gap, and this introduction to the issue will not only present the five papers but also establish the three intersecting themes uniting these papers. Together the introduction and the papers contribute toward larger debates about the place of coercion, of degrees of exploitation, and of free/unfree continuums in a variety of gendered war work.
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| 8. |
- Håkansson, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Networks and labor market entry – a historical perspective
- 2017
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Ingår i: Labor history. - : Routledge. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 58:1, s. 67-90
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper discusses how recruitment practices have changed over time. Networks and contacts are more important today for labor market entry than was the case in the latter half of the twentieth century. There may be two explanations for this: the short-run explanation and the long-run explanation. The short-run explanation derives from fluctuations in unemployment. When unemployment is high, competition for every vacancy is tougher and networks become more important for the job seeker. This has been the case in Sweden since 1991, when unemployment increased to new levels not experienced since the 1930s. In the long run, there has been a change in recruitment practices due to institutional change. A clear pattern is that the importance of social networks has increased, while the significance of public institutions (i.e. the Public Employment Service) has decreased.
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| 9. |
- Jansson, Jenny, 1979-
(författare)
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From movement to organization : Constructing identity in Swedish trade unions
- 2013
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Ingår i: Labor history. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 54:3, s. 301--320
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study argues that re-formation of working-class identity was crucial for the construction of a cohesive labour movement in Sweden. Analysis of the materials used in trade union study circles in the 1920s and 1930s reveals that the organizational identity constructed by the leadership was closely linked to the organization as a phenomenon rather than to the class structure on which it was based. This was a response to the left-wing organizations, communists and syndicalists, that challenged the reformist labour movement in the 1920s and an attempt to create unity in the reformist branch of the labour movement.
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| 10. |
- Jansson, Olle, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Collective agreements against labor market risks in Sweden : The case of the PTK-SAF employment security agreement
- 2021
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Ingår i: Labor history. - London : Taylor & Francis. - 0023-656X .- 1469-9702. ; 62:3, s. 316-333
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Occupational welfare as an alternative to public welfare for the protection against social risks has lately attracted increased attention. However, there is no clear agreement on the causes behind the emergence and expansion of occupational welfare schemes in modern welfare states. This article contributes to this subject through a study of one specific form of occupational welfare in Sweden, called Employment Security or Transition Agreements, and the agreements between the bargaining cartel for white-collar employees PTK and the Confederation of private-sector employers SAF/SN from the 1970s until the present time. Based on archival material and articles, the article finds that the protection provided through the agreement expanded during the 1970s and 1980s but has since been reduced, even though the unions finding such solutions more important than ever. Despite the relative strength of Swedish unions, they are not able to sufficiently address increased labor market risks brought about by welfare state retrenchment and structural change.
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