Several Swedish authors, for example Axel Adlercreutz and Bernt Schiller, have claimed that the worker’s duty of obedience got relatively little attention in the political debate, since the main interest was focused on the workers’ protection against unfair dismissals.The battle, in particular during the worsened economic conditions of the 1920s, primarily concerned the right of association and the aim to restrict the employers’ right to dismiss workers who had joined a trade union.The workers never intended to deny the employers their “natural” right to decide what workforce they wanted or their right to be the sole leaders of the enterprise.The union movement was “considerably less interested in the industrial democracy in a broad sense or in ‘the right to direct and distribute’ the work”.350 Focusing on the duty of loyalty, Lennart Svensäter asserts that the bills during the first decade of the 20th century shifted their basic outlook on the relationship of employment, in the sense that the “personal” bonds between the parties became less important. According to Svensäter this might be explained as an ambition to establish political compromises and legislative texts that were acceptable to different political groups.351 Folke Schmidt has claimed several times that the workers’ representatives in the labour court did not question the duty of obedience in itself or of performing other tasks than their usual ones. The disputes have concerned what salary should be paid when the employer orders the worker to perform a new type of task and how to consider the boundaries between different trade unions.“The workers have had no objections as such to performing the tasks in question”.352 But the debate about the contract of employment ultimately concerned what parts of the contract should be regulated in adp a r t i v, c h a p t e r 7 172 350 Adlercreutz, A1954, pp. 344-346; Schiller 1974, pp. 305, 307-308, 312-313, quotation p. 332; Lundh 1987, p. 111-112; Göransson 1988, p. 293. 351 Svensäter 1991, p. 38. 352 Schmidt, F 1957, p. 220 and in Geijer, & Schmidt 1958, pp. 294-295:“Arbetarna har i och för sig icke haft något emot att utföra de omtvistade arbetena”.
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