RB 64

c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 201 sional integrity and certain restriction in the duty of obedience, which most closely corresponded to guild legislation, the 1864 regulation on freedom of trade, the bill of 1901, and now some wordings of the bill of 1910. In the third part of the proposed act, which dealt with the establishment of a labour court, the government emphasised the importance of the members of the court possessing knowledge not only about the historical development of collective agreements, but also the views and legal opinions on each side.The court was to consist of seven members, namely, three legal experts with judge’s competence, two representatives from the employers’ organisations and two from the workers’ organisations. Only in this way could full understanding be reached concerning what the parties wanted to put into the regulations of the collective agreement and what this “could be considered to mean”. At the same time, it was held necessary that the court should also have a professional jurist in order to solve the legal difficulties when formulating a ruling.411 There was an intensive debate about the proposed act in the 1910 parliament.Among other things, critics held that the issues had not been sufficiently investigated. Another objection was that the proposals left great scope for sympathy actions during the period of the collective agreement in force, which was held to be to the advantage of the employers.412 For our investigation, it is of great interest to study the extensive, yet by research seldom noticed, discussion dealing with the worker’s duty of obedience and the employer’s right to freely make use of his workforce.The debate, moreover, reflected the lack of agreement about what importance should be attributed 8. 3. 2 the conse rvat ive s ’ arguments 411 Prop. 1910:96, Förslag till lag om särskild domstol i vissa arbetstvister (Act on a Labour Court Bill), sections 3, 4, pp. 8-9, 48-50. SU2 1910:6, pp. 23-25. 412 MAK1910:272. SU2 1910:6, pp. 136-141. AK1910:58, pp. 16-20 (Schotte).

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