c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 203 unthinkable to use an act to force an employer to keep a worker with whom he could not cooperate. Furthermore, the section 23 rule from the December compromise of 1906 had been incorporated into many collective agreements and in such manner had set a border for the employer’s possibility to attack the worker’s right of association by dismissing people.414 The majority of the special parliamentary committee that reformulated the proposal held that legislation on individual agreements was necessary in order to set up boundaries for the mutual rights and obligations of employers and workers,“which my be found to correspond to normal conditions”.The boundaries could of course be changed by an agreement if it did not conflict with custom or binding legal enactments.415 The question of what customs were really “normal” appears, however, to have been more complicated than so. Several speeches made during the parliamentary debates reveal that the labour market was far from being considered as characterised by firm and generally accepted customs. Instead, whenever a collective agreement was reached, section23 was also the subject of a controversy. Therefore some of the promoters of the bill held that it was necessary to stipulate the employer’s “general human rights”. Just as “inalienable” as the employer’s right to enter into a work agreement with whomever he liked was his right to direct and distribute work. Seen in the light of the fact that workers from certain trade unions tried to gain a monopoly on hiring, the regulation to give section 23 legal protection arose to the advantage of the weaker party, i. e. the employer.416 414 AK1910:60, pp. 29-36. See also Söderberg from Hobborn, AK1910:60, pp. 43-45. 415 SU2 1910:6, p. 42. 416 FK1910:34, pp. 31-32. MAK1910:274 and AK1910:59, pp. 19-21, 26-27 (Pettersson from Bjälbo).
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