c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 227 expressed strong confidence in the judges of the state’s legal system and argued that the circumstance that a person was versed in law should be seen as something in favour of that person instead of ruling him incompetent. The history of Swedish labour law during the first decade of the 20th century shows a clear and quick shift in the attitudes of the employers and the state to the trade union movement and collective solutions. During the period 1900-1914, the making of Swedish labour law shifted from public law to private law, and the attitude of the state as well as employers was moving from one of toleration to recognition and even to efforts to integrate the unions into the state’s legal system. The starting point was a comparatively mild form of repression that was stated in, among other legislation, the so-called Åkarp Act of 1899, to toleration by the founding of the Swedish Employers’ Confederation in 1902, the Metal Trade Agreement of 1905 (Sw. Verkstadsavtalet) and the “December compromise” of 1906.This moved quickly over to recognition and the clear indications of integration that can be found in the Act on arbitration of 1906, the proposal of the labour law committee that was appointed in1907 and the bills of 1910 and 1911.What is illuminating is that the proposals of 1900 and 1901 concerned individual contracts only, while the proposals of 1910 and1911 extended the scope to the binding force of collective agreements and obligatory arbitration by a labour court. The common point of departure for the bills of 1910 and 1911 respectively, however, was the ideas found in the Olin-Åkerman memorandum of 1907 that reflected a breakthrough for important parts of the “new” legislative programme that now received greater support among employers and by the Swedish Employers Confederation; the legal regulation of the organisations’position, 8. 4. 2 the inte ract ion betwe en the contract of employment and collect ivi sm?
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