c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 283 about something that was already agreed upon in the collective agreement, or if the dispute was of a different character. Even if there was a need for stability on the labour market, it was feared that the generally included regulation in collective agreements about the right of the employer to direct and distribute work as well as to freely engage and dismiss workers in reality would give the workers a worse position. An example could be that a company owner who was considering dismissing a worker under conditions that could lead to a strike would have to think carefully before he exposed himself to such a risk. Legislation would eliminate the workers’ possibility to strike and replace it with factors that were more calculable for the employer such as damages and injunctions to rehire a worker who had been dismissed. Johansson’s conclusion was that the proposals would “hamper a healthy development in the field of labour law”.580 As was the case with the parliaments of 1910 and 1911, noticeably many Social Democrats were critical of giving increased influence to professional judges, a profession that they met with great distrust. The critics feared that professional judges would hold the balance in the labour court’s decisions and would then favour the employers by re-interpreting interest disputes into legal disputes and by doing so wrench the strike weapon from the hands of the workers.581 Thus several of the Social Democrats and Communists held that the “mentality” of the labour court, due to the legally trained judges’ social background, would correspond to the employers’ interests rather than the workers’. Richard Sandler andVärner Rydén felt that in important aspects the bills were an expression of formalistic and bureaucratic doctrinal legalism as opposed to other countries that had brought together persons from both sides for free and open dicussions.582 580 AK1928:38, pp. 3-9. 581 Prop. 1928:39, pp. 39-45. 582 FK1928:35, p. 124 (Sandler); AK1928:38, pp. 115-119 (Rydén). An impartial labour court?
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