had to reflect the general concept of justice and thus summarise the practice that had developed between the parties on the labour market. Although LO’s chairman, Herman Lindqvist, had been involved in making, and thus legitimating the proposal, the legislation was never passed, mainly due to the firm resistance from the labour movement’s grass roots. Nor this time was the labour law issue removed from the sector of state intervention. In1920, a parliamentary act established a central board for voluntary arbitration. After the introduction of political democracy, in the form of parliamentarism and universal suffrage in the years 1917-1921, and in the light of an increased number of industrial actions during the1920s, the demands for letting the workers influence working conditions collided with the demands for a flexible enterprise and industrial peace. The employers’ frequent references to natural rights were criticised in an official report in 1923, which instead proposed the promotion of “industrial democracy”. The report, which had been formulated under the direction of the leading Social Democrat, Ernst Wigforss, was greatly influenced by the development in the GermanWeimar Republic.Wigforss wrote that the economic sector of society must take a road similar to the one the political sector had taken, namely from autocracy to democracy. Consequently he suggested that the workers be entrusted with greater influence on the organisation of business, for example by running separate production boards (Sw. driftsnämnder). At each negotiation the parties from different points of departure ventilated their ideas about what price was “fair”.According to Wigforss, the legal regulation of labour life concerned what “natural” right should be regarded as the most valuable one. Either it was the employer’s right to freely make use of his property or it was the worker’s right to decide over his person. From the trade unions’ point of view there were no natural limits other than those that could be drawn from the factual positions of power. Moreover, an extended scope for the workers’ codetermination p a r t i v, c h a p t e r 1 0 302
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