the collective agreements since the employers in practice used it for changing the terms of work without leaving any room for the workers, who had the strike weapon up their sleeves, to negotiate about their wages.Also the Social Democrats alluded to the legal dignity of customs. However, they reached a different conclusion than the Conservatives and the Liberals, namely, that an established custom did not automatically mean law; the custom must be good and generally accepted among those concerned for obtaining that quality. Furthermore, the labour movement’s representatives asserted that the proposed labour court would be biased. Lots of speakers feared that the court’s professionally trained jurists would tip the balance by converting disputes of interests, which concerned matters considered not being agreed upon, to legal disputes, which concerned the change or interpretation of an existing agreement. Since legal disputes should be protected by an industrial peace obligation, the academically trained jurists thus would wrench the strike weapon from the workers’ hands.Arthur Engberg predicted that the court’s initial decisions would establish such important precedents that could not be changed but instead would become the pillars of a predominant case law. The labour movement’s resistance, however, was in vain. The parliamentary balance had tipped in favour of labour law legislation.The end of the 1920s saw the requisite parliamentary majority for legislation by an alliance between liberal, moderate and conservative MPs. The parliament passed legislation that prescribed an industrial peace obligation in disputes about issues that were regulated in a collective agreement.The collective organisations had been given representation in an important lawmaking public institution, a tripartite board called the labour court and whichwas composed of representatives from the big organisations and three official representatives who would tip the scale. The majority of the parliament, now based on an universal suffrage, seemed to support the opinion that aperson who was well versed c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 309
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