c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 347 uates (SACO),with members who are academics or graduate professionals with a university or college degree.613 In 1938 the basic agreement was signed at Saltsjöbaden outside Stockholm by the two major interest organisations of the labour market, the trade unions’ LO, which had established a close but complicated alliance with the Social Democratic Party and the employers’ SAF. Its primary aim was to secure industrial peace, which influenced the terms about protection of employment. Accordingly, the Saltsjöbaden Agreement limited the employer’s right to freely dismiss workers who had been employed for more than a year, and prescribed an obligation to give notice and carry out consultations in these matters.614 The labour movement let the owners of private industry understand that they need not fear large-scale nationalisation. On the contrary, the movement accepted that trade and industry would survive in private hands on condition that production was efficiently managed and that the owners in turn accepted the fact that the Social Democrats would use its political power to implement a programme of social welfare.615 As we have seen, during the years 1910-1928 the labour movement’s representatives did not officially accept “the nature of things” as a source of law for a far-reaching duty of obedience. The labour court’s controversial decisions in1929, 1930, 1932 and 1934 were founded on an alliance between the employers’ representatives, two professional judges and a civil servant. However, in the decision 1940:3, LO’s representatives joined the other judges. An agrarian worker had been dismissed after having rejected the foreman’s order to move his lunch break forward half an hour without any previous notice. The court declared that the refusal no doubt infringed on the employer’s right to solely govern and direct the work, which was “given him by the nature 613 Fahlbeck 2002, p. 107; Kjellberg 1998, p. 531. 614 Sigeman 2002, p. 259. 615 Elvander 1988; Johansson,A L 1989; Edström2002, p. 177.
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