Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Social Movements - 1. Labour Questions and Social politics - Organization of Workmen and Employers. By O. Järte and B. Nyström
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v. social movements.
ship and parity of professional interests: those more ideal motives were
eked out by others of a most substantial nature. As a rule, members on
entering the association are obliged to give bond in a very considerable
sum, a sum which the association is entitled to call in, wholly or in part,
in the event of the issuer of the bond failing- to comply with its decisions,
or otherwise exhibiting lack of corporate feeling.
The biggest and most important of the employers’ association that date their
origin from 1902, that "year of organization", is the Svenska
arbetsgivareföreningen, the General Federation of Swedish Employers; the Federation was from
the very outset intended to be, as it has remained, a confederation of large
employers of labour, with its most important branches represented by separate
trade federations, such as the Järnbruksförbundet, the Iron Works
Federation, the Textilindustriförbundet, the Textile Industries Federation, the
Sågverksförbundet, the Saw Mills Federation, the Pappersmasseförbundet,
the Paper Pulp Federation, and so forth. The General Federation has passed
through a very vigorous development: whereas at the close of 1903 it comprised
only 101 employers with 28 924 workmen, the corresponding figures for 1913
were 1 209 and 160 241 respectively.
Oil its first appearance in the field, the Federation was a purely defensive
organization, with insurance against strikes as its leading principle. Gradually,
as the new organization grew in members and capital, it entered upon a new
phase: it came to devote itself more and more systematically to the positive
work of guarding the interests of the employers in collective agreements. This
change of tactics is marked by the insertion into the regulations 1905 of the
celebrated "§ 23", whereby the General Federation secured effective control of
the entire policy of its members with regard to agreements, while at the same
time that policy was predetermined as regards the right of employers to have
the management of the work entirely in their hands, and to decide on the
composition of the working staff. Now that the General Federation has almost
completely succeeded in carrying through its principles within the spheres of action
under its control, its interests appear in recent years to have been directed
particularly to wage questions. Thus in 1912 the General Federation had founded
a bureau of statistics, the object of which is to obtain a broad and comprehensive
view of prices in the labour market. Since 1907 Hj. von Syclow has been
Chairman and Director of the Federation.
Although the General Federation of Swedish Employers embraces large
industry almost in its whole range, there is nevertheless one field of labour that is
almost entirely excluded from its purview. The mechanical works and affiliated
branches are represented by the Sveriges verkstadsförening, the Swedish
Mechanical Works Association, likewise founded in 1902, and which in 1913
boasted of 189 members with 29 492 workmen. This Association has by its
vigorous policy and the singleness of its aims done much to impart to the
labour conditions coming within its range greater steadiness and order. The
thorough knowledge it possesses of those conditions is partly due to the
statistics of employees and wages which the Association was the first among Swedish
employers’ organizations to draw up.
The building trade and the branches connected with it constitute the special
sphere of the Centrala arbetsgivareförbundet, the Central Employer’s Federation,
founded in 1903. That Federation at present comprises about 2 000 employers,
with 30 000 to 40 000 workmen.
There are in Sweden several other federations of employers, as, for instance,
Svenska järnvägarnas arbetsgivareförening, Svenska lantarbetsgivareföreningarnas
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