Industrial Democracy in Scandinavia

In the 1930s industrial relations in the Scandinavian countries changed from conflict to cooperation. This change laid the basis for the negotiated establishment after World War II of consultative plant committees. The limitations inherent to the operation of such committees led, in the 1960s, to demands for more sweeping changes in industrial decision making, including demands for employee codetermination. All three Scandinavian countries have granted to their employees legal representation on company boards, but the unions have stressed that such representation will have only limited value if it is not simultaneously accompanied by the introduction of democracy on the shop floor. To that end experiments with semi-autonomous work groups have been carried out in Norway. In Sweden a law on codetermination in 1976 has made decision making at all company levels subject to collective bargaining. Moreover, in Denmark and Sweden labor has demanded a share in future corporate capital growth through employee stock ownership, and bills designed to achieve this objective have been drafted but not yet enacted in Denmark and Sweden. In general, these developments point to an increasing integration of trade union leaders in management functions and more government intervention in economic policy and labor relations.