The Swedish Collective Bargaining System

For nearly a generation, bargaining between trade unions and organizations of employers has been the principal means for the determination of wages and working conditions in Sweden. Paul Norgren’s purpose in the present study is to make Swedish experience and current practice in this field available to workers and employers in American industry. After an introductory section on the development of the unions and of the employers’ associations, the book deals with the principal terms of employment agreed upon between the parties to the collective labor contract, the methods and procedures by which these terms are arrived at, and the practices followed in putting them into effect. In conclusion, Norgren examines some of the broader implications of the Swedish bargaining system, considers whether this system can be made to work in America, and sets forth a number of very recent episodes that seem to indicate a new and highly significant stage in the evolution of collective employer-employee dealings. Sweden’s solutions of modern economic problems have attracted so much attention recently in the United States that Norgren’s volume will be eagerly welcomed by all students of labor relations.