ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The ‘Swedish model’ has been described in different ways by academics and other commentators: as a distinctive system of politics, welfare, industrial relations, labour market regulation or work organization. Whatever dimension is emphasized, it has to be located within the historical development of capital-labour relations. In this sense the formalization of the model is often seen to have been the Saltsjöbads agreement between the central blue-collar union (LO) and the employers’ organization (SAF) in 1938. This created an industrial and political settlement between capital and labour which led to a long period of stability under Social Democratic hegemony that lasted until the middle of the 1970s. We will return to the nature and development of the model later, but two points are important for explaining the purposes of this chapter. First, though the model is associated primarily with general social organization, we will argue that it has important work organization dimensions, which become central to its current reconstruetion.
