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Work and Wellbeing in the
Nordic Countries
The Nordic countries have the world’s best working life. Unlike in many
other countries, global competition has not created inequality, uncertainty,
long working hours, standardization and restrictive managerial control. The
main reason for this lies in the way interests are expressed and conflicts are
resolved. Both employees and employers are well organized and both recog-
nize the interests of the other. Working life develops in a constant interaction
between conflict and compromise.
This book examines working conditions in Norway, Denmark, Sweden
and Finland. It explores how these good working conditions are created and
maintained. The chapters explain:
• How work organization is formed

• How education, training and work place learning give access to the labour
market
• How work is managed in the public sector
• How precarious work unfolds in the Nordic countries.
Work and Wellbeing in the Nordic Countries is addressed to all those who have
an interest in the quality of working life. It will be of particular use to all
students, academics and policy makers working in the fields of social policy,
wellbeing, management studies, employment relations, work sociology and
work psychology.
Helge Hvid is a professor at Roskilde University of Working Life Studies,

Denmark. He has a PhD in Sociology from Copenhagen University. He has pub-
lished extensively in working life issues such as psychosocial working environ-
ment, work organization, IT and work, rhythms of work and sustainable work.
Eivind Falkum is research professor at the University OsloMet. He holds a

Dr. Philos grade within Political Science at the University of Oslo, with his
thesis on power and opposition in the Norwegian working life. He has broad
experience from organization and management studies in several empirical
fields at different institutes of assignment research.
Work and Wellbeing in
the Nordic Countries
Critical Perspectives on the World’s

Best Working Lives
Edited by Helge Hvid and

Eivind Falkum
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park,Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2019 selection and editorial matter, Helge Hvid and Eivind Falkum;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Helge Hvid and Eivind Falkum to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-8153-8723-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-16996-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
Introduction 1
HELGE HVID AND EIVIND FALKUM
PART I
An overview: introduction 7
1 Nordic working life, shaped through conflicts and

compromises 9
HELGE HVID, EIVIND FALKUM AND ARILD HENRIK STEEN
2 The peculiar history of Nordic working life 30

EIVIND FALKUM, HELGE HVID AND PER BONDE HANSEN
PART II
Organization and management in a working life
perspective: introduction 47
3 Democracy at work 49
HEIDI ENEHAUG, EIVIND FALKUM AND HELGE HVID
4 Workplace democracy under pressure 67

EIVIND FALKUM, IDA DRANGE, HEIDI ENEHAUG AND
BITTEN NORDRIK
5 International management concepts meeting Nordic

working life 92
PETER HAGEDORN-RASMUSSEN AND PÅL KLETHAGEN
vi Contents
6 Working environment regulation in Norway and Denmark 115

JAN ERIK KARLSEN, KLAUS T. NIELSEN AND ROBERT
H. SALOMON
7 New working time and new temporalities: the erosion of

influence and rhythms in work 134
HENRIK LAMBRECHT LUND
PART III
Learning, inclusion and equality: introduction 153
8 Young people’s access to working life in three Nordic

countries: what is the role of vocational education
and training? 155
CHRISTIAN HELMS JØRGENSEN
9 Bargaining for continuing education: a Norwegian case of

‘lifelong learning unionism’ 178
ANDERS UNDERTHUN AND IDA DRANGE
10 Tackling increasing marginalization: can support-side

approaches contribute to work inclusion? 194
KJETIL FRØYLAND, ANGELIKA SCHAFFT AND ØYSTEIN SPJELKAVIK
PART IV
Nordic approaches to New Public Management:
professions in transition – introduction 217
ANNETTE KAMP, AGNETE MELDGAARD HANSEN AND
CHRISTIN THEA WATHNE
11 Nordic New Public Management: the case of Denmark 221

ANNETTE KAMP AND AGNETE MELDGAARD HANSEN
12 Welfare professionals in transformation: the case of

elderly care 243
AGNETE MELDGAARD HANSEN AND ANNETTE KAMP
13 Welfare professionals in transformation: the case of police

officers in Norway 260
CHRISTIN THEA WATHNE
Contents vii
PART V
Terms of employment: precarious work in a
Nordic setting – introduction 283
14 Precarity in Nordic working life? 285

MARI HOLM INGELSRUD, NIELS WARRING, JANNE GLEERUP,
PER BONDE HANSEN, ANDERS JAKOBSEN, ANDERS UNDERTHUN
AND SØREN SALLING WEBER
15 Experiences of precarious work among graduates in the

Danish labour market 302
JANNE GLEERUP, ANDERS JAKOBSEN AND NIELS WARRING
16 The formation and destabilization of the standard

employment relationship in Norway: the contested
politics and regulation of temporary work agencies 320
PER BONDE HANSEN AND ANDERS UNDERTHUN
17 Working life on Nordic labour platforms 339

SØREN SALLING WEBER
Closure: the end of the story? 359

Index 364
Work and Wellbeing in
the Nordic Countries
Critical Perspectives on the World’s

Best Working Lives
1st Edition
Edited by Helge Hvid and

Eivind Falkum
AUTHORS:
Robert Salomon is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Arild Henrik Steen is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Anders Underthun is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Bitten Nordrik is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet, Norway.
Heidi Enehaug is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Christin Thea Wathne HYPERLINK “mailto:[email protected]” is Research
Director at Work Research Institute, OsloMet, Norway.
Ida Drange is Research Professor at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Mari Holm Ingelsrud is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute,

OsloMet, Norway.
Per Bonde Hansen is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Pål Klethagen is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet, Norway.
Eivind Falkum HYPERLINK “mailto:[email protected]” is Research Professor

at Work Research Institute, OsloMet, Norway.
Angelika Schafft is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Øystein Spjelkavik is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Kjetil Frøyland is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Norway.
Jan Erik Karlsen is Professor Emeritus HYPERLINK “mailto:jan.e.karlsen@

uis.no” at The University of Stavanger, Norway.
Helge Søndergaard Hvid is Professor Emeritus at Roskilde University,

Denmark.
Annette Kamp is Associate Professor at Roskilde University, Denmark.
Klaus Tranetoft Nielsen is Senior Associate Professor at Roskilde University,

Denmark.
Janne Gleerup is Associate Professor at Roskilde University, Denmark.
Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen is Associate Professor at Roskilde University,

Denmark.
Søren Salling Weber is a PhD Fellow at Roskilde University, Denmark.
Niels Warring is Associate Professor Henrik at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Lambrecht Lund is Associate Professor at Roskilde University, Denmark.
Christian Helms Jørgensen is Professor (MSO) at Roskilde University,

Denmark.
Agnete Meldgaard Hansen is Associate Professor at Roskilde University,

Denmark.
Anders Jakobsen is a PhD Fellow at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Introduction
Helge Hvid and Eivind Falkum
Whether you look at unemployment, employment, income, equality, social security, or

the quality of the working environment, the Nordic countries – especially Norway and
Denmark – are at the top of the international rankings.This means that many other
countries are examining the Nordic model and considering whether it is the best way
to achieve their goals with labour market policy.
(Mark Pearson, Deputy Director of Employment, Labour and
Social Affairs at OECD. FTF-aktuelt, 22–01-2017)
This statement rests on an analysis of data from the OECD Job Quality
Framework,1 which enables comparative studies of job quality across countries.
Of all the countries surveyed, Denmark and Norway performed best across the
parameters studied: employment, work-related health, wages, job security, and
inclusion in the labour market. The relatively favourable working conditions
in Norway and Denmark have not prevented those countries from maintaining
their position among the richest in the world.
Those who primarily benefit from the good working conditions in the
Nordics are the employees. For people between the ages of 20 and 65, work
is a major part of the time they are awake, and work is an important factor in
creating income, security and meaning in life. Therefore, we can expect high-
quality working conditions to contribute to happiness. Actually, according to
the 2016 World Happiness Report, Denmark was number one in the happiness
index. In 2017, Norway topped the index, followed by Denmark. In 2018,
Finland was number one in the happiness index, followed by Norway and
Denmark. In the Global Happiness Policy Report 2018, the impact of working
conditions on happiness was examined (Helliwell, 2018), showing a strong
relation between working conditions and happiness.
In this book, we will examine how these relatively good working conditions
are created and maintained. We will examine:
• How work organization is formed (Part II)

• How education and training give access to the labour market and keep
employees in employment (Part III)
2 Helge Hvid and Eivind Falkum
• How work is managed in the public sector (Part IV)

• How precarious work unfolds in the Nordics (Part V).
The Nordic approach

The Nordics are known for the creation of societies that combine two widely
different visions: the socialist vision of equality in influence, income and
development, and the liberal vision of a dynamic society based on individual
freedom and free competition.
The liberal tradition in the Nordic countries leads to open economies
with extensive trade with the outside world. International comparisons assess
the business climate in the Nordic countries positively.2 Flexibility in the
labour market is high. Denmark is one of the OECD countries where it is
easiest for employers to dismiss employees. The public sector in the Nordic
countries is large, but the Nordic countries (especially Sweden) are leading
in the privatization of public services.
The socialist tradition is reflected in the fact that economic equality, espe-
cially equality in wage income, is relatively high in the Nordic countries.
Employment is high. The relatively large welfare states offer collective solu-
tions in areas such as education, childcare, elderly care and pensions. Social
mobility is high. Democracies have been developed with considerable popular
participation, based on collective organization. There are a large number of
associations pursuing certain interests. This is highly relevant in working life,
where employees and management are generally organized in trade unions and
employers’ associations, respectively.
Interest for the ‘Nordic model’ has been quite considerable over the years,
but the focus of this interest has varied.
The Economist published a special report on the Nordic countries (The
Economist, 2013). Here the main interest was the liberal perspectives of the
Nordic tradition: high-quality welfare states, governed by internal competition,
and business and labour policies that meet corporate needs.
Others, generally with reference to Esping-Andersen (1990), have been
interested in the social policy profile that characterizes the Nordic welfare
states. Here, the universal character of welfare states is noted: the welfare state
provides individuals with universal rights.
Finally, we have those who study the Nordic labour markets with their
high levels of collective organization among both employees and employers
(Andersen et al., 2014).
However, whether one studies business conditions, the welfare state or the
labour market in Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, a closer
look reveals major differences in institution building and legislation in the five
countries. In Norway and to some extent in Sweden, the labour market is
regulated by a combination of labour laws and labour agreements. In Denmark
and to a degree in Finland, the labour market is almost exclusively regulated
Introduction 3
through agreements between employers’ associations and unions. In Norway

and Sweden, employees have relatively high individual employment security.
In Denmark, employment security is very low. In Sweden, workers are organ-
ized in relation to the industry where they belong. In Denmark, boundaries
between unions follow trade boundaries. The systems for unemployment ben-
efit and the pension systems are quite different in the Nordic countries. . . and
we could continue.
When we consider institutional structures, it is difficult to identify a
‘Nordic model’ which systematically differs from other countries. There are
major differences between the institutions in the Nordic countries, and there
are not many institutions in the Nordics that do not exist in any other non-
Nordic country.
It is therefore more fruitful to refer to the Nordic approach than the
Nordic model. In this book, we explore the Nordic approach to working life.
We investigate how the Nordic approach influences working life and how
experiences in working life help to maintain the Nordic approach.
In our view, the essence of the Nordic approach is an extensive organiza-
tion of opposing interests. This is particularly true in the labour market, but it
also applies to society in general. There is a profound acceptance that there are
opposing interests in the labour market around which it is legitimate to organ-
ize. Employers see the unions as legitimate opponents, and the unions perceive
employers and their organizations as a legitimate adversary. Both sides accept
that their interests are different. They accept the need for both parties to give
and take to reach a compromise between the opposing interests. Thus, the
labour market is not regulated by ‘social partners’, as it is often expressed in the
EU context, but by ‘social parties’ or by ‘labour market parties’.
This approach has created communities that are highly market-oriented
and, at the same time, have relatively high levels of solidarity and equality.
It is largely the relationships in working life that have created these social
characteristics.
Why Norway and Denmark?

Within the Nordic countries, Norway and Denmark are at opposite poles on
certain parameters. Market principles are more influential in Denmark than in
Norway. The labour market is largely regulated by both laws and agreements
in Norway, while it is almost exclusively regulated through agreements in
Denmark. Despite these differences, there is a striking similarity in the degree
of equality and security in the labour market and in employee assessments
of job quality. The explanation lies in the Nordic approach: the collective
organization and the negotiated compromise.
Our intention is not to make a comparative study between the Nordic
countries, nor between Norway and Denmark. We wish to present how
the Nordic approach works by showing how defined aspects of working life
unfold in Norway and Denmark. In most cases we present experiences from

both Norway and Denmark. In some cases the emphasis is on Norwegian
approaches because they are the most interesting. In other cases, we present
Danish approaches.
Of course, we could have included experiences from the three other Nordic
countries (and we do, but only to a limited extent). However, it is difficult to
understand specific experiences without a certain understanding of the context.
If we had included all the Nordic countries, the presentation of contexts would
have been very comprehensive.
Critique as fuel for the Nordic approach

However, the authors of this book do not focus solely on the relatively good
working conditions in Norway and Denmark. As researchers, they are all
engaged in critical examinations of working life in the Nordic countries. This
research does not produce an overall rosy picture of working conditions in
Norway and Denmark, but rather presents a number of problematic issues:
• Work organization marked by standardization and individualized control

• Heavy workload
• Employees’ limited infuence in their workplace
• Gender segregation
• Working environment that creates sickness absenteeism, increasingly
related to mental health problems
• Wage diferentials
• Difculties in entering the labour market
• Marginalization in the labour market
• New public management, instrumentalizing human relations
• Insecure employment relationships and conditions; precarious work is also
an issue in the Nordics.
So, what is the right approach for understanding working conditions in the
Nordic countries? Should we praise these working conditions, or should we
criticize them? We suggest that we do both. Research on working life in the
Nordic countries has historically nurtured widespread criticism of working con-
ditions, which, historically, has proved to make a difference. The criticisms are
widely picked up on by trade unions, professional associations, management
researchers, employers’ organizations and public authorities. Such criticism, and
the conflicts it causes, is probably the main reason why working conditions are
better in Norway and Denmark than in most other countries. Criticism matters.
Working life in the Nordics is generally following global trends: global
competition creates heavy workloads. Digitalization has a strong influence on
working life. International concepts for organizing work are also influenc-
ing working life in the Nordics. The principles of new public management
Introduction 5
govern the public sector. New groups in the labour market are experiencing
precarious work. Work-related stress is also an issue in the Nordics. Criticism
from our colleagues outside the Nordic region also tends to be relevant for
those of us studying working conditions in the Nordics. However, compari-
sons often make it clear that technology and globalized competition do not
determine working conditions. Those involved can influence the quality of
working life, with the right approach and with the right institutional setting.
We cannot take for granted the position of Norway and Denmark as the
countries with the best working conditions. Working conditions and the
institutions that support these are constantly exposed to erosion, attacks and
undermining influences. In order to maintain the relatively good conditions,
work, work organization and institutions must constantly change.
Working conditions in Norway and Denmark are rooted in the history of
the two countries and cannot simply be copied by other countries. However,
we hope that insight into these two countries can provide inspiration for the
organization of policies and the creation of institutions that promote high-
quality working life.
Content of the book

In Part I we provide an overview. What are the characteristics of working
life in the Nordic region? What is typical of relations between employers and
employees? How are these relationships maintained and developed in the ten-
sion between institutions in the labour market, developments in technologies
and markets, and changes in people’s attitudes? In this Part, we present what
we consider the core of the Nordic legacy, and it is argued that this core has
made it possible to create a working life which, in most parameters, is better
than in comparable countries. Similarly, the history of Nordic working life is
briefly presented.
In Part II, organization and management are in focus. Democratization has
been a very important theme in the development of working life in the Nordic
countries, which has had a profound influence on working life, even though
democratization is no longer on the agenda. We present efforts to democra-
tize work as well as the state of democracy at work today. We explore how
international production concepts are integrated into Nordic working life. The
working environment, in terms of legislation and practice, is presented. Finally,
we examine how working life is influenced by requirements for flexibility in
time and space.
Part III is about education and learning as an inclusion mechanism in the
labour market. The Nordic countries have a relatively high employment rate,
although minimum wages are comparatively high. This is possible because the
level of competencies is relatively high and because it is possible to learn and
develop competencies when demands in the labour market change. In this sec-
tion, education is presented as an entrance into the labour market for young
people, and we discuss how this is influenced by the social parties. Further
education is investigated as promoting or constraining mobility. Finally, there
is a discussion on how to bring into the labour market people who, for different
reasons, are marginalized with regard to employment.
In Part IV, new public management in the Nordics is explored. In the last
25 years, public employment in the Nordic region has been heavily influenced
by the principles of new public management. However, these principles have
had a distinctive design, character and consequence in the Nordic countries, in
line with the Nordic approach.
Part V examines precarious work in the Nordic context. This phenomenon
is first examined in general terms. Then it is shown how highly educated people
are working under precarious conditions. We investigate how the introduction
of temporary workers in the Nordics influences working conditions more gen-
erally. Finally, there is an examination of how platform economics is handled
in a Nordic context.
Notes
1 Data are presented at www.oecd.org/statistics/job-quality.htm.
2 Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all in the top ten in the ranking made by the
World Bank on ‘Doing Business’. See www.doingbusiness.org/rankings.
References
Andersen, S. K., Dølvik, J. E. & Ibsen, C. L. (2014) Nordic Labour Market Models in
Open Markets, Brussels: ETUI.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, New York: John Wiley
& Sons.
FTF-aktuelt (2017) OECD: Nordiske arbejdsmarkeder sikrer de bedste jobs, Copenhagen:
FTF-aktuelt 22-01-2017.
Helliwell, J. F. (2018) Global Happiness Policy Synthesis 2018, In: Global Happiness
Policy Report 2018, UN: World Happiness Council.
The Economist (2013) Special Report. The Nordic Countries. February 2013.
Part I
An overview
Introduction
In this Part we will briefly present where we are (Chapter 1), and then we will
explain how we came to be where we are (Chapter 2).
Chapter 1: Nordic working life, shaped through conflicts and compromises. By Helge
Hvid, Eivind Falkum and Arild Henrik Steen.
In this chapter, there are references to some of the many comparative analy-
ses that state that the Nordic countries, including Norway and Denmark, are
rather special in terms of working conditions. You will also find explanations
for this: the strong organization of collective interests, the general recogni-
tion and acceptance of opposing interests, and the building of an institutional
network where interests can meet and compromises made, in individual work
groups, and at company, sector, regional and national level. Further, we discuss
other explanations: the culture, with its high degree of trust (but perhaps it was
the interest-based institutions that created and still maintain the high degree of
trust?), the welfare state (but are the Nordic welfare states so unique?) and the
economy (which is quite successful, but without specific advantages).
Chapter 2: The peculiar history of Nordic working life. By Eivind Falkum, Helge Hvid
and Per Bonde Hansen.
The main argument here is that conflict has been the driving force in the his-
tory of Nordic working life. The Nordic labour market systems were created
through serious conflicts in the labour market. The social-democratic soci-
ety was formed out of the conflicts, in which employees’ interest in wages,
employment and democracy at work were reconciled with employers’ inter-
ests in free market conditions and earnings. During the 1980s, however, the
social-democratic project weakened, and neo-liberal understandings began to
penetrate society. It turned out that the Nordic approach was by no means a
bulwark against neo-liberalism. On the contrary, a Nordic-influenced neo-
liberalism developed, which, on the one hand, has provided far more space
for the market, but on the other, has managed to maintain a certain degree of
equality, safety and quality in working life.
Both chapters present the Nordic experiences as unique. However, it is also
underlined that the Nordics are not alternatives to the global trends in work,
organization and labour market. They represent a variant of the global trends.
Employers and employees in the Nordic countries are facing the same chal-
lenges as in other developed countries. However, the approach to dealing with
these challenges is somewhat different.
Chapter 1
Nordic working life, shaped

through conflicts and
compromises
Helge Hvid, Eivind Falkum and Arild Henrik Steen
The core of the Nordic model

In 1961, the Norwegian sociologist Sverre Lysgaard wrote the book The Worker
Collectivity. A Study of the Sociology of the Subordinates (Lysgaard, 2001 [1961]),
which made a significant contribution to the basic understandings that under-
lie the Nordic welfare societies. The book is a standard textbook in Norway
and is also read widely in Denmark and Sweden, where most people can read
Norwegian. It has never been translated, like much good Nordic working life
research. The book presents an understanding of industrial workplace relations,
which generally form the basis for the Nordic model.
Based on studies at a Norwegian paper mill, Lysgaard develops a theory of
the relationship between workers and employers, not based on class theory but
on system theory. Employers and management work in a technical/economic
system, where efficiency and profit are paramount. This leads to unilateral,
insatiable, relentless demands on the employees. Employers who do not follow
the imperative of the system will be unable to continue for long as employ-
ers. The workers, on the other hand, form a human system. This system is
not unilateral but highly diverse throughout life. The human system is limited
(there are limits to how far it can fulfil the demands of employers) and is thus
in conflict with the insatiability of the technical/economic system. Finally, the
human system seeks security, which contrasts with the relentlessness of the
technical/economic system.
At the factory Lysgaard studied, the workers could only ensure the main-
tenance of the human system by standing together. They formed a third
system, the ‘workers’ collective’, which was a buffer between the technical/
economic system and the human system. The workers’ collective created a
certain balance between the two systems. The workers’ collective accepted the
imperatives of the technical/economic system, but defended wages, limited
work performance and defended security.
The fascinating thing about the relationship between the technical/economic
system and the human system is that the relationship is at the same time char-
acterized by conflict and mutual dependency. The company wants as much
10 Helge Hvid et al.
from the workers as possible. However, the company and society as a whole
are dependent on the workers’ defence of their working conditions through
the workers’ collective. Without workers defending their working conditions,
there would soon be no available workers for the companies. The workers rely
on their shared strength to create decent working conditions. At the same time,
however, they depend on the jobs the company creates, and therefore they are
also dependent on the rational profit-seeking management of the company. We
thus have a contradiction between two subsystems that depend on each other.
This contradiction finds a solution through the workers’ collective.
This basic understanding is the core of the Nordic model. The two sides of
the labour market recognize each other’s existence and eligibility. One party
does not seek to wipe out the other party. However, at the same time, both par-
ties are also aware that they are in conflict with the other party. Their eligibility
is therefore dependent on their ability to produce results at the negotiating table
or occasionally in open conflict.
A group of researchers (Karlsson et al., 2015; Axelsson et al., 2016) returned
to Lysgaard’s paper mill in 2010 and replicated Lysgaard’s analysis. The factory
had completely changed. In the 1950s, the work was physically hard, dirty and
dangerous. In 2010, the paper mill was an automated process industry, and the
workers monitored the processes, maintained the technical system and man-
aged the workflow. These fundamental changes in the work, however, had
not weakened the workers’ collective. The workers still protected their wages,
limited their performance and defended employment security through their
collective. The biggest difference that had occurred in the 50 years was related
to the technical/economic system. It was now quite clear that the technical/
economic system was not one system but two systems. An economic system,
represented by daily management, was still unilateral, insatiable and relentless.
The technical system, however, was represented by technicians and workers
who were oriented towards technical possibilities and limitations and quality.
The workers’ collective was now largely influenced by the technical system.
It not only defended wages, workload and working hours but also the tech-
nical system. It thus defended quality standards and opposed overload of the
technical system.
The development we saw at the paper mill can be largely transferred to
the labour market as a whole. The physically hard and dirty factory work has
declined, and a major part of the work has become knowledge-oriented. There
are those who argue that earlier conflicts have been abolished (Nordström &
Ridderståle, 1999). Knowledge has become the main means of production.
Knowledge is not owned by the employer but by the knowledge worker him/
herself, and workers themselves can therefore decide how and how much they
want to work.
However, it seems that present knowledge work is also in conflict with
the economic system. Knowledge workers are not exempted from high
demands, long working hours, stress and uncertain employment conditions
Nordic working life 11
(Sørensen & Holman 2014). On the contrary, according to the Norwegian

Work Life Barometer,1 knowledge workers report long working hours,
high workload and many and conflicting requirements (see Chapter 15).
Knowledge workers are deeply involved in the maintenance and develop-
ment of the technical system. At the same time, the daily lives of knowledge
workers are highly influenced by the strength of their opposition to an eco-
nomic system. Many knowledge workers have acknowledged that and build
something that corresponds to Lysgaard’s workers’ collective, combining
trade unions, professional communities and communities of practice.
Knowledge workers are highly organized in trade unions, elect union
representatives at work and seek to protect themselves from the unsustain-
able demands of the economic system. However, knowledge workers not
only defend their interests as employees, they also defend formal and infor-
mal professional quality standards. Similarly, the workers in the paper mill not
only defended their interests as employees but also defended maintenance of
the technical system and the quality of the product. The workers’ collective
defended both the human system and the technical system.
The content of the work, and the quality and social benefits of its products,
have thus also become a key aspect of the relationship between employers and
workers. This is not new, but it has become more pronounced. We see pro-
fessional groups protesting and acting against a deterioration in the quality of
their work. We see industry workers expressing their reluctance towards the
quality of products delivered to customers. In other cases, conflicts regarding
quality are less prominent, as when employers and workers work together to
create employee-driven innovation (Høyrup & Møller, 2012). However, it is
worth emphasizing that relations between employers and workers in terms of
quality and social benefits of products are not separate from the more tradi-
tional conflict of interests of the labour market. Indeed, they are linked to it.
Several studies conclude that worker involvement in work organization and
work quality is best in companies where trade union representatives are most
involved in the management (Falkum et al., 2017).
Hence, the fundamental narrative that formed the basis for the Nordic
model is still present. The fundamental narrative lives in the vast majority of
workplaces. The basic narrative is maintained by some of the strongest institu-
tions in society: unions, employers’ associations and the state.
In the Nordic countries, a kind of democracy and welfare state has been
developed, which, more than in most other countries, relies on wage labour
and the defence of conflicting interests. This is also reflected in the difference
between EU and Nordic terminology. In the EU, people talk about ‘social
partners’: there are different partners in a joint project, creating jobs and wealth.
In the Nordic countries, people talk about the social parties, i.e. different par-
ties representing different interests in the labour market. EU rhetoric relates to
consensus, while Nordic rhetoric relates to compromise between differences
(Kettunen, 2012).
Researchers at Fafo, a research centre affiliated to LO, the confederation

of Norwegian unions, argue that the Nordic model is a political construc-
tion consisting of a balance of power and ‘a constructive conflict partnership’
(Dølvik et al., 2015). This concept also underlines the existence and acceptance
of different, conflicting interests.
Organization of the labour market

The most significant aspect of the labour market in the Nordic countries is
that conflict between employers and workers is recognized and institutional-
ized in a way that makes conflicts solvable and productive, both for the lives of
workers and the economy. The foundation for this is, of course, labour market
organizations that can act with great legitimacy and powerful resources. One
of the things that provides legitimacy and power is members. The Nordic
labour market organizations, both trade unions and employers’ associations,
have relatively large numbers of members.
Union density is around 70% in the Nordic countries, except for Norway,
where it is about 50%. In all large European countries union density is significantly
lower: less than 30% in the UK, less than 20% in Germany and less than 10%
in France (ETUI, 2017). Union density peaked in the mid-1990s, both in the
Nordic countries and in Western Europe, and has declined since then, but quite
slowly in the Nordic countries.2
With regard to employers, the level of organization is also high but has
been slightly declining over the last ten years in Denmark, where about 52% of
private sector employees work in companies that are members of an employ-
ers’ association (Navrbjerg & Ibsen, 2017). In the public sector, employers are
organized 100%. In Norway the level of organization among employers is stable
at about 68% (Nergaard, 2016).3
Another expression of the legitimacy and power of the labour market
organizations is found in the proportion of employees covered by collective
agreements that determine wages and working conditions. In Denmark, about
75% of the private sector employees are covered by collective agreements,
and in the public sector 100% are covered (Navrbjerg & Ibsen, 2017). Similar
figures for Norway are 57% in the private sector and 100% in the public sector
(Nergaard, 2016).
Union density is gradually decreasing, while the organization rate among
employers is more stable. However, this does not necessarily mean that the
power of labour market organizations is diminishing. The power of organi-
zations depends largely on the institutional framework for the exercise of
power and the opportunities and resources of the parties to take advantage
of the institutions.
It is characteristic of the Nordic countries that the relationship between the
social parties takes place in many partially connected arenas. Many actors are
involved, and many resources can be mobilized. It is thus typical of the Nordic
countries that conflicts and cooperation between the social parties take place at
all levels of society (Madsen et al., 2001; Kjellberg, 2009):
• At workplaces, where unions are represented through shop stewards.

Out of the barely 1.5 million members of the collective labour unions in
Denmark (Statistics Denmark, 2018), there are approximately 50,000 rep-
resentatives of the employees (Sørensen, 2010), who are representatives of
trade unions at workplace level. Some 85% of employees in Denmark have
access to an employee representative (ETUI, 2017, p. 58).
• At the municipal and regional level, where the parties, together with the
authorities, are involved in the development of education and employ-
ment policies.
• At industry level, agreements of working conditions are negotiated in the
professions and trades.
• At the state level, where the social parties are involved in the development
of social and business policies.
• And last but not least, at the national level where the social parties make
collective agreements on wages and working conditions covering the
whole labour market and negotiate the conditions for macroeconomics
with the state.
At all these levels, the parties negotiate and/or are engaged in consultations.
Sometimes an agreement cannot be reached and conflicts break out. However,
most often the negotiations result in a compromise. The implementation of the
compromises largely takes place because the parties have multilevel representation.
For local union representatives, it is an obligation to secure local implementation
of agreements and laws, decided far from where the representative works.
In principle, the state is not an actor in the national wage bargaining process.
It is the responsibility of the social parties to reach agreements. Sometimes the
government intervenes in order to make it easier for the parties to find solutions.
In most issues, conflicts at the national level are negotiated and regulated in
a triangle of employers’ associations, trade unions and the state. The involve-
ment of the government and state administration in regulation of the conflicts
between the social parties varies considerably with the issue. With regard to
organization of work and participation, the state has a very limited role to
play. In terms of wages and (to some extent) working hours, it is the social
parties who act, locally and centrally. However, the state may take a mediat-
ing role if the parties cannot reach agreement. In Norway, working conditions
are more regulated by legislation than in Denmark, where working condi-
tions are largely regulated through agreements. Common to the two countries,
however, is the social parties’ strong involvement in the creation of new laws
related to the labour market. Often there is high responsiveness to the social
parties regarding general labour market policy, unemployment benefits and
working environment. Stein Rokkan (1966) described this particular form of
democracy in the Nordic countries, based on both parliamentarianism and

what he called corporate pluralism.
Corporate pluralism is not only related to the labour market and labour
market institutions. The Nordic countries also have a civil society that is highly
organized, compared to other countries. In the Nordic countries, daily life is
strongly influenced by associations and clubs related to one’s local community,
hobbies or special needs (e.g. associations for specific patient groups). It is rea-
sonable to assume a relationship between the well-organized labour market
and the well-organized civil society. Associations related to working life are a
school for civil society associations and vice versa (Pateman, 1970).
In the following, we will draw an overall picture of how conflict and com-
promise in the various institutions of the labour market have shaped working
conditions. We will look at two issues here:
• Quality of daily work. People active in the labour market spend a signifcant
part of their waking hours at work. Therefore, the nature and quality of
daily work is, of course, decisive for quality of life and health.
• Salary and employment security. Work is the most important source of
income. Therefore, wage levels are important quality parameters for the
quality of work. However, equally important is employment security.
Employment security gives confdence about future income.
Both issues are mainly regulated through institutionalized negotiations, con-

flicts and agreements between workers and employers.
In the following sections, we will briefly describe the differences in the qual-
ity of daily work and the quality of pay and employment between Norway/
Denmark and other developed countries.
The quality of daily work

The quality of working life is relatively good in Norway and Denmark. The
weekly working hours prescribed by the law or agreements are on a par with
most European countries. Actual weekly working hours are, however, lower
than the European average. Annual working hours differ even more from the
European average. Overall satisfaction with work is relatively high. Learning
and development opportunities in work are relatively good, as is the working
environment (Eurofound, 2012; ETUI, 2017).
We will now briefly describe how these relationships interact with the
institutionalized class conflict in the two countries.
Working hours
Working hours are regulated partly through legislation and partly through
agreements between the social parties. Here, too, legislation plays a more
important role in Norway than in Denmark. Regular working hours, i.e. the
number of hours worked per week, are defined in agreements between the par-
ties. In Norway, the figure is 37.5 hours and in Denmark, 37 hours. Denmark
and Norway are the two countries where a full-time employee works the few-
est hours (EUROSTAT4). The length of holidays, which is set at six weeks in
Denmark and five weeks in Norway, is also agreed between the parties. The
same applies to maternity leave, study leave, etc. Large numbers of employees
work either more or fewer hours than the norm, but agreements are in place
regarding the terms of part-time work or overtime. Especially in Denmark,
state involvement in these areas is very limited.5
The rules regulating working hours have been laid down in agreements
between the social parties, and union representatives are an important factor
in overseeing compliance with the agreements. The annual number of work-
ing hours is relatively low and has not risen in recent years (Bonke, 2016).
However, that does not mean that issues related to working hours are uncom-
plicated and without conflict. On the contrary, there are often conflicts related
to time flexibility, including the boundaries between work and leisure, and
workplace and home. Digitalization makes it possible for many to do (part of)
their work anywhere at any time. That could increase disputes on working
time in the future. This is further elaborated in Chapter 7.
Work satisfaction
Eurofound (2017) finds that Norway and Denmark score quite high in job sat-
isfaction compared with other European countries.6 It is however questionable
whether the job satisfaction indicator is an adequate measure of job quality.
High job satisfaction may well be due to low expectations, not necessarily high
job quality. However, it seems unlikely that expectations for job quality are
lower in Norway and Denmark than in other countries. It is more reasonable
to assume that the extensive regulation of workplace conflicts regarding work
organization and content has made a difference.
As already mentioned, 85% of employees have access to workers’ repre-
sentatives, who may raise criticism of the employer. This may take place in a
direct dialogue between the representative and the employer, or it may be in
the works council, which, according to agreements, is obligatory for all work-
places with a certain number of employees. The main obligation of the works
council is to find solutions to issues related to work organization and technol-
ogy. The works council aims to search for solutions that satisfy both working
conditions and productivity.
This local cooperation between employer and employees is supported by
the parties at the central level. Shop stewards and working environment rep-
resentatives are trained. The unions and employers’ associations have created
a cooperation board where one party at the workplace can file a complaint
against a counterparty if it fails to comply with the provisions of the cooperation
agreement. In addition, there are a number of sector-specific schemes to sup-

port the work of the cooperation boards. In Denmark, for example, the parties
in the manufacturing industry have a consultancy scheme that helps companies
to create good cooperation. In some areas, there have been collective agree-
ments for a better psychosocial working environment, which also is related to
good cooperation. The tripartite agreement in Norway on a more inclusive
working life is another example. The parties at the national level have agreed to
reduce sick leave and increase labour market participation among elderly and
vulnerable groups. This agreement gives union representatives an argument for
local improvements in working environment and working conditions in order
to reach the targets in the inclusive working life agreement.
Further, the opportunities for individual employees to express their views
seem to be better in Norway and Denmark than in the rest of Europe. Some
73% of Norwegian employees and 72% of Danish employees indicate that
their organization holds regular meetings in which employees can express their
views about what is happening in the organization (Eurofound, 2017). Only in
Sweden is this opportunity for direct involvement at the same level. In the EU
as a whole, 55% of employees have the option.
Autonomy and opportunities for learning and development

Here too, Norway and Denmark are in the European elite. To the question
‘Does your work involve learning new things?’, 89% of employees answered
yes in both Norway and Denmark. For the EU as a whole, the figure was 72%.
To the question ‘Are you able to apply your own ideas in your work?’, 10%
of Norwegian and 8% of Danish employees replied ‘rarely’. For the EU as a
whole, 22% indicated that they could rarely apply their own ideas in their work
(Eurofound, 2017).
There seems to be a greater degree of autonomy in work in Norway and
Denmark than in the rest of Europe. Autonomy at work is considered to be
a positive factor for health, productivity and employability (Karasek, 1989;
Dhondt et al., 2017). The reason why Norway and Denmark score so highly
on autonomy is probably that the sociotechnical tradition has been strong in
Norway and Denmark (see Chapter 3), as it has also been in Sweden, Finland,
Holland and Belgium.
In Norway and Denmark, the social parties have, since the late 1960s, been
involved in establishing a framework for job development and autonomy.
This is particularly true of Norway where comprehensive initiatives have been
implemented (Gustavsen, 2007). Also, in Denmark, there have been many dif-
ferent initiatives to support the development of autonomy and learning (Hvid,
2001). In both countries (and in Sweden and Finland), autonomy and oppor-
tunities for learning and development have been promoted by a wide range
of programmes launched by the social parties and by strong representation
from employee representatives in companies. Studies have confirmed that in
companies where employee representatives have a strong position, autonomy

in daily work is comparably high (Falkum et al., 2017).
Working environment
Working environment conditions are better in Norway and Denmark than in
most comparable countries (Aagestad et al., 2017) (see also Chapter 6). The main
reason is not that working environment acts in the Nordic countries are more
restrictive than in other countries. However, in one aspect, Norway is an excep-
tion. In Norway, demands for democratization of work have been included in
the Working Environment Act (see Chapter 6). The Working Environment
Act was not created in isolation from initiatives, demands and political pressure
from the trade unions. However, it is hardly due to the nature of the work-
ing environment acts that the working environment is better in Norway and
Denmark than in most other countries. Instead, it is because employees are
organized at company level. Thus, the state authorities are not alone in oversee-
ing compliance with the law. The regulation of conflicts between the parties at
the workplace level, supported by sectoral institutions, has had a major impact
on the quality of the working environment.
Wages and employment

The Nordic countries, as is well known, have quite large and generous welfare
systems. However, the influence of the welfare state on the labour market
is limited, especially in Denmark. Wages are determined unilaterally by the
social parties. There is not, as in most highly developed economies, a statutory
minimum wage. Similarly, working hours, length of holidays and employment
security are also determined through negotiations between the social parties.
The most important role of the state is to help the parties to reach a compro-
mise through arbitration institutions and legislation on labour disputes, etc. In
addition, the government in many cases helps to generalize agreements made
by the parties.
With regard to education policy, employment policy and business policy,
the state has a more independent role, but the social parties are deeply involved
both in shaping policies and in their implementation.
Wage formation and equality

Equality in income is relatively high in Norway and Denmark. Norway and
Denmark have a low Gini coefficient compared to other OECD countries.7
One important reason is that the trade unions have succeeded in creating and
maintaining a degree of solidarity in the coordinated, collective agreements
on wages at the national level. This institutionalized wage formation has led
to a relatively narrow pay gap. Another reason is that it has been possible to
establish and finance a system of further education that has increased wages for
many employees on low pay.
The gap between high and low wages is smaller in Norway and Denmark
than in other countries. Unskilled workers have a higher salary than in many
other countries, whereas highly skilled labour is cheaper than in other coun-
tries. Thus, it is more advantageous to start a form of production that mainly
uses highly skilled labour than one dominated by labour-intensive, low-skilled
labour. Further, relatively high wages for low-skilled labour have encouraged
automation of work processes in order to reduce labour costs and have contrib-
uted to the relative success of Nordic industrial production in the global market.
The Nordic experience seems to confirm the Calmfors–Driffill hypothesis that
postulates a relationship between union density, coordinated wage formation
and low unemployment caused by high productivity (Calmfors, 1993).
In most highly developed welfare societies, the development of the wage
structure is characterized by polarization. An increasing proportion of the
employees are in the highly paid segment, and an increasing proportion in
the low-paid segment. The middle segment is shrinking. In the Scandinavian
countries, the development of the wage structure is different. There is
an increase in the high-wage segment and a decline in the low-paid seg-
ment. The proportion of employees in the segment in the middle is largely
unchanged (Fernández-Macías, 2012).
The wage formation and bargaining systems in Denmark and Norway dif-
fer. Coordination is more explicit in Norway. However, both countries have
some form of coordination and a practice where exporting industries are given
a decisive influence in setting the maximum wage increases.
Employment security
When it comes to security, Denmark is an interesting and controversial case.
Here employment protection as stipulated in laws and collective agreements
is very weak, especially for blue-collar workers, in comparison with other
European countries (Eurofound, 2009; Madsen, 2010). Denmark has therefore
become known for its flexicurity model, with low employment protection,
high social support for unemployment and an active labour market policy that
contributes to high labour mobility through education, supported employment
and support for unemployed people finding work.
In Norway, collective employment protection is weak. This makes it easier
to reduce staffing or close affiliations than in most other developed countries.
Individual employment protection, on the other hand, is quite strong and
in line with other Western countries. Together with the compressed wage
structure and the high level of competence, this provides a better capacity for
adaptation than in many other countries.
The flexicurity model in Denmark and the low collective employment
protection in Norway have to some extent been undermined by changes in
labour market policy towards ‘more stick and less carrot’. Despite the fact that
law- and contract-based employment protection is far greater in Norway than
in Denmark, employees indicate a high level of employment security in both
countries (Eurofound, 2017).8 A relatively large proportion of the population
is certain that they can remain in employment. In both countries, employment
security is considerably higher than in the rest of Europe. This paradox can be
explained in several ways:
• The unemployment rate has been relatively low in Norway and Denmark
for the past 20 years, which means that most people can soon fnd alterna-
tive employment quickly if they lose their job. Employment security is not
only about protection against dismissals but is also very much about the
chances of fnding a new, decent job.
• In countries with strong statutory employment security, a relatively large
group of employees cannot access the protection because they work more or
less permanently in vulnerable temporary or short-term jobs. Employers pre-
fer to have large numbers of staf in such jobs to make it easier to fre them.
• Lifelong learning and continuing training within and outside companies
enables many employees to fnd alternative work (see Chapter 9).
Gender segregation in the labour market

The early women’s movement focused on creating gender equality by improv-
ing women’s living conditions and by limiting women’s major commitments
to the family. In this connection, women were to have access to contraception
and abortion, education, public childcare and public elderly care. Household
technology was meant to minimize women’s domestic obligations.
The Nordic countries have been at the forefront of equal opportunities
for women. Women have had free access to abortion for 45 years. Women
now have a better educational background than men. Public services relieve
women to some extent of traditional female tasks. All families have access to
reasonable public childcare. The public sector takes care of elderly people in
their own homes or, if necessary, in nursing homes. Cooking and laundry have
become much less labour-intensive. Women and men in the Nordic countries
have generous maternity/paternity leave, relative to other OECD countries.
The policy of equal opportunities has had a great impact on women’s labour
market participation. The employment rate for women is almost at the same
level as for men, and the Nordic countries score the highest among EU countries
in the European Gender Equality Index (FIGE, 2013).9
However, the Nordic countries clearly show that these improvements in
women’s living conditions are not sufficient to create equality in the labour
market in terms of wages, job quality and career opportunities. Gender segre-
gation in the Nordic labour markets is still very prominent and has not become
significantly more balanced.
It is still the case that most people work in jobs where either one or the other
gender dominates (Emerek & Holt, 2008; Bloksgaard, 2011). Gender segre-
gation and female part-time work is widespread (Drange & Egeland, 2016).
Women are in administration, retail and care work. Men are in crafts, tech-
nology and management. The public sector is heavily dominated by female
employees. Women are weakly represented in management positions, especially
in the private sector, and there is almost no development in this area (Larsen
et al., 2016). ‘Female jobs’ are generally lower paid than ‘male jobs’, and the
degree of freedom in ‘female jobs’ is generally lower than in ‘male jobs’.
Gender equality is apparently not achieved merely by creating equal con-
ditions for the two sexes. Gender equality work must also include efforts to
change the way employees and managers are ‘doing gender’: the everyday
articulation of gender issues, expectations for the two sexes and the patterns of
behaviour that characterize the two sexes. It could be a major task for the social
parties to change the way ‘gender is done’ at work, but until now this has only
been addressed to a limited extent.
The welfare state and the labour market parties

Often the welfare state is attributed the central role in providing the better
working conditions and the lower inequality we find in the Nordic countries.
However, we would argue that the labour market parties and the institutions
they have created have played a greater role in making a difference in terms of
equality, employment and working conditions.
The welfare state means a great deal in most people’s lives, not only in
the Nordics but in all OECD countries. The welfare states in Norway and
Denmark do not seem to be unusually large. It is quite difficult to make com-
parisons on this point, but some estimates show that the magnitude of the
Nordic welfare states in the overall economy is not extraordinary compared to
other OECD countries. One indicator of the welfare state is the tax burden:
the greater the share of the total economy being collected by the state in terms
of taxes, the larger is the welfare state. Juul (2016) has made an assessment
of the tax burden in the OECD countries, which includes reservations for a
number of differences in national tax systems.10 According to this estimate,
Denmark has the 7th highest tax burden and Norway the 13th. Taxation thus
does not seem to be extraordinarily high in Norway and Denmark, or in the
other Nordic countries.11
According to Esping-Andersen’s (1990) classical typology of welfare states,
the Nordic welfare states show a high degree of decommodification. He
argues that the welfare state, especially in the Nordic countries, has created
a position for citizens that makes them relatively independent of demands
from the market (decommodification). This applies particularly to the labour
market. The Nordic welfare states have given their citizens universal rights
to income, independent of the labour market. This universalist principle is in
contrast to other welfare states, where citizens earn the right to social benefits
through long seniority at the same company, or where the welfare system
mainly provides social benefits to families and children.
However, there is a good reason to question Esping Andersen’s thesis that
decommodification is particularly advanced in the Nordic countries. Recent
studies have shown that decommodification, calculated as Esping-Andersen
did in 1990, is no longer a particular feature of the Nordic countries (Scruggs
& Allan, 2006).
In addition, the term decommodification may not be a very good label for
the Nordic welfare states (Kettunen, 2012). It may be more appropriate to
describe the welfare states of the Nordic countries with the label ‘fair com-
modification’. The Nordic welfare states have not reduced the impact of the
labour market on the economy and on people’s lives; however, the welfare
states, alongside the social parties, have balanced some of the inadequacies of the
labour market. The demand for labour in the market fluctuates. People selling
their labour in the market are depending on a steady demand, since they need
money every month. Therefore, labour productivity can be better maintained
if there is a social system that ensures income security. However, if there is a
demand in the labour market, the unemployed have to meet the demand. Social
policy has thus not reduced the dependence and involvement of citizens in the
labour market. On the contrary, social policy has supported and pushed the
individual citizen to labour market participation, and social policy has made it
possible and necessary for the individual to live a long life in the labour market.
In all the Nordic countries, social policy has had a strong orientation towards
the labour market: citizens on social benefits should return to work as soon as
possible. This Arbeidslinjen, which can be translated as ‘workfare’, has dominated
social policy was adopted to social policies in Norway since 1935 by legal acts. It
has been reinforced since the 1990 in both countries. To support labour supply,
it has also been appropriate to regulate companies’ use of labour. Companies
tend to create working conditions that are harmful for the labour market: a
company may be interested in high utilization of labour, but if this abolishes
the workability of labour, it is a market imperfection. This imperfection can be
countered by regulation, giving employees a say in work organization and the
working environment and by state regulation of the working environment. In
competence building, companies also tend to act inappropriately from a labour
market perspective. Companies are often in favour of narrow competence
building that only meets the demands of the individual company. However,
if the labour market is to function optimally, it must be characterized by high
mobility and flexibility, where labour is moving to the jobs with the highest
productivity and value creation. The demand for mobility makes it appropriate
to create training and competence building that go beyond the immediate needs
of the individual company (see Chapters 10 and 11).
Precisely because of the strong relationship between the social parties and
the state’s interaction with them, the Nordic welfare states have not reduced
the importance of market forces in the labour market. On the contrary, the
welfare states have optimized the labour markets and supported the labour
market to be an essential part of people’s everyday lives.
Universal social rights, which according to Esping-Andersen (1990)
characterize the social-democratic welfare states in the Nordic region, also
encourage labour market participation. A social policy linked to family and
children, which we find in most European countries, tends to restrict women’s
labour market participation. A social policy largely based on insurance paid
by companies, which we also see in many European countries, also tends to
reduce labour mobility. Universal rights lead to a high level of labour market
participation and high labour mobility, and thus contribute to an optimal
labour market.
However, there is another area where welfare states have contributed
to decommodification. Welfare states have moderated the income differ-
entials that the market creates by taxing the highest incomes heavily and
paying social benefits to those with the lowest incomes. This redistribu-
tion mechanism applies in all OECD countries; it may still be stronger in
Norway and Denmark than in the other OECD countries, in spite of being
weakened in recent years (Juul et al., 2016). However, the social parties
in the labour market have maintained relative equality in wage formation,
which has led to lower income inequality in the Nordic countries (Barth
& Moene, 2012).
To summarize: it is not primarily the welfare state that has created the spe-
cific characteristics of the Nordic countries. The Nordic welfare states are
similar in size to those of many other developed economies. The welfare states
in the Nordic countries achieve some social redistribution of wealth through
progressive taxation and social benefits, just as other welfare states do. The
interaction between the welfare state, the labour market and the social parties,
on the other hand, have created a dynamic that has resulted in less inequality,
greater participation in the labour market and more involvement than we see
elsewhere.
The state has an important role to play in order to maintain and develop the
institutional arrangements for wage formation, conflict mediation and the legal
framework regulating and organizing the labour market.
Culture as an explanation
The culture of the Nordics is characterized by trust and high social capital
(Svendsen & Svendsen, 2016). The argument here is that the high degree of
trust is conducive to cooperation in the labour market and in the economy
as a whole, both within companies and between companies. Trust and social
capital support innovation. In addition, trust and social capital encourage
responsibility and the individual’s willingness to perform. The high degree of
trust also makes it easier for the parties to reach compromises.
However, here the famous question arises again: which came first, the chicken
or the egg? Were the institutions where the parties can meet, negotiate and find
a solution, created because of the trust typical of the Nordic culture? Or is it the
reverse, namely that the institutions where conflicts can be solved have created
trust in the labour market and also in civil society?
The relatively high level of trust between the social parties has not always
existed, which is also mentioned in the presentation of the history of Nordic
labour market relations in Chapter 2. In this context, it is worth noting that
the Nordic countries primarily have an institutional similarity rather than a his-
torical similarity. All five Nordic countries are characterized by high levels of
trust and social capital, even though their histories differ, especially in the case
of Finland. In the 20th century, Finland had a civil war, a strong reliance on
Russia and the Soviet Union, and a very late industrialization. Its relationship
with the other Nordic countries helped establish institutions in Finland that
were similar to those developed in the other countries. Today, Finland has the
same level of trust and social capital as the other Nordics.
Whether culture creates institutions or institutions create culture is a difficult
question. However, without institutions that can preserve and further develop
trust and social capital, those cultural features would probably disappear. The
established institutions in the labour market are an important foundation for
the particular Nordic cultural features.
The economy: a prerequisite for or a consequence of

the labour market?
From the perspective of the so-called ‘supply economics’, the labour market
in the Nordic countries is inappropriate. Wages are high, especially for those
called low-productivity employees, and working hours are short. Management
decisions in companies are hampered by the fact that some decisions have to
be discussed with employee representatives, and sometimes management has
to follow employee wishes and demands. The Nordic labour market is like a
heavy bumblebee. It should not be possible for the bee to fly, but it does. It
tumbles around, zig-zags, but stays on its wings, and with quite considerable
success. Norway has the second highest gross domestic product (GDP) per
inhabitant in Europe, just behind Luxembourg. Denmark is ranked number 8,
above Sweden and Germany (EUROSTAT).12
But surely the real source of the economic success of Norway and Denmark
is the oil fields in the North Sea? Both countries have access to large oil reserves.
But in fact, in Denmark, the oil industry forms only a minor part of the overall
economy.
In Norway, however, the oil industry represents a much larger part of the
economy. Oil revenues account for 14% of GDP and 40% of total exports,
according to Norwegian Petroleum.13 Yet Norwegian oil has not been alone in
making the difference. Even before the Norwegian oil adventure started in the
1970s, Norway was a prosperous country. Although the Norwegian oil indus-
try has contributed to raising the cost of living in Norway, there is still a large
private sector that is able to compete in global markets. The oil industry has
also led to technological innovation. The oil resources are located in deep seas
far from land and are being extracted using advanced subsea robot technology.
The Nordic countries are all economies highly dependent on their competi-
tiveness in the global markets. Exporting industries comprise a substantial part
of GDP. However, production structure differs. We have already commented
on Norway’s dependency on oil. In addition, Norway also exports goods based
on natural resources like hydro-power and fish.
Denmark is well known for its agricultural sector. In spite of a limited geo-
graphical area and a cold climate, Denmark is a major European provider of
dairy and meat products. The manufacturing industries (pharmaceutical prod-
ucts and environment-enhancing products), together with other industries
and services, however, account for the main volume of Danish exports. The
Swedish and Finnish economies are also export-oriented but rely more on
traditional manufacturing industries (e.g. metal, cars and paper). There are few
similarities in what the Nordic countries produce and export. They are exposed
to different global markets and different competitors. What they have in com-
mon is their reliance on global markets. This reliance has forced the Nordic
governments, employers and trade unions to adapt rapidly to changes in the
‘terms of trade’.
The Finnish researcher, Juha Vartiainen, stated that the Nordic countries
have learnt to ‘live with the market’ (Vartiainen, 2014). He points out that
the dependency on global markets is a key factor in understanding the devel-
opment of institutional arrangements in the Nordic welfare states and in the
labour markets.
The question thus arises: how does the strongly regulated Nordic labour
market enhance or restrict economic development? The high minimum wage,
set by collective agreements, is not only an economic constraint but also an
economic advantage (Hoeller et al., 2012). In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the
two Swedish economists, Meidner and Rehn, strongly advocated the positive
effects of the solidarity wage policy on the economy. The argument was that
the solidarity wage policy would make low-productivity jobs unprofitable, and
they would thus disappear. This is however not necessarily a problem. On the
contrary, it makes it possible to move labour from low-productivity areas to
high-productivity areas, if workers are helped with mobility-enhancing meas-
ures such as education, housing and support to move to where high-productivity
jobs are located. This understanding of the potentials of the solidarity wage
policy is found among present-day economists, such as the two Norwegian
economists Barth and Moene (2012). They find that the OECD countries
where wage differences are smallest and where the starting wage for young
people is high are also the countries with the highest general and youth employ-
ment rates. Solidarity wages do not seem to harm employment; on the contrary.
Strong employee representation can make quick managerial decisions diffi-

cult. That is, however, not necessarily only a barrier to economic development.
It might equally well be an economic strength. Peter Nielsen et al. (2012)
have shown, by combining register data and questionnaire data, that Danish
companies where employee representation is strong are also the companies
with the greatest innovative capacity. In recent years, there has also been a
considerable interest in employee-driven innovation, where employees’ direct
involvement in their own work combined with strong employee representa-
tion in companies create renewal and innovation (Høyrup & Møller, 2012).
The Nordic region: part of the global community

The Nordic countries are deeply involved in the global economy. Their
economies are small and highly export-oriented. There is hardly any doubt
that globalization of the economy has been a major advantage for the Nordic
economies, because it has enabled the export of expensive speciality goods and
raw materials, and the import of cheap standard goods. However, globalization
also imposes a competitive pressure on all sectors of society, not least the labour
market. Increased labour migration within the EU/EEA has put pressure on
the wages of low-skilled blue-collar workers.
Industry and food production are highly exposed to global competition.
However, private services are also increasingly exposed to global competi-
tion. The public sector is subject to a high efficiency requirement to ensure
that it is not a burden on the economy. Here, benchmarks of cost and quality
in other welfare societies make for partial global competition. The require-
ment of efficiency seems to be indispensable in all sectors of the economy.
Globalization means free movement of capital, and foreign investments are
at a high level in the Nordic countries. Hedge funds and other financial insti-
tutions investing in Nordic business often have a fairly short-term horizon
for their investments. This is challenging cooperation among the parties on
the development of working conditions, which will usually have a long-term
perspective.
With globalization, ideas and concepts flow more easily across borders. This
means that management concepts, developed under other social, cultural and
political conditions (often in the United States), cross national borders and are
implemented in Nordic companies. However, these concepts can be difficult
to reconcile with the working life traditions of the Nordic region.
Finally, globalization is expressed by the fact that labour travels across bor-
ders. In the Nordic countries, there has been quite significant immigration
from the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, where there is no
tradition of independent trade union organization and where dialogue-oriented
management has not been practised that much.
All of this means that the development of working conditions in the Nordic
countries largely follows developments in other comparable countries:
• Working conditions become more fexible and individualized

• Union density is declining
• Demands for efciency are growing
• Work is standardized
• Inequality between the sexes is maintained
• Immigration puts pressure on working conditions in parts of the labour
market
• Inequality grows (primarily due to capital income and property prices).
The so-called Nordic model is under pressure, but this is nothing new. It has
been the case since the late 1960s, when the economies to a great extent were
opened up to the world market. One might say that the model has shown its
strength by dealing with new issues and challenges and finding new solutions.
Notes
1 The Work Life Barometer is an annual survey among employees executed by WRI
for the Norwegian trade union confederation YS.
2 The decline in organizational density is primarily occurring in the private sector
and in the low-paid areas. One reason may be that many low-paid workers are in
temporary jobs and therefore have little incentive to be organized.
3 See also http://arbeidslivet.no/PageFiles/9979/Orggrad-arbgivere.png.
4 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20180
125-1?inheritRedirect=true.
5 In relation to the Working Environment Act, the state has laid down rules regulating
the minimum time for rest periods.
6 In Norway 44% and in Denmark 47% of a representative sample of employees stated
that they were ‘very satisfed with working conditions’ in their main paid job. No
other European country scores as highly on this question.The average for the EU is
26%.The proportion answering that they were ‘not very satisfed with their working
conditions’ was 5% in Norway and 8% in Denmark.This is at the same level as in
European countries with relatively low unemployment.
7 www.oecd.org/social/inequality.htm#income.
8 Some 10% of Norwegians and 11% of Danes agree with the statement ‘I might lose
my job in the next six months’.Thus, employment security seems to be at the same
level in Norway and Denmark, and at signifcantly better levels than in Europe as a
whole. Regarding the statement ‘If I were to lose or quit my current job, it would
be easy for me to fnd a job with a similar salary’, 53% in Denmark and 54% in
Norway agree, and only 13% and 12% disagree. In no other countries in Europe are
expectations for a positive job shift as great as in Denmark and Norway.
9 The index contains the following parameters: work (employment rate, degree of
freedom in work, etc.), money (income and risk of poverty), knowledge (edu-
cation), power (political and economic infuence), time (time spent on domestic
obligations), health and violence.
10 For example, Juul’s estimation takes into account the fact that in some countries
people who receive social benefts have to pay taxes. In these countries social
benefts appear to be higher, but are not so high when the taxes have been paid.
However, the national accounts show that social spending is high and the tax
burden is extensive, which can be quite a false conclusion.
11 For Norway one should take into consideration that oil revenues fnance almost
20% of total public expenditure.
12 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:GDP_at_
current_market_prices,_2007_and_2015-2017_FP18.png.
13 www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/.
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Chapter 2
The peculiar history of

Nordic working life
Eivind Falkum, Helge Hvid and
Per Bonde Hansen
Introduction
The Nordic countries have developed independently, but, in the case of
Norway, Denmark and Sweden, largely in parallel. Finland, which today is
part of the Nordic model and has contributed significantly to renewal of the
model, has historically followed another path to becoming a Nordic country
(Sippola, 2015). In the following, we will present key features of the history
of the Nordic model by presenting key events in Norway and Denmark, with
sporadic reference to Sweden.
The Nordic model had its cradle in the conflicts that arose when wage
labour became widespread and the towns grew in the late 19th century. The
conflicts led both employees and employers to organize their own interest
associations. The conflicts were particularly prevalent in the first decades of the
20th century, leading to extensive institutional building in the labour market.
That did not eliminate the labour market conflicts, but from now on, they had
an institutional framework in which they could unfold. These institutions are
still vital today. We call this period ‘from the streets to the negotiation table’.
From the mid-1930s onwards, the institutional framework for regulating
conflicts between employees and employers expanded. During the same period,
a welfare society was gradually established in intensive interaction between the
state, the social parties and other interest groups. The Nordic social democra-
cies dominated the political systems during this period. We therefore call this
period ‘the social-democratic era’.
From the mid-1980s onwards, the Social Democrats gradually lost their
political hegemony. Global competition was growing. International regula-
tion became more comprehensive. The welfare state gradually changed its
character. Governance principles, formed by neo-liberal thinking, took over.
Pay and working conditions were gradually individualized. The period saw
a dissolution of the ties between the trade union movement and the Social
Democrats on the one hand, and employers’ organizations and the conserva-
tive parties on the other. Nevertheless, the social parties and the state have
maintained and further developed the central institutions in the Nordic model.
Peculiar history of Nordic working life 31
The social parties succeed in combining high levels of economic efficiency

with high levels of equality and social security (Kristensen & Lilja, 2011). We
call this period the ‘neo-liberal era’.
From the streets to the negotiation table

The Nordic labour markets are often said to be characterized by trust, collabo-
ration and consensus. The outset of the process towards a peaceful working
life was, however, quite the opposite: serious and protracted conflicts in the
labour market.
In the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th,
the industrialization processes redefined and reorganized the political and
economic interests in societies, and thus also the social and cultural inter-
ests. Industrialization transformed societies and their institutions, providing
completely new ways to produce and distribute wealth.
The exchange economy was still common in the final decades of the 19th
century in Denmark and Norway. Industrialization accelerated in the 1890s.
Power plants, chemical plants and metallurgical manufacturing plants were
established at waterfalls in Norway. In Denmark, primarily shipyards, but
also the food, metal and other industries grew in the same period. Paid work
became the normal way to make a living, replacing the exchange economy and
domestic work for large numbers of the population. Labour relations changed
as the more or less feudal work arrangements faded out of societies and his-
tory. This was the common background to the transformation of the Nordic
societies, although there were national differences in timelines and speed in
this development.
Institutionalization of class conflicts in Denmark

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Denmark was a pioneer nation in
terms of organizing the labour market. Denmark had the highest union den-
sity in the world around the year 1900, according to historians. About 50%
of skilled workers were members of a trade union (Galenson, 1955). In 1899,
employers’ associations and trade unions signed a so-called ‘basic agreement’
that regulated the employer–employee relationship. This agreement has been
expanded since then, but has been preserved in essence.
The ‘basic agreement’ expresses pragmatic sense and consensus, despite the
less friendly and peaceful climate that created it. The agreement was created
after decades of hard labour conflicts.
In Denmark, the first steps to establishing trade unions were taken in the
1870s. Following a major demonstration in 1872, the leaders of the new
labour movement, Louis Pio, Paul Geleff and Harald Brix, were arrested and
the International Labour Union for Denmark was banned. Louis Pio was later
32 Eivind Falkum et al.
urged by the police to emigrate to the United States. In the next decade, trade
unions were further weakened due to an economic crisis. However, from the
mid-1880s the number of workers grew rapidly, as did the trade unions. Now
the peasant movement and the labour movement had become so strong that the
authorities could no longer pursue unions with unconstitutional interventions.
The trade unions’ main strategy was to use what in Danish is called
‘omgangsskruen’ or in English, the ‘wrench’: a strike for better pay and work-
ing conditions was initiated by the unions at a workplace where the union
considered that it would be possible to pressurize an employer. When the
union had won one victory, it would proceed to the next employer. The strikers
received compensation from the union.
In line with the establishment of the unions, employers began to organize
themselves. Employers’ response to the ‘wrench’ was lockouts. If there was a
conflict in one workplace, employers implemented lockouts in many other
workplaces to make it difficult for the unions to compensate workers for their
lost wages.
In 1897, a labour dispute in one major metal enterprise led to a lockout for
the entire metal industry. Employers wanted to ensure their right to lead and
direct the work, their right to decide whom to employ, and they also defended
their right to determine pay and working conditions. The employers lost this
conflict, but it led to the national organization of both parties, across all sectors.
There were already a large number of sector-specific employers’ associations.
In 1898, they formed the Danish Employers’ Association. In the same year, the
Confederation of Trade Unions, with the support of a large number of unions,
was established. Now the social parties geared up for battle, and in May 1899,
employers started a large lockout to recover what they had lost.
One key demand of the employers was the right to direct and distribute the
work. They also wanted to protect their right to hire the labour they consid-
ered appropriate. Further demands were an institutionalization of the conflicts
in the labour market and collective agreements to be determined through cen-
tralized negotiations, with an obligation for both parties to comply with the
agreement until it expired. As long as the agreement was in force, strikes and
lockouts were not to be permitted. This was something completely new.
These requirements were in contrast to the demands of the workers, who
fought for their right to direct and distribute the work. Furthermore, the trade
unions were not in favour of centralized negotiations. That would undermine
their effective weapon, ‘the wrench’, which split the employers. The employ-
ers, for their part, could not accept ‘the wrench’ and consequently could not
agree to local negotiations.
The conflict became extensive; it lasted for 100 days and included 40,000
workers, which was a large number for a small country of 2.5 million inhabit-
ants, most of whom worked in agriculture and fisheries. The farmers supported
the workers with contributions. The conflict gained international attention,
and the workers received financial support from all over the world.
However, the unions could not resist the pressure in the long run. The par-
ties made an agreement on 5 September 1899. Both parties proclaimed this a
victory. Subsequently, however, most analysts found that the employers were
the primary victors.
It was legally confirmed that employers had the right to direct and distribute
the work and employ those they deemed appropriate. From then on, it became
much more difficult to organize local and spontaneous strikes. A system with
centralized collective agreements was established, and the unions were obliged
to ensure labour peace as long the agreement was in force. Employers accepted
trade unions as negotiating partners and were no longer allowed to prevent
employees from organizing in trade unions.
The ‘September Agreement’ was subsequently strengthened by the estab-
lishment of two institutions: a special court and a mediation board. The court
could impose sanctions if agreements were not fulfilled by one of the parties.
The mediation board was to provide support if the parties could not reach a
new agreement when the old one was about to expire. For both these institutions,
the national court and the state have played a decisive role.
The main agreement, concluded with the September settlement in 1899,
is still the constitution of the labour market in Denmark. However, in the
meantime, a large number of modifications and additions have been made to
the agreement.
For some of the employers’ organizations, the goal of the grand lockout in
1899 was to break the trade union movement. However, they did not succeed;
in fact, unions grew in membership and influence in the following years. About
50% of skilled workers were members of a trade union in 1900. Employers’
associations also grew, and the level of organized employers was far higher in
Denmark than in the other Nordic countries (Galenson, 1955).
Since the September Agreement, employers’ organizations and trade unions
have become mutually dependent and have had a common interest in main-
taining an organized labour market.
The other Nordic countries achieved general agreements similar to the
Danish September Agreement, but much later. Norway signed its basic
agreement in 1935, Sweden in 1938, and Finland saw a number of similar
agreements during the 1960s. Consequently, the conflicts were less regulated
for decades in Norway, Sweden and Finland than they were in Denmark.
Next, we will briefly present developments in Norway in the first decades of
the 20th century.
Institutionalizing class conflicts in Norway

The first employer and union agreement in Norway was signed between
some organized employers and the labour union for metal industries in 1902,
and revised in 1907. Agreements as tools to solve differences and possible
conflicts were already on the working life agenda in the early phases of the
industrialization process and the introduction of modernity to the Nordic soci-

eties, in parallel with Denmark. However, these first agreements were quickly
broken, either by employers’ lockouts or by union strikes. Labour conflicts
were common from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1930s.
In 1915, a law was passed in Norway to regulate labour conflicts. That law
(Arbeidstvistloven) established the national mediator (Riksmeglingsmannen)
and the labour court (Arbeidsretten) as public tools to solve differences of
interest between employers and employees.
Labour conflicts peaked in Norway in 1930, with 8 million working days
lost due to labour conflicts during that year. The situation inspired the prime
minister of the Liberal government to conclude that political decisions and
labour laws had demonstrated their inability to solve the devastating conflicts
between labour and capital, and unions and employers. He invited the parties
to a new Labour Peace Committee and suggested that they needed to find out
how to avoid conflicts. This process ended in the basic agreement in 1935.
The level of conflicts was very high in the whole of Europe in the early
20th century. In the first place, World War I damaged European economies
and nations from 1914 to 1918. The Russian revolution took place in 1917
and introduced the proletarian dictatorship to political governance. The Third
Communist International (Comintern) advocated a communist world order
from 1919 to 1943. Several national labour movements all over Europe joined
Comintern, including the Norwegian Labour Party.
World War I led to economic downturns, ruined food production
and brought fear of hunger to European countries, including the Nordics.
Simultaneously, inspired by the Russian revolution, labour movements became
radicalized. An opposition group in the Norwegian Labour Party insisted on
adopting some of the socialist ideas in the political programme, including the
idea of organizing workers’ councils as a local political force in most areas of
society (Debes, 1919). This suggestion was accepted and recognized by the
party convention in 1918. The party joined Comintern in 1919. They left
Comintern three years later because of disagreements on the centralized power
in the international movement. Furthermore, the Norwegian Labour Party lost
large numbers of members who disagreed with the association with Comintern
(Langfeldt, 1961). The labour union opposed the Labour Party’s membership
of Comintern. Turning back to the social-democratic platform, the alliance
between the party and union recovered and improved. The labour movement
now gave priority to the battle of labour interests with employers: to improve
wages, working conditions and welfare services.
Liberals and conservatives often criticized the alliance of the Labour
Party and the labour union for dominating through their ability to influ-
ence politics and the economy simultaneously. However, there was another
important alliance in the early 20th century, between the liberal parties in
parliament and the employers’ associations (Bjørnson, 1990, p. 566). The
prime minster in the Liberal government, Gunnar Knudsen, even guaran-

teed to support employers in case of socialist-inspired attempts of workers
to take over private property in 1919, if necessary with armed force. There
were at least two occasions when the army was ordered to intervene in
labour conflicts: one in 1913 in a mining company in the north, and mili-
tary actions towards striking workers in 1931 at a plant in the south-east
(Johansen, 1977). In the early 1930s, a Conservative government proposed
‘worker-hostile’ laws to prevent strikes (Bjørnson, 1990). The parliamentary
majority turned down the proposal, and following a vote of no confidence,
the government had to resign.
The period 1921 to 1931 has been labelled by historians as ‘the period
of great labour conflicts’ in Norway (Ousland, 1949). When negotiations
between the social parties and the government took place in the Labour Peace
Committee from 1930 until 1935, the relations between worker and employer
gradually changed. After the basic agreement in 1935, the climate changed.
In the same year, the Labour Party obtained a majority of votes in the general
election and formed its second government.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the communist parties called the agreement treach-
ery towards labour class interests and a subordination to capital interests, i.e.
a co-optation. Basic agreements are generally considered to be the result of
class compromises. The labour unions accept the private property right of
employers by signing the agreements. In return, the employers accept the
unions as rightful representatives of workers’ interests in collective bargaining
on wages. This is the fundamental principle of the industrial relations derived
from basic agreements.
The Labour Party and the labour union have challenged the private prop-
erty rights in Norway since their very beginnings. Firstly, their declarations
and political programmes, by the Norwegian Labour Party since 1897 and the
labour union in 1899, were strongly inspired by socialist conceptions of private
property and the need for a social distribution of wealth. Secondly, the labour
union demanded to be part of workplace management in the wage negotia-
tions in 1918 (Debes, 1919). The employers’ association (NAF) interpreted
this as an attack on their administrative prerogative and thereby also the private
property rights (ibid.).
The historian Einar Terjesen has, however, argued that the class com-
promise of 1935 was not a compromise between economic interests and the
boundaries of the administrative prerogative, but between different views on
a just society and was thus a compromise between market and democracy
(Terjesen, 2012, p. 26).
The Norwegian basic agreement of 1935 simply consisted of some rules
on how to disagree, in order to prevent differences of interest from escalating
into conflicts. The social parties have subsequently revised the basic agreement
several times, every fourth year in recent decades.
The social-democratic era

For 40 to 50 years from the mid-1930s, the Social Democrats dominated the
governments in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The Social Democrats had
a strong relationship with the trade unions in that period. We call this period
the social-democratic era. The boundaries between the labour market parties
and the state were largely erased: the state determined the conditions for busi-
ness and had an influence on wages and working conditions. However, the
government did not overrule the social parties. The social parties were heavily
involved in the development of government policies.
Social democracies in the Nordic countries dominated the government
apparatus from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s, but with different strengths
in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. In both Norway and Sweden, the Social
Democrats had an absolute majority in parliament for long periods. In other
periods, they had to work with parties to the left of the Labour Party. In
Denmark, the Social Democrats formed the largest political party by far, but
never had a majority in parliament; for almost the whole period they had to
make coalitions with liberal parties in the middle of the political spectrum,
which was rather sceptical of the social parties. This meant that the state in
Denmark was less involved in matters settled by agreements directly between
the social parties.
However, all the Nordic countries (again with Finland as a latecomer)
were busy building a social-democratic society. In Sweden, this new society
was called the ‘Home of the People’ (Folkhemmet). In Denmark, the new
society was described in the Social Democracy Party Programme of 1934
(Socialdemokratiet, 1934). The programme stated that the goal was still to
abolish capitalism, but in the long term. The focus for now should be on the
creation of a worthy life for all with a respectable job: workers, officers, self-
employed workers, small farmers and agricultural workers. Furthermore, social
security should be expanded and the economy regulated. The programme text
ends with the following wording:
Now the time has come. Not for miraculous experiments and unlawful
actions (which both Communists and Nazis were responsible for), not for
threats and attempts to break down an organized society, but the time has
come to create a community of people to oppose lawlessness and to make
the construction of a new society the goal of our future work.
(Authors’ translation)
The ideal was a society characterized by:
1 Full employment. It presupposed vocational education and labour policy

that supported business development.
2 Security. For children and for unemployed, disabled, ill, and elderly people.
Housing for all.
3 Equality. Equality in income and wealth. Equality in opportunities through

free access to education and healthcare.
4 Enlightenment. Everyone must have access to general education and cul-
tural services.
5 Democracy. Democratization of the economy, democratization of work-
places, democratization of residential areas.
The policies of the Nordic Social Democrats were realized in a dual political
system, which Rokkan (1986) labels ‘corporate pluralism’. The social parties
and other interest groups were involved in the creation, administration and
renewal of the democratic policies. The corporate channel, however, included
only organized interest groups, but in great numbers and varieties, which are
covered by the concept of corporate pluralism (Rokkan, 1986). The political
logic was to bring together opposing interests and perspectives in advance, in
order to arrive at shared understandings of the problem at hand.
This model has several advantages over normal political decision making
where the majority prevails. Firstly, the policy at hand is enlightened by groups
with vested interests in it; thus, in principle, it is explored more deeply through
a range of different approaches and perspectives. This is assumed to improve
planning and implementation. Secondly, not only experts, bureaucrats or the
most powerful people in society have a say; the groups that will experience
the consequences of the proposed policies should also participate. Those who
wear the shoes matter. Thirdly, when groups known to have different attitudes,
experiences, knowledge and interests meet each other in such tripartite arrange-
ments, opportunities to negotiate during the elaboration and planning process
will enhance abilities and possibilities to agree on solutions in the early stages.
Finally, this kind of planning and decision making, when successful, will achieve
policies that have support in advance of the final decision, which will increase the
possibility of successful implementation of new policies. This is exactly the same
logic that is intrinsic to democracy in workplaces as we know it in the Nordics
(see Chapters 3 and 4 of this volume).
A possible disadvantage of corporate pluralism, however, may be what the
historian Edvard Bull has called ‘top level partnership’. According to Bull, the
leadership of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions shared a com-
mon understanding with government and employers that differed from that
of the members and shop stewards in workplaces (Bull, 1979). In addition,
we may assume that the top level involvement of the unions strengthened the
character of the organizations as social institutions rather than social move-
ments that could play a transformative role in society.
The social-democratic era coincided with the Fordist epoch that occurred
throughout the Western world with mass production, mass consumption and
welfare states. In the Nordic countries, a specific social-democratic version of
Fordism was developed. It balanced out differences and conflicting interests
through negotiations and compromises between the social parties (Falkum, 2008).
Naturally, we cannot describe here the whole social revolution that occurred in
the era. However, many of the other chapters in this book will illuminate this
period within more specific areas: employment and equality have been discussed
in Chapter 1. In Chapter 3, we will focus on democratization efforts at the end
of the social-democratic era. We will also elaborate further on initiatives taken
during that period in other chapters.
Here we will present two examples of positive and negative effects of
the social-democratic era. We will describe how the state, trade unions and
employers’ associations stood together to introduce Taylorism and Fordist pro-
duction methods in the 1950s, with Denmark as an example (there was a similar
development in Norway). We will briefly describe how the state, trade union
and employers’ organizations subsequently started to find alternatives to the
Taylorist and Fordist production systems, by introducing socio-technology,
here with Norway as an example (this also took place in Denmark, but later
than in Norway).
In the first years after World War II, both the trade union movement and
the Social Democrats were of the opinion that Denmark had outdated pro-
duction facilities. There was a consensus on the need for rationalization in
industry. Although rationalization often leads to job losses, and severe rationali-
zation often hits certain professions and trades particularly hard, it was generally
supported by the trade union movement. Efforts were made to create ration-
alizations in collaboration between management and elected representatives of
the employees, with particular emphasis on ensuring that the rationalizations
were beneficial for both parties.
One step in that direction was the signing of a cooperation agreement
between employers’ associations and the trade union movement in 1947.
Under the agreement, cooperation committees would provide workers with
insight into strategic issues and the company’s economy, and the two par-
ties would collaborate in the creating of rationalizations that respected and
improved the health and wellbeing of workers (Samarbejdsnævnet, 1997).
A special agreement between the social parties in Norway in 1946 had similar
aims (Bjørnson, 1990).
Taylorist time and motion studies were the most advanced approach to
rationalization in the first years after World War II. Work processes were ana-
lysed, time measurements were made for the different processes, the tasks were
split up to let each one be as simple as possible, and work was paid at piece rate.
The trade union movement took an active part in the introduction of Taylorist
principles in Denmark and Norway (Christensen et al., 2015). Rationalization
consultants were employed by the trade unions. They arranged workshops on
rationalization in large companies, and they entered into rationalization agree-
ments in the companies. The workers’ education associations held training
courses in rationalization. The trade unions in Denmark organized study trips
to the United States to learn the most effective approach to rationalization.
The Ministry of Commerce supported these visits (Christensen et al., 2015).
Eiler Jensen, who chaired the Danish Federation of Trade Unions (DsF) in the
early 1950s, stressed again and again that as long as the modernization of pro-
duction supported the common good, they would succeed. Rationalization
would improve competitiveness, secure employment, increase wages and
improve working conditions. Therefore, cooperation on modernization and
rationalization was crucial.
However, the Taylorist rationalization encountered significant resistance
from the workers. A five-week strike in the Philips television factory in 1954
became iconic. The strike was called because of unrealistically high produc-
tivity requirements and humiliating surveillance. The conflict gained great
support from workers in other companies, while the trade union movement
had to distance itself from the conflict. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, there
were a number of similar conflicts.
The highly controlled and intensive Taylorist work organization met with
strong opposition from workers. This led to a demand for a democratization
of working life that would have an impact on working conditions, influence
corporate leadership and ultimately also involve the influence of workers on
investments and priorities through economic democracy. This democratiza-
tion effort will be presented in more detail in Chapter 3.
Here we will place this democratic movement in a broader historical con-
text. In Norway, initiatives were taken as early as the 1960s to find alternatives
to the Taylorist approach to work organization. These initiatives took place in
cooperation between labour unions and employers’ associations (Thorsrud &
Emery, 1964, 1970).
Democracy as a perspective became quite clear in the revision of the
basic agreement in Norway in 1966 (Bjørnhaug & Halvorsen, 2009).
The basic agreement was significantly expanded. It stipulated a two-stage
democratic process in workplaces. Employees’ participation in workplace
development and work autonomy was introduced as mandatory in work-
places that signed the agreement. This was the first stage. The second stage
was an extension and clarification of unions’ rights to codetermination in
decision making and planning in private enterprises, as further elaborated and
analysed in Chapters 3 and 4 of this volume.
Parallel to the revision of the basic agreement in Norway in 1966, an exten-
sive debate about political regulation of work environments arose after a major
accident with 23 casualties in a coalmine in Svalbard in 1963. Heiret (2003)
argues that this accident, and the following debate, also triggered the revi-
sion of the basic agreement. Political parties argued in parliament for making
employee board representation mandatory by law during the 1960s. Finally, in
1972 the Limited Companies Act included the proposal that employees could
demand to have up to one-third of board members in limited companies,
elected from and by all employees, not only union members.
Efforts to democratize working life were continued in the Working Environ-
ment Act of 1977. Here, socio-technical principles and socio-psychological
requirements were introduced as the basic principles for work organization.

Furthermore, the development of the working environment was to take
place in a democratic process. Any enterprise with 30 employees or more was
required to set up a working environment committee. All workplaces with ten
employees or more had to have health and safety representatives elected from
and by all employees. This represented a paradigm shift from a focus on work
hygiene and health to a focus on social relations and dynamics in workplaces
(Falkum, 2008).
As shown earlier, the trade union movement was deeply involved in the
development of working life in the social-democratic era through close coop-
eration with employers. As a result, the trade union movement participated
in the development of working conditions characterized by standardization,
managerial control and high labour intensity. However, it was also involved in
the development of cooperation between autonomous employees as part of the
development of democracy in working life.
In the social-democratic era, democratization of daily work and democra-
tization of top management through democratization of the economy were
important issues. However, the economy was never democratized; such efforts
in Norway ended in 1980. A public proposal to increase employee board rep-
resentation from 30% to 50% of board members was turned down by unions as
well as employers’ associations (Nyhamar, 1994, p. 326). In Denmark, efforts
to democratize the economy had ended a few years earlier.
Simultaneously, the new market liberalism influenced politics in the
Western world. It brought ideas of deregulation of markets, including labour
markets, and a new and less interfering role of politics in economic development
(Friedman & Friedman, 1980).
However, as we will argue later, there are different varieties of neo-
liberalism. The Nordic countries seem to have developed a specific variant
of neo-liberalism, yet with significant differences between the countries. For
example, it was possible to fulfil the wish of the neo-liberal era for a high
degree of flexibility with the experience gained in the Nordic countries on
the democratization of work organization.
The neo-liberal era

During the 1980s, the social-democratic project was weakened, and neo-liberal
understandings and regulatory principles grew throughout the Western world,
including the Nordic countries. In neo-liberal thinking, a belief in planning
is replaced by a belief in market mechanisms. The social policy had previ-
ously included a wide range of universal rights. These were now diminished
or replaced with activities to support the individual’s ability and motivation to
get a job and be part of the labour market. Social policy changed from welfare
to workfare. According to neo-liberal ideology, wage formation should follow
supply and demand.
For the United States and the UK, the neo-liberal project was in line with
the liberal social model that was already established in these countries. In
contrast to these liberal countries are the countries Hall and Soskice (2001)
call ‘co-ordinated market economies’. Here, pay and working conditions are
determined by collective agreements, there is a public infrastructure for educa-
tion and training, business-level collaboration has been developed and investors
have a relatively long-term perspective on their return on capital. In this cat-
egory of countries, we find Germany, Japan, Austria and the Nordic countries.
In some of these countries, social conditions have deteriorated remarka-
bly during the neo-liberal era. This applies for instance to Germany, where
the influential institutions connected to the labour market and social parties
have been maintained in traditional industries without significant renewals.
However, the rising group of low-paid workers in the service industries and
the increasing numbers of highly educated people in the services sector are
not included in the institutional protection associated with coordinated mar-
ket economies (Thelen, 2014). This has created a sharp rise in the numbers of
working poor, and an unregulated labour market for the highly educated.
The neo-liberal social order has been heavily criticized (e.g. Standing, 2010).
Some of the criticisms are as follows: market relations will surpass all other social
considerations; both the state and the private sector are managed within a short-
term perspective; individuals are obliged to find a position in the labour market
themselves and must accept pay and working conditions that correspond to
their market value; and individual competition replaces social solidarity.
Neo-liberalism, however, does not appear in a uniform manner from
country to country. Kathleen Thelen (2014) identifies different varieties of
liberalization, and she investigates attempts to defend solidarity in different
neo-liberal frameworks. Among a wide range of countries, she examines the
formation of a neo-liberalism that, to use Wolfgang Streeck’s term, can be
called ‘competitive solidarity’ (Streeck, 1999).
This competitive solidarity has developed especially in Denmark, perhaps
because both employers and employees have been relatively well organized in
all sectors, while social democracy, compared with the other Nordic countries,
has remained relatively weak. As a result, the state has played a minor role in
the labour market in Denmark compared to the other Nordic countries, and
the legacy of the social-democratic society has been less extensive. The social
parties therefore have had wider scope to find a compromise between the
flexibility employers wanted in order to participate in global competition,
and the equality and social security which are the eligibility of employees’
organizations.
Competitive solidarity, as it has evolved in the Nordic countries, especially
in Denmark, is characterized by:
• Acceptance of globalization of the economy. Both employers’ associations and

trade unions abandon all forms of protectionism. There is full acceptance
that the Nordic economies are open economies in global competition.

Cooperation between the social parties at company level must help to
make companies competitive in the global economy. The awareness and
acceptance of global competition among Danish industrial workers is
described in Hull Kristensen’s book (2003) on the role of employee repre-
sentatives in multinational companies in Denmark.
• Flexibility and decentralization. Flexibility is a key word in the era of neo-
liberalism. It is said that the market requires constant adjustments. To
increase fexibility, employers now want general agreements on wages and
working conditions terminated in favour of decentralized and local agree-
ments. In the frst half of the 20th century, employers were in favour
of centralized agreements. Now they prefer decentralized agreements. In
Denmark, a gradual decentralization of contractual relations occurred in the
mid-1980s. The social parties entered into a number of framework agree-
ments. These agreements were then to be implemented locally. A new
model for collective agreements was developed, which Due and Madsen
call ‘centralized decentralization’ (Due et al., 1994); here, local agreements
were concluded within a centrally defned framework. Over the years, the
framework for local agreements has gradually become more fexible. Due
and Madsen (2008) now characterize the system of collective agreements
as multi-level regulation: it seems that Denmark has succeeded in creating
a system of collective agreements where centralized agreements provide
some strength to decentralized agreements, and decentralized agreements
give strength to centralized agreements. In Norway, this decentralization
has not taken place to the same extent. The tripartite system for wage
formation is highly centralized in Norway and forms the basis for local
negotiations, compromises and solutions to a great extent.
• Employability. Education, training and competence development, which
will be presented in detail in Part III of this book, are seen as a com-
mon concern for the social parties. Agreements and legislation ensure that
workers have access to and the right to education and training. This will
provide companies with qualifed labour and give workers better access
to employment. The idea is that even if employees lose their jobs, the
employability developed through education and training will make it easy
to fnd a new job. When unemployment is rising, such as after the fnancial
crisis in 2008, and the sudden drop of oil and gas prices in 2014, public
and private education and training programmes are normally established to
ease the situation.
• Workfare. Since the mid-1980s, social policy has increasingly focused on
work as the solution. Citizens who cannot support themselves should not
just be provided with social benefts. They should be pulled and pushed
into education or work. Therefore, a large number of programmes have
been established to bring unemployed people and those with health prob-
lems into supported employment or education. Both employers and trade
unions are involved in these concrete measures to bring citizens into work.
From the mid-1980s, large-scale pension funds, established through collec-
tive agreements, are intended to provide workers with reasonable pensions
when they leave the labour market.
• Productivity-enhancing health. The working environment, particularly the
psychosocial environment, has become an object of increasing concern
among the social parties. An unhealthy psychosocial working environment
can lead to physical and mental health problems and sickness absence. At
the same time, a poor psychosocial work environment leads to poor com-
munication, lack of loyalty to the company, a high turnover rate – in
short, productivity losses. Therefore, there has been a common interest in
improving the psychosocial working environment.
We can hardly conclude that the Nordic model has been a protective buffer
against neo-liberalism. On the contrary, the model has widely embraced neo-
liberalism, and adapted to it to ensure its own survival: the social parties do not
oppose market forces, they accept and adapt to them. The social parties con-
tribute to a regulated and predictable implementation of market mechanisms.
By following the neo-liberal trends and seeking to shape the neo-liberal poli-
cies, instead of opposing the neo-liberal flow, the trade unions have succeeded
in remaining in touch with the entire labour market and have managed to
maintain a high employment rate and a high degree of equality.
Does this mean that we can reject the criticism of neo-liberalism? In our
opinion, no. Market competition is for many experienced as a life of high speed
and unpredictability. In the Nordic region, employees also experience individ-
ualization of responsibility for their own working life. Inequality is growing,
even in the Nordic countries, only to a lesser extent than in other countries.
However, the Nordic experience shows that neo-liberalism can be shaped.
Norway has not until now followed the path of neo-liberalism to the same
extent as Denmark. Norway still has centralized wage formation, and the gov-
ernment is in charge of a large part of the labour market and related social
policy. On the other hand, Norway has privatized many key companies that
were previously run by the state, such as the postal service, railways and the
distribution of alcohol. Political governance was replaced with corporate gov-
ernance structures in hospitals and social services in the early 2000s, as in many
other European countries. A Social-Democratic government introduced new
public management as a public variety of neo-liberalism in the early 1990s
(see Chapter 4 of this volume). In addition, the ban on private intermediation
and hiring out of labour was lifted in 2000. Thus, an important part of the
regulatory framework that constituted the standard employment relationship
was removed. The ban legally protected the bilateral employment relation-
ship consisting of a worker and an employer, where the worker was under
the direct supervision of the employer. The bilateral employment relationship
was, and still is, the institutional prerequisite for industrial relations consisting
of employers and workers (in contrast to the self-employed). However, as

mentioned in Chapter 1, the Norwegian variant of the standard employment
relationship was not generally dismantled.
Summary of the historical background to the Danish

and Norwegian varieties of the Nordic model
Employment relations in the Nordic countries are regulated by a wide range
of institutions established through more than 100 years of conflicts, struggles
and compromises.
In terms of institutional structure, there are quite significant differences
between the Nordic countries. However, there is considerable similarity between
them with regard to institutionalized practice. What characterizes all the Nordic
countries is a general acceptance that employers and employees have conflicting
interests, which entitle both employers and employees to organize themselves
collectively.
Often it is possible to resolve conflicts between employers and employees
informally through dialogue between management and union representatives.
In other cases, conflicts will be resolved at the negotiating table. Finally, some-
times open conflicts break out. Labour market institutions vary considerably
between the Nordic countries; however, the institutionalized approach to
solving problems is quite similar. The Nordic model is characterized less by a
particular institutional structure and more by a particular approach or method.
The Nordic model (or approach) was created through tough conflicts between
workers and employers in the last decade of the 19th century and the first three
decades of the 20th century.
In the subsequent social-democratic era, the development of working life
became a central aspect of building a social-democratic society. Employment
should be secure, pay should be fair and people should be treated with respect
and dignity. In addition, work should be democratic with a high degree of
worker influence and with the democratization of business operations and
development.
Since the mid-1980s, the social-democratic project has been weakened and
the key goal is now to ensure productivity and competitiveness, so that employ-
ment and welfare can be maintained. Democracy is no longer a goal in itself,
but involvement of employees can be a good means of achieving productivity.
The basic narrative about differences of interest and possible compromises in
favour of both parties is still strong. The Nordic approach has therefore created
a special version of neo-liberalism. In our view, however, there is a danger that
neo-liberal thinking will weaken the Nordic approach to handling labour mar-
ket problems. If the development of competitiveness is the main common goal,
why not let the most skilled experts take care of the development of working
life? Why not replace union representatives and working environment repre-
sentatives with well-qualified HR professionals? Why not transfer the activities
previously conducted in the cooperation committees to the HR departments,

which can use a professional approach in consulting employees?
The labour market institutions have been maintained. However, we also
see the disappearance of some features of these institutions in favour of expert
approaches to solving problems (see Chapter 4). This may undermine the
Nordic approach to conflict resolution and the building of social relations.
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Study of Societies.
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Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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[Industrial Democracy. Employee Representatives in Companies], Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
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trielt demokrati. Fra Samarbeidsprosjektet LO/NAF [Towards a New Organization of
Companies. Industrial Democracy Experiments. Report from the Collaboration Experiments],
Oslo: Tanum.
Part II
Organization and
management in a
working life perspective
Introduction
If the Nordic approach is really to make a difference, it must be felt in everyday

life. It is not enough for the Nordic approach to manifest itself in hundreds of
meetings, declarations of intent, agreements, laws and regulations. It must also
make a difference in people’s daily work.
In this Part, we will investigate whether the Nordic approach, characterized
by institutionalized conflict and cooperation, has influenced Nordic working
life. Thus, we have an ambition to go beyond the perspectives that dominate
research in this area. On the one hand, there is a strong tradition of exploring
industrial relations but rather independently of organization and leadership. On
the other, there is also a strong tradition of studying organization and leadership
but detached from the institutional networks that surround jobs and businesses.
Various studies of the connection between industrial relations and organization
and management are presented in this Part.
Chapter 3: Democracy at work. By Heidi Enehaug, Eivind Falkum and Helge Hvid.
There were strong efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to democratize working
life. The objective was firstly to democratize work organization with job
designs that supported autonomy and, secondly, to democratize management
by employee representatives being heavily involved in management issues. It
is argued that these democratization efforts have had a significant effect on
working life in the Nordic countries. Democracy in practice is illustrated by
a few cases.
Chapter 4: Workplace democracy under pressure. By Eivind Falkum, Ida Drange,
Heidi Enehaug and Bitten Nordrik.
Here, the relatively optimistic tone of Chapter 3 is replaced by a more pes-
simistic tone. The chapter presents studies on the status of co-determination in
Norwegian working life. The overall tendency is quite clear. Co-determination
is decreasing. However, there are very large differences between different sectors
and different types of business.
Chapter 5: International management concepts meeting Nordic working life. By Peter

Hagedorn-Rasmussen and Pål Klethagen.
Working life in the Nordic region has been influenced by international produc-
tion concepts for many decades, which have been adapted to the production,
organizational, normative and social contexts in which they entered. In this
chapter, it is argued that an active translation of the international concepts is
taking place. It is shown how the international concept of lean is translated in
the organizational context that adopts the concept. However, it is also dem-
onstrated how the social parties play an active role in this translation process.
Chapter 6: Working environment regulation in Norway and Denmark. By Jan Erik
Karlsen, Klaus T. Nielsen and Robert H. Salomon.
Working environment legislation has been more extensive in the Nordic
countries than in other countries in two areas. There have been extensive
requirements for addressing the working environment in companies, which
have included involvement and cooperation and the procedures to be used in
local working environment activities. In addition, there are requirements for
the psychosocial work environment and the organizational work environment.
The chapter presents similarities and differences in regulation. Furthermore,
strengths and weaknesses of the regulation of the working environment for
everyday practice are discussed.
Chapter 7: New working time and new temporalities: the erosion of influence and
rhythms in work. By Henrik Lambrecht Lund.
Flexibility in working hours and location, and flexibility in tasks and rela-
tions, is a double-edged sword from a working life perspective. Flexibility can
improve work/life balance and create learning opportunities. However, flex-
ibility can also break down rhythms and influence in work. These potential
negative issues have scarcely been addressed in the regulation of work. The
chapter shows that temporality of working life is an under-regulated area.
Chapter 3
Democracy at work
Heidi Enehaug, Eivind Falkum and Helge Hvid
Democratic work organization to balance

differences of interests
As we have described in Chapter 2, the trade union movement gave up the original
idea of a democratic working life when they signed general agreements with the
employers’ associations: in Denmark in 1899, in Norway in 1935 and in Sweden
in 1938. It finally confirmed that the right to direct and distribute work lay unam-
biguously with the employers. Nevertheless, there is hardly any place in the world
where employees have more influence on their working conditions than they
have in the Nordic countries. In Chapter 1 we mentioned that 85% of employees
in Denmark have access to an elected union representative, whose obligation is
to represent viewpoints and interests of employees in contact with management.
Some 73% of Norwegian employees and 72% of Danish employees indicate
that in their organization there are regular meetings in which employees can
express their views about matters of importance at their workplace. No other
EU country (except Sweden) is at the same level.
With regard to autonomy at work, learning opportunities and opportunities
for employees to apply their own ideas, the Nordic countries also are at the
top in the EU (see also Chapter 1, where other indicators of a relatively high
degree of influence and participation are mentioned).
Here we will investigate the background for the high levels of influence and
participation among Nordic employees. We pay most attention to develop-
ments in Norway, where the social parties were already initiating extensive
efforts to democratize work in the early 1960s. However, experiences from
Denmark will also be included.
We focus on efforts to democratize working life in the last 60 years. In the
next chapter (Chapter 4) we will present a recent study of the current state of
democracy at work in Norway. However, first we will briefly outline three
different approaches to democracy in working life.
Three levels of democracy at work

Unions, employers’ associations and the political parties started discussions on
democracy at work more than 100 years ago. On the one hand, new market
50 Heidi Enehaug et al.
liberalism (Friedman, 2002 [1962]) rejected the desire for democracy at work.
The argument was that the whole legitimacy of private companies lies in their
ability to generate profits and thus create growth in society. Therefore, the right
to take decisions should lie with those who can identify themselves with, and
have a personal interest in, profits and growth, namely the owners. Democracy
will weaken the focus on earnings, thus weakening the economy to the detri-
ment of us all. We find a similar argument with regard to the public sector.
Democratically elected politicians govern public sector institutions, and workplace
democracy would be a restriction on parliamentary democracy. In Norway, the
basic agreement for employees in government offices and enterprises excluded
political issues from autonomy and co-determination arrangements, arguing that
it would give governmental employees more political influence than other
citizens (Lægreid, 1983).
In opposition to this point of view, we find more conservatively oriented
understandings, for instance represented by Emile Durkheim. Durkheim stud-
ied the possibilities for creating social cohesion in modern society. For him,
the establishment of companies led by both workers and employers was an
opportunity to reduce the level of conflict in society (Durkheim, 2014 [1893]).
When workers and employers run the companies together, they could set-
tle the many unconstructive labour conflicts. The well-known conservative
political scientist Robert Dahl argued for formal and informal democracy in
workplaces as an important part of a modern democracy (Dahl, 1985). Pateman
(1970) agrees with Dahl when she argues that democracy in the workplace
would make citizens able and interested to participate in general democratic
processes. The workplace can be a place for learning democracy.
Another argument for the common interest in democracy relates to pro-
ductivity. Democracy in the workplace has also been economically justified.
Democratization of working life can enable workers and employers to work
together to improve productivity and quality (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970;
Appelbaum et al., 2000; Gustavsen et al., 2010; Ekman et al., 2011). This
argument relates to the extensive literature on human resource management.
However, in this literature, concepts of motivation replace concepts of democ-
racy at work (Pink, 2009).
Finally, we have the socialist-oriented approach to democratization. Here
democracy is a means to strengthen the power of the workers and in that way
ensure decent working conditions. Only by gaining power can workers protect
themselves against exploitation and alienation at work. There are, however,
also representatives from the left wing of the labour movement who argue
that so-called democracy at work will weaken the power of labour, since the
workers themselves will be co-responsible for the “necessary” exploitation of
the workers (Olsen, 1984; Olstad, 2010).
Combinations of conservative-oriented wishes to create harmony and pro-
ductivity at the workplace and socialist-oriented wishes to defend the interests of
workers initiated democratization of working life in many European countries.
Democracy at work 51
Most countries established arrangements that allowed workers to elect shop

stewards and safety representatives, giving them the right to negotiate with man-
agement on behalf of the employees. Similarly, works councils with union and
management representatives discuss and settle issues related to work organiza-
tion and working conditions, technology and company development (Knudsen,
1995). In many countries, employees have certain options to elect representa-
tives to the company’s board of directors.
Finally, many European countries, the United States, Canada and Australia,
make efforts to democratize work organization. Employees themselves organ-
ize and govern their daily work. The Nordic sociotechnical tradition (Thorsrud
et al., 1969) was a source of international inspiration in the 1960s, 1970s and
1980s. The Tavistock Institute in England inspired the development of the
Nordic sociotechnical tradition. Trist and his colleagues experimented with
self-governing groups (Trist et al., 1963; Thorsrud & Emery, 1964, 1970).
Collaboration experiments started in Norway in the 1960s, and the social parties
further developed democracy at work during the next two decades.
Democratization of work has not taken place in a linear process, where
democracy has increased year by year. On the contrary, there have been
some democratic leaps forward in many European countries in some
quite short periods. Between these periods, democratization has stagnated.
Democratization has taken place in periods when the labour movement was
strong and when it was uncertain whether the predominant social structure
could survive. This applies to the years after World War I, when the democ-
ratization of work took its first steps forward. Democratization at work made
significant progress after World War II. This took place in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, where there was social unrest and the labour movement
was strong.
During these periods, it was possible to make alliances between socialists
and conservatives regarding the development of democracy in working life. In
some countries, conservative forces dominated these alliances, and employees
were now able to elect representatives independent of the trade unions and the
labour movement. In other countries, including the Nordic countries, socialist
forces dominated the alliances, and the elected shop stewards represented not
only the employees of a company but also the trade unions.
Efforts to democratize working life are not unique to the Nordic countries.
It seems, however, that the Nordic countries have made the greatest progress
in the democratization of working life. We find three levels of democratization
in working life:
1 Democratization of work organization. Autonomy and learning opportunities

for individual workers and for groups of workers.
Eforts to democratize work organization were largely due to the anti-
authoritarian social unrest in the 1960s and 1970s. Internationally, eforts
to democratize work organization were referred to in terms of “quality
of working life” or “sociotechnical work systems”. The Scandinavian

countries were strongly involved in this movement.
Eforts to democratize work organization still exist, but strong contra-
dictory trends in work organization hamper the democratization eforts;
this will be further discussed in Chapter 4.
2 Democratization of management. Workers’ representatives are involved in man-
agement decisions related to work organization, competence development,
introduction of new technology, quality standards, personnel policy, etc.
The frst steps to democratize management came about in the years after
World War I. Agreements between unions and employers made it possible
for employees to elect shop stewards who would be involved in manage-
ment. Denmark had the frst experiences with works councils.
Democratization of management expanded after World War II.
Scandinavian countries established works councils in the labour market in
general, based on agreements between unions and employers’ associations.
In both Denmark and Norway, the post-war modernization of industry
was implemented through close collaboration between unions and man-
agement (see Chapter 2).
Safety representatives with the task of negotiating the quality of the work
environment were introduced to the Nordic labour markets in the 1970s.
Both employers’ associations and trade unions have supported and main-
tained this aspect of representative democracy at workplaces since then.
3 Democratization at the strategic level. Workers combine the roles of owners
and employees by buying shares in the companies where they work. This
kind of economic democracy is not widespread in Norway, partly as a
result of a recommendation by the largest union (LO) to their members
not to invest in their own workplace. Employees could lose both their
wages and their savings in case of bankruptcy.
In the 1970s, the Scandinavian Social Democrats had a dominant politi-
cal position. They wanted to use their position to democratize the economy
through the creation of employee-managed funds that could eventually
have a decisive infuence at the strategic level in business. Resistance by
employee and union members to such funds proved to be too great, and
the Danish and Swedish unions only realized their own pension funds as
bases of economic investments. In Norway, pension funds are part of the
public social security system.
At the same time, employees at company level were now permitted to
elect some representatives to the corporate boards in private companies.
In Norway, since a 1972 act (Aksjeloven), workers can demand one-third
of board representatives elected by and from all employees in limited
companies.
In the following sections, we present the efforts to democratize work organi-

zation in Norway. It is characteristic of the Norwegian democratization efforts
that they have taken place in an interaction between the social parties who
have created the frameworks, researchers who have contributed to the crea-
tion and assessment of the content, and the government which has financed
research projects and, in some cases, has legislated in support of democracy
at work.
Scientific approaches to democracy at work

The idea of democracy at work arose within the framework of the Quality
of Working Life Movement, an international research agenda that originated in
the British Tavistock Institute (Trist et al., 1997). This movement was closely
linked to the development of a sociotechnical understanding of organizations,
and an international focus on “the importance of autonomy for people’s abil-
ity to master the demands of working life” (Gustavsen, 2016, p. 1). In 1961,
the Norwegian Institute of Industrial Environmental Research, in cooperation
with researchers from the Tavistock Institute, started what were called indus-
trial democracy projects (Skorstad, 2002). In 1966, the efforts to democratize
working life were further developed when five large manufacturing plants took
part in experimental collaboration projects. The Work Psychology Institute
(later Work Research Institute) managed the projects under the leadership of
Einar Thorsrud. These research and development projects were a new feature
of working life at the time, but also a continuation of an already established
cooperative tradition (Enehaug, 2018). The social parties shared experiences
from production committees in the 1940s, showing that cooperation between
them could be mutually beneficial. The basic agreement of 1935 had ended
the long line of labour conflicts since the beginning of the 20th century (see
Chapter 2 of this volume).
The collaboration experiments developed in the context of a more general
objective of democratization of society and working life, and were a criticism
of the dominant views on organization. Division of labour and productivity
came into focus (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970; Herbst, 1971; Karasek & Theorell,
1990; Gustavsen et al., 2010). The collaboration experiments took place in
a working life under cross-pressure; there were demands of specialization
and standardization introduced by the rationality movement and supported
by logics of planned economy, on the one hand, and demands of free mar-
ket economy by the Marshall Plan, on the other. By signing the Marshall
Plan, the government introduced liberalization of political regulations and
free markets in some areas, compared to the plan economy established by
the social-democratic government in the first decade after World War II
(Bjørnson, 1990; Falkum, 2008). Norway entered an era of mixed economy
that affected working life relations with new demands on productivity and
efficiency: demands for change, development and innovation.
In the first phase of the collaboration experiments, analyses of different
types of representation systems in Norway, Yugoslavia, Germany and the
UK (Skorstad, 2002) showed that “if optimizing the technical system at the
expense of the social system, the results achieved will be suboptimal” (Herbst,
1971, p. 12).
Direct democracy (participation) was a necessity, according to Thorsrud and
Emery (1964, 1970). Individual participation in development processes was essen-
tial to increase the involvement and knowledge of employees in order to reduce
alienation at work and simultaneously develop workplaces and productivity. The
idea was that individual involvement and autonomy at work would contribute
to the development of human resources. Employees’ learning capabilities would
be enhanced by their participation in decision making, their own “job enrich-
ment”, and by “partly self-governing groups”. Such learning processes could lead
to more interesting work and better working conditions (Heiret, 2003). In other
words, there was a need for broader communicative practice when dealing with
complex local processes in work organizations (Gustavsen, 2017).
At the Work Research Institute in Norway, the concept of work organization
was used in relation to autonomy, broad participation and the psychological
demands of work (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970; Gustavsen et al., 2010). These
demands refer to employee needs to have interesting tasks and varied work
processes, to learn and develop competencies, to participate in decision mak-
ing, to gain managerial recognition, to avoid alienation at work and to fulfil
future life expectations at work. Work organization became the central mecha-
nism to link people and environmental factors in companies.
Employee participation in workplace maintenance, as well as the develop-
ment of jobs and organizations, was the basic methodological principle in the
collaboration experiments. Falkum (2008) claims that Thorsrud and Emery
(1964) presented both a management model and a model of collaboration. The col-
laboration experiments can thus be seen as two-faced: a management face
of means and ends, and a collaboration face of employee participation and
autonomy at work. As a management model, the collaboration experiments
fit in with the early traditions of human resource management at that time
(Falkum, 2008). Thorsrud’s focus on the autonomy and influence of the indi-
vidual worker, or groups of workers, as a means to reduce alienation at work
and enhance learning and development in work and the workplace in general
by direct individual participation, represents a logic that is partly in line with
Habermas’ (1984) concept of communicative rationality, where communica-
tive actions will ensure that the best argument wins.
There were approaches to democracy at work by other Norwegian
social scientists that differed significantly from the collaboration approaches
of Thorsrud and Emery (1964). Lysgaard (2001 [1961]) and Holter (1958,
1964) paid less attention to individual participation than the action research
programmes. They considered it more important for workers to protect their
collective interests. Both Holter and Lysgaard suggested a representative con-
cept of democracy. Unions would represent employees by participation in
company decision making (Falkum, 2008).
Thorsrud and the Tavistock researchers were more oriented towards dia-
logue between managers and employees, and the outcome of development
processes, thus more in line with human and labour relations than with the
institutionalization of regulatory elements in industrial relations.
Since the early 1960s, this tension between direct participation and rep-
resentative participation has existed in the understanding of democracy in
working life. However, empirical studies seem to show that representative
democracy and direct democracy complement each other (see Chapter 4).
The diffusion of workplace democracy

The basic agreements between the employer’s confederations and the unions
are often described as a prerequisite for democracy at work (Engelstad, 2003;
Brøgger, 2007; Falkum & Colbjørnsen, 1997) and as the starting point for
mutual recognition of the working life parties (Hasle & Sørensen, 2013).
Although the basic agreements paved the way for democracy at work, there
were only a few examples of workplace democracy prior to the collaboration
experiments in Norway (Maurseth, 1987; Enehaug, 2018).
The social parties in Norway revised and updated their basic agreement
in 1966. This new agreement defined democratic tools like works councils
and employees’ individual rights to participate and influence their work and
workplace, i.e. participation and autonomy at work, in line with the ideas
of the collaboration experiments of Thorsrud and Emery (1970). The 1966
agreements legitimized individual and direct democracy, as well as collec-
tively oriented, representative democracy, called indirect democracy by some
(Ingebriktsen, 1993).
The 1966 version of the basic agreement in Norway was important because
of the formal constitution of both individual and collective democratic
employee rights. It carried both the structural and the functional approaches
from research and workplace studies. It represented the start of a process to
institutionalize and legitimize industrial and human relations, in line with
Lysaard’s and Thorsrud’s scientific analyses.
The social parties implemented both representative and direct democracy,
both collectively and individually oriented democracy, in many manufactur-
ing industries and plants during the 1960s and 1970s. This first took place
in the five large manufacturing plants that participated in the collaborative
experiments from 1966 as a permanent effect of that participation (Thorsrud
& Emery, 1970). These sociotechnical perspectives and approaches were also
present in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. The
tradition established individual participation, influence and autonomy at work.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, these forms of industrial relations
spread to the workplaces, eventually covering most manufacturing indus-
tries, through the establishment of works councils, bargaining structures, and
organization and management development, in line with the revision of the
basic agreement in 1966. Both the individual and collective approaches to

workplace democracy were constituted by the basic agreements and further
developed in subordinated collective agreements in the different manufac-
turing industries, such as process manufacturing, mechanical manufacturing
industries, and oil and energy. The principles of democracy at work did
spread, but at first almost entirely in manufacturing industries.
The social parties in the Norwegian public sector signed their basic agree-
ment in 1980. Originally the state and the unions in the public sector intended
to copy the basic agreement in the private sector (LO/NHO). However, only
a few months before this plan was to be realized, the participants agreed on
another path. The parties made a negotiation-oriented agreement instead of
a collaboration-oriented one (Lægreid, 1983). The argument was that col-
laboration between employees and the state would give state employees more
influence in political processes than other citizens could have in political
elections, since they would thus participate in political processes and policy
making. In this way, employees in the public sector would have rights to
information, discussions and negotiations in bodies led and administered by
the management. These rights do not cover political issues, and public man-
agement defined the issues that were “political”. The local government sector
also signed its basic agreement in 1980. Later on, basic agreements in private
services and commerce were established.
While the 1960s was a decade of development of the individual and collec-
tive democratic approaches and of industrial and labour relations, in the 1970s,
legal acts and labour laws, decided by the parliamentary system, dominated the
institutionalization of industrial and labour relations.
A major accident in a coalmine at Svalbard led to employees’ legal right
to have representatives on the board of directors of limited companies. The
liberal political parties in the national assembly picked up the old debate about
employee board representation. They assumed that such representation might
have given the board of directors of the mining company the necessary infor-
mation to prevent the accident. This debate resulted in a new law for limited
companies in 1972. Employees obtained the right to demand one-third of the
representatives on boards of directors (Hagen, 2010).
In 1980, a public committee, “Skytøen-komiteen”, suggested that employees
should have half of the members of the boards. However, none of the social par-
ties approved this proposal. The labour union argued that such representation
would make employees responsible for board decisions and that they could be
co-opted by the private owners (Hagen, 2010). Employers, on the other hand,
perceived the proposal to be a new attack on private property rights.
A survey in 2009 concluded that two out of three limited companies had
employee board representatives (Falkum et al., 2009). By 2017, register anal-
yses (Hagen, 2017) showed that the number of companies with employee
members on the board of directors had been falling dramatically compared to
the earlier analyses.
Working environment legislation in Norway has supported democracy at

work (see Chapter 5). Since the first working environment regulation in Norway
in 1895, the working environment has been very health and medically oriented
(Falkum, 2008). With the collaboration experiments and the sociotechnical tra-
dition, social psychological perspectives entered working life. The committee
that prepared a new working environment act in 1977 introduced sociotech-
nical perspectives as well as psychological job demands to the organization of
work and workplaces (Gustavsen et al., 2010). The Norwegian Confederation
of Trade Unions (LO) strongly supported this new perspective. The national
assembly approved the Norwegian Working Environment Act in 1977.
The act stipulated an expansion of democracy at work. All workplaces with
ten employees or more were to have health and safety representatives, elected
by and for all employees. Workplaces with 50 or more employees had to have
work environment councils with management and employee representatives.
The law regulates all workplaces, with or without union or employer associa-
tion membership. In 1980, co-determination at work was defined as a universal
right in the Norwegian Constitution.
In Section 12 of the Working Environment Act, the importance of organ-
izational working conditions for health, learning and development surfaced,
and it is clear how the psychological job demands formulated through expe-
rience in the collaborative industrial experiments directly influenced the
legal wording:
The central issue was – and is – its focusing efect. It brings work organiza-
tion on the agenda as a theme similar to noise, temperature, unfortunate
work postures, hazardous substances, and everything else that can afect
the work environment.
(Gustavsen et al., 2010, p. 74)
The expansion of the law to a more holistic understanding of work organiza-

tion can be said to mark something of a break with former “laws of protection”
and a “direct attempt to reconcile ideas from industrial democratic issues with
ideas about working environment” (Berg, 1998, p. 36). The act implied a shift
in the working environment paradigm. Firstly, by expanding the dominating
focus on health and medical issues, such as occupational accidents and diseases,
to include attention to psychological and social relations at work. Secondly, by
having a strong focus on individual workers and introducing more collective
perspectives on work organization, development, and health and safety issues.
Thirdly, the Working Environment Act represents a more holistic under-
standing of “wellbeing” – not just protection from harm but expectations that
the needs of people, organizations and society as a whole should be balanced
and equated. A viable working environment needed the implementation of a
bottom-up-oriented democratic mindset and practice. For Thorsrud, this was
about power as:
[a] force that operates inside conversations rather than outside and that,
even if all eforts at new forms of communication between workers and
managers were a failure, there is no other way in which the possibility of
democracy can be tested.
(Gustavsen, 2018, p. 15)
The construction and institutionalization of democracy at work ended in 1980

(Falkum, 2008). The agreements and laws that institutionalized industrial rela-
tions, co-determination and individual and group-based autonomy at work
were completed. Revisions arise from time to time in the basic agreement
every fourth year.
Democracy at work has a two-pronged legal legitimacy in both basic agree-
ments and labour laws. We hold this to be one of the reasons why the Nordic
working life models have seemed to prevail until now, despite labour immi-
gration, globalizing markets, strong standardization of work and continuous
technological development of work organization.
The practice of institutional democratic

arrangements
Here we will illustrate democracy at work as it was, and still is, practised in
Norway. We will present two industrial companies which for a long period
actively participated in the efforts to democratize work.
A subsidiary of the Norwegian part of Siemens AG participated in the
collaborative experiments of the 1960s. The plant produced electric heat-
ers for households. They organized work in self-governing groups as part
of the experiment. This way of organizing work still continued in 1998. At
that time, the plant had 110 employees, 1.75 full-time equivalent managerial
positions and about 10 self-governed groups of workers. Each group elected
one of its members as coordinator. The coordinator shifted from time to
time, so that every group member had been in this position after some time.
The coordinator was the communication channel between the group and
the two managers. The managers were mostly involved with markets, sales
and corporate tasks. The groups made all necessary decisions, including plan-
ning, production and time schedules needed to fulfil production demands
and even new appointments. In 1998, the plant was more profitable than
a similar subsidiary in Turkey, despite much higher labour costs. The plant
had started this way of organizing work as a participant in the collaboration
experiments of the 1960s but dissolved this kind of workers’ self-management
in 2010 when they adopted corporate models of organization. In this plant, all
workers had been group coordinators, and thereby every member had been
through a learning process on how to manage and implement plans at work
as an example of knowledge building and learning in democratic processes
(Falkum et al., 1999).
This was a kind of individualized direct and democratic way of organizing

work, compared to collective co-determination through union representatives
in company decision making. Some of the five companies that participated in
the collaboration experiments implemented similar models of self-managing/
self-governing work groups, but mostly as experiments. The Siemens subsidi-
ary is the only participant that ran this model permanently until the beginning
of the 2000s. As a way to manage and organize work, the model failed in most
of the attempts. However, self-governing groups were supposed to increase
individual participation, autonomy, dialogue and productivity. Some attempts
succeeded, and some did not. Autonomy is common in Norwegian workplaces
as employees have considerable influence on their work situation. However,
there are huge differences in how these ideas on labour relations are prac-
tised, depending greatly on what managers, unions and employees are able to
achieve in collaborative relations. They have to agree on how to understand
and implement the models in use. Thus, union–management collaboration as
representative democratic arrangements can help the implementation of direct
democracy and autonomy at work.
In 1998, the CEO and board of directors of a large corporation in the for-
estry industry ordered the top manager at a Norwegian paper-mill to reduce
costs by 18% within three years. Instead of calling in consultants, he took the
problem to the works council at the subsidiary plant. Within three weeks, the
council, consisting of shop stewards from all the unions and managerial repre-
sentatives at the plant, came up with a plan to reduce costs as required:
• To downsize from 700 to 600 employees within the three years, but with-
out dismissals.
• To increase employees with vocational training from 40 to 90% of employees.
• To reduce absence due to work accidents and injuries by 80%.
• To increase profts by NOK 120 million.
The union representatives in the council discussed the plan with their members.
They suggested improvements and adjustments. The managerial representatives did
the same. The CEO and the works council presented adjustments in a final draft in
plenary meetings with all employees. In the end, management and all the unions
signed the agreement. This collaboration and the negotiated agreement now
became the plan for economic improvement. At the end of the three-year period:
• The downsizing of 100 employees was completed without dismissals, and

simultaneously productivity rose by several thousand tons of paper.
• The programme for vocational training showed some results, but far from
an increase to 90%.
• In 2003, the plant won an award for the best health, environment and
safety (HES) practice and had reduced sickness absence due to accidents by
more than the planned 80%.
• Profts increased by NOK 60 million, i.e. half of the planned improve-

ment. This was the result of a huge fall in paper prices on international
spot markets.
The board of the corporation was very pleased with the results and encouraged
other subsidiaries to copy the project.
Works councils are common in private companies. Union representatives
and managerial staff are members. Even some companies without union
members establish such bodies to practise democracy at work, especially in
small businesses with only a few employees. In the public sector, management
arranges meetings with union representatives in order to discuss and eventually
negotiate terms of labour or organizational change.
How these collaboration bodies are organized, what they do and the results
of their activities vary considerably between companies, even within the same
sectors and industries. Representatives from all unions at the workplace partici-
pate in such bodies, but practice can vary. These bodies of democracy may be
very formal organizations with a strong focus on rules, norms and procedures.
They may have formal agendas and protocols for every meeting. However, in
some companies, democracy at work can be very informal, with good personal
relations between the management and the union representatives (Colman
et al., 2011). Thus, case studies and qualitative research are necessary to capture
the practical impacts of work life institutions at the workplaces, in addition to
data from registers, surveys and process documentation.
Working environment councils are often more formal than works councils.
Management and the employee-elected HES representatives have their roles
defined in clearer terms. These bodies are responsible for looking into HES
problems, discussing solutions for them, proposing measures to handle health
and safety issues and ensuring that the company complies with the legal rules and
demands. The chairmanship of the working environment councils shifts annually
between management and employee representatives. When management chairs
the meetings, the employee representatives are secretaries of the council, with the
roles reversed at the next meeting.
These are just two examples of companies in Norway that have made great
efforts at co-determination as well as individual participation. This democrati-
zation took the interests of individuals, organizations and the local community
into consideration. However, new organizational models and recipes, new
management concepts and the general development of working life in an era
of globalization challenge these models (Koch, 2013) (see Chapter 4).
Democracy in Danish working life

Employee influence at the strategic level of companies as part-owners or as
members of the company’s board of directors has developed in parallel in
Norway and Denmark. This also applies to employee influence on management
through their elected representatives. In Denmark, democratization of the work

organization was considered to be less important than in Norway. Despite this,
we find that Norway and Denmark seem to have developed autonomy at work
to similar levels. This raises the question: how has democracy in work organiza-
tion been supported and developed in Denmark? We suggest four factors that
may help to explain the relatively high level of democracy in work organization
in Denmark:
1 Democratization eforts in Norway and Sweden strongly inspired

Denmark. Denmark copied the Norwegian collaborative experiments in
the 1970s.
2 Denmark has no research institutions dedicated to the development of
corporate democracy as in Norway. However, there has been a prolifera-
tion of active working life research at all the universities in the country
since the 1970s.
3 The government has only occasionally allocated funds for the develop-
ment of autonomy in working life (e.g. the fund called “Better Working
Life and Productivity” in the 1990s). However, the parties themselves, at
the industry level, typically in the context of collective bargaining, have
allocated funds, often to a more limited extent, to support the develop-
ment of autonomy at work.
Compared to other countries, the employees are relatively well organized at

company level. This implies that employee representatives are involved in
decisions on new technology and organizational changes. Employers’ repre-
sentatives seek to defend employment but also the quality of the psychosocial
working environment, including autonomy and learning opportunities at
the workplace.
Current challenges for workplace democracy

The current democratic workplace arrangements are practices developed from
institutionalized industrial relations. Basic agreements, labour laws, collective
bargaining procedures, the organized social parties and the tripartite structures
have set the terms for the relations between management, unions and employ-
ees. These institutions influence relations, structures and processes at work and
thus the organization of work. We have pointed out how democratic arrange-
ments in workplaces are constructed in formal rules, norms and intentions,
how they are supposed to work and, not least, how they can vary in practice.
The establishment of the institutional and formal industrial relations took
place in a period of strong labour conflicts, class conflicts and disagreements
on how to share the values added: the wealth in society. The democratic
workplace arrangements that developed throughout the latter half of the 20th
century have led to a particular kind of balance between labour and capital
interests in the Nordic countries. This balance is fragile and skewed but less so
than in other countries and economies. The labour market actors still maintain
this fragile balance in the Nordics. The balance provides greater predictability in
politics and economics, as well as for the social parties on all levels. This perhaps
pinpoints the concept of democracy at work, in the Nordic way.
This balance is under pressure from external as well as internal change and
development in the Nordic countries, as in most Western countries. The globali-
zation of economies has introduced new markets, competitors and suppliers, and
changed economic competition and, thereby, national and industrial economic
competitiveness. These economic developments provide new models of organiza-
tion and management. Some of these models are less compatible with democratic
organization at work than others. We address this problem in the next chapter.
Short-term perspectives have become more prominent in recent decades.
Shareholder values increasingly dominate parts of the private sector. That makes
it more difficult for employee representatives to defend longer-term develop-
ment of autonomy and learning opportunities at work. The same applies to
employee representatives in the public sector, where the institutions focus on
achieving short-term goals and quality standards.
The short-term perspective strengthens the growth of precarious working
conditions. Employers’ demands for a flexible workforce increases employees’
financial risks and the predictability of a decent income. The last Part of this
book presents research on precarious work.
Foreign owners dominate a growing part of private companies. These own-
ers bring with them new principles of management and organization, and
introduce new relations between employees and management alien to the
Nordic context. They introduce new production concepts developed under
different social conditions from those of the Nordic countries. Chapters 4 and 5
analyse this in detail.
Migrants have entered the Nordics since the large expansion of the EU and
its free labour markets in 2004. Migrant workers from East Europe and Asia
have taken employment in Norway, especially in building and construction,
shipbuilding and low-skilled service industries. They are not used to demo-
cratic work organization and industrial relations, and their union density is
lower than that of domestic employees.
Within certain sectors, only a minority of the employees are members of a
trade union. This is especially true for low-skilled work in the service sector,
for instance in hotels and restaurants. Here it is difficult to maintain democratically
inspired principles.
New technology increasingly allows for standardization of work in many
industries, especially in the oil and gas industries and process manufacturing.
Standard operating procedures have replaced the need for specialized educa-
tion and training in some areas. Work tasks and resource needs are changing.
Employees are becoming more replaceable. Employability demands are lower.
One might argue that the driving forces of management have taken a U-turn:
new technical solutions involve a renewed focus on standardization, control

and surveillance of employees, and the lessons learned in the historical pro-
cesses of democratization have been left out of the equation. Management
becomes a matter of checking that employees are following standard oper-
ating procedures instead of facilitating participation, autonomy and learning.
In this way, the relations between employees and management are changing
and may take a path away from the Nordic democratic organization of work.
New technology also paves the way for new solutions, e.g. health technologies
have the potential to change elderly care and work conditions in the health
sector. The overall consequences of this development still remain to be seen,
but European research has already identified polarizing trends in the European
working life context:
On the one hand, we see a neo-Taylorization with the division of work

into minor unit operations, more routine work, and increased levels of
control at work . . . On the other hand, we see an increased degree of
individualization of employees with expert competence who can have a
high level of individual negotiating power, given that their expertise is
in demand in the marketplace, while at the same time they possess jobs
that demand an ever greater degree of autonomy due to complex tasks.
[Author’s translation]
(NOU, 2010, p. 184)
However, these conditions are not new, and until now, the Nordic democ-
racy model has had the strength to survive the current challenges. On the
other hand, as is shown in Chapter 4, democracy in work is on the decline.
Nevertheless, as already mentioned, history has taught us that increased democ-
racy usually manifests itself in short periods. Nobody knows when the next
sprint for democracy will take place.
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Chapter 4
Workplace democracy under

pressure
Eivind Falkum, Ida Drange, Heidi Enehaug
and Bitten Nordrik
Introduction
Workplace democracy helped to balance the different interests of labour and
capital after World War II in Norway. The main intention of the basic agree-
ments in the Nordics was to reduce the high levels of labour conflicts (see
Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of this volume). The social partners agreed on how to
disagree in order to avoid manifest conflicts. Chapter 3 outlined the establish-
ment, implementation and development of democratic workplace structures
from the 1940s. Here we focus on the practice of workplace democracy today.
An analysis of democratic practices at workplaces in Denmark and Norway
shows some decrease in employee participation, autonomy and influence in
work organization and work situations, as well as co-determination by unions
(Dølvik et al., 2015). Hagen (2017) shows a decline in employee representation
on company boards. Nordrik and Falkum (2017) show that the role of working
environment committees and health and safety representatives has diminished
at some workplaces as well.
The global economy and distribution of ownership seem to be introducing
new concepts of organization and management that may challenge practices of
workplace democracy (Falkum et al., 2017). This chapter presents an analysis
of the present situation and possible future of the Nordic working life models
with reference to Denmark and Norway. To what degree will the introduction
of new and international models of governance and management challenge
Norwegian workplace democracy?
Four concepts of governance at workplaces

In a study of co-determination, we developed four main categories of manage-
ment and governance in use. We defined the four ideal types of governance
using theoretical assumptions based on organization and management theories,
empirical observations in a series of working life case studies and factor analysis
and reliability tests of survey data. The four different ideal types will appear in
most companies, but in various degrees (Figure 4.1). The survey allows us to
Individual
Standardization Participation
and control and involvement
Competitive Collaborative
Loyalty and
Co-determination
obedience
Collective
Figure 4.1 Four ideal models of governance
measure the extent to which the different types govern company organization,
how they combine and how they are related to each other.
Governance of work organizations rests on a shared understanding of reali-
ties at work. Lukes (2005) defines thought control as a major premise of power
and the distribution of power in society in his new version of Power, a Radical
View from 1974. He refers to Foucault (1982) when he emphasizes thought
control as a third dimension of power in society. Foucault claimed that the
ability to establish shared and institutionalized understandings of realities rep-
resented “truth regimes” but also that such regimes are reversible and change
over time. Power to define “thought control” and “truth regimes” would
dominate the whole organization as a strong form of governance. The shared
understandings of realities can determine the direction in organizations but
also set some cognitive limitations on what we pay attention to. To establish
shared understanding of realities is a basic premise in the governance of organ-
ized activities.
The four concepts in the model in Figure 4.1 represent different ways to
establish such shared understandings of realities within the work organiza-
tion. Shared understandings are a cognitive framework for the development
of policies, goals and objectives that make all those involved move in the
same direction.
Shared understandings of realities and situations can arise from open and
free discussions in democratic systems where everyone can participate and con-
tribute to the development of such understandings. In authoritarian systems,
those in charge will define how to understand realities. They have the power
and legitimacy to make subordinates accept and commit to the understandings
Workplace democracy under pressure 69
presented, irrespective of whether they are false or true. Shared understandings

at workplaces may also be the result of planned manipulation of the partici-
pants’ perceptions and conceptions of realities.
The four concepts in the model represent different ways to make organiza-
tions come to shared understandings of realities and situations, to set goals and
to implement planned policies in line with these understandings.
Standardization and control refers to models and ideas of standard oper-
ating procedures. The standards lead to actions assumed to be rational solutions,
according to the ruling understandings of realities. Standardization of processes
reduces complexity, increases efficiency and reduces quality variations. Control
makes processes predictable and reduces uncertainty at workplaces. The shared
understanding is to do as expected without critical questions, as change is
introduced from the top down.
Standardization individualizes labour relations between management and
employees, as it determines the organization of work instead of managers.
Relations between managers and employees become less important since the
standards replace some of the managerial orders and commands, and since con-
trol of individual performance can be more or less automatic by way of forms,
routines and formal procedures, which are often digitalized. Since standards
decide what a worker does and thereby what the worker needs to know,
external courses may become less important than internal training. In some
workplaces, one only needs to know the standards that are easy to learn. In this
way, employees become more replaceable than they would be in work organi-
zations based on individual expertise. Lean production, conceived to be an
archetypical form of standardization, appears in many shapes (Womack et al.,
1990). Standardization of work operations and measures of deviations from
the standards are an important example in both manufacturing and the pub-
lic sector. New public management presented new forms of governance that
introduced corporate structures, user/customer orientations and programmes
of standardization to public services.
Standardization and control mostly imply individual goals and perfor-
mance measures, but in a collective perspective they apply to all individuals
that participate in identical work operations. Competition between colleagues
is supposed to improve performance and productivity. Manufacturing, con-
struction, and oil and gas companies standardize work operations for health
and safety reasons, as well as to enhance productivity. The standards in them-
selves express understandings of realities institutionalized in the performance of
actions. Standardization and control are mostly top-down oriented.
Participation and involvement is the individual part of the Norwegian
collaborative working life model. Thorsrud and Emery (1964) introduced the
terms employee “participation” and “involvement” (medvirkning) to Norway
in their design of the collaboration experiments in manufacturing industries
(see Chapters 2 and 3). (There is, however, no English word that covers
the concept of “medvirkning” exactly). According to this model, individual
employees should make improvements in their own work, in their own work
situation and at their workplace in general. Some of the companies that par-
ticipated in the collaboration experiments organized work in self-governing
groups. The experiments aimed to increase productivity and reduce alienation
of workers in labour processes by increasing individual autonomy at work.
The basic agreement of 1966 stipulated employee rights to participate and
thus become involved in workplace development. Participation and involve-
ment were conceived as an individual entitlement to influence the work
organization. We introduce the concepts as a model of governance and man-
agement at the workplace, and as a way to use close relations, communication
and employee autonomy as a toolbox for running and developing the work-
place and improving production and productivity.
Thorsrud and Emery (1964, 1970) launched their version of employee
participation as a model of collaboration. In Norway, manufacturing com-
panies were the first to implement the model. The experiments introduced
participation as a model of collaboration and consensus making, not a model
of governance and management. Later studies, however, interpret Thorsrud
and Emery’s model of participation as a management model and one that was
intended to support productivity and efficiency at the company level (Falkum,
2008). This dual interpretation of employee participation and involvement as
a model of collaboration as well as management allows for both top-down and
bottom-up orientations.
Open communication and dialogue between individual employees and their
immediate superiors and colleagues establish a consensus on what to do and
how to do it: how to perform the work and organize the workplace, i.e. con-
tinuous and collaborative development of shared understanding of realities at
the workplace on an individual level. The model allows for different employee
and management opinions and understandings. They can solve differences of
interests through negotiations between individual employees and their imme-
diate superiors, and in teams of workers responsible for certain tasks, sometimes
in self-governed groups. Such negotiated compromises at the individual level
are likely to rely on mutual trust and respect, in other words negotiations on
equal terms in a democratic manner.
Loyalty and obedience is a model that we have identified in recent stud-
ies in social psychology and organization (Ulrich et al., 2009; Ulrich & Ulrich,
2010). We include transformation management in this concept. The models
we refer to introduce the values of the owners and top management as the
objectives of the company. Value-based management is another label of this
model. Employee acceptance of the established values, and commitment to
them as norms and guidelines for attitudes, can institutionalize loyalty to the
established understanding of realities in a company. This, however, implies
that employees obey the managerial policies, goals and decisions. Without
employee acceptance of and obedience to the established understanding of
realities, loyalty to management will be fragile.
This model may very well produce employee loyalty and obedience based
on true employee convictions that the established values represent the “one
best way” for the company. In one scenario, this may actually be shown to be
the case. In another, employers’ understandings of realities are very convinc-
ing and employees really believe in them, without proof of evidence. A third
scenario is that the employees do not really believe in the managerial values,
but the sanctions against opposition lead to loyalty and obedience. Finally,
employers may manipulate employees to believe in managerial values, policies
and plans that in reality are a construct without evidence. In all these cases,
the model is likely to shape employee loyalty in action, while the legitimacy
of management may still be false. The three latter cases may lead to unsta-
ble relations between management and employees. Unpredictability and social
insecurity may be intrinsic to this model when the management–employee
relationship is poor.
Relations between management and employees are the main tools in this
model. Relations are important, since employees are expected to adopt and
commit to proclaimed norms and values. Performance measures support
employee commitment to the values of employers by rewarding good and
sanctioning bad performance.
Transformation management is about establishing a specified understanding of
realities as the truth of a company and its context. Managers use different methods
to motivate their employees to perform at their best and to implement managerial
decisions and plans as expected. Competition between colleagues will motivate
and improve individual performance, according to some studies (Busch et al.,
2015). Some of the studies of transformation management introduce the idea that
anxiety at the workplace will improve performance (Moxnes, 2012).
Loyalty and obedience, as we define them, represent methods, assump-
tions and tests in a range of motivation triggers. Busch et al. (2015) distinguish
between internal and external motivation. Management may reward improve-
ments and good results with external goods like bonuses. Kuvaas (2006) showed
that material rewards had to be very large in order to affect performance and
enterprise results significantly. He found that intrinsic motivation had bet-
ter effects on individual performance. Intrinsic motivation would improve
through individual development of competencies, organizational identifica-
tion and other personal aspects. External motivation is linked to transaction
management, while intrinsic motivation is connected to transformation man-
agement. Some research has found evidence that transformation management
improves performance.
To establish a shared understanding of workplace realities is the main key
to ways to govern and manage work organization that involve loyalty and
obedience. The model rests strongly on the management–employee relation-
ship, as the employees are expected to commit to managerial goals and values.
Companies that apply this model are more likely to be top-down than bottom-
up oriented.
Co-determination (medbestemmelse) is the final managerial model. It is

the collectively oriented element in the Nordic working life model. Workers
are unionized. Democratic structures like wage negotiations, HES committees,
employees as board members and works councils are in place. Top and mid-
dle managers appreciate unions and include their representatives in planning,
decision making as well as the implementation of change and improvement
schemes. Democratic structures become the dominant model and principles of
the governance, management and organization of companies.
Co-determination is linked to decision making and representative demo-
cratic structures. In addition to determining rules of participation and autonomy
at work, the Norwegian basic agreement in 1966 established the concept of
co-determination as unions’ rights to be informed of workplace change and
restructuring, and to participate in company decision making in councils that
include the workplace parties (Herbst, 1971). Like participation and involve-
ment, we define co-determination as a model of governance and management
practised in the Nordic countries. The basic agreements reflect and represent
shared understandings of working life realities. The parties negotiated for about
five years before they signed the first basic agreement in Norway in 1935. The
shared understandings and interests are the result of negotiated compromises
that cover most intentions, relations and expectations that the working life parties
could agree on.
We define co-determination as a model for governance and management
in practice at the workplace. The Norwegian working life model is often said
to work in the same way anywhere. However, research gives reason to ques-
tion this. Management and organization studies show firstly that such models
flourish in great numbers and varieties, and secondly that any model will
be adapted to the company that uses it (Røvik, 2007). How employers and
employees interpret the models will affect their implementation in practice.
Studies of mergers and acquisitions show that the parties involved have differ-
ent interpretations, and that what they had thought of as agreed policies may
prove to be false compromises when it comes to implementation (Colman
et al., 2011).
Shared understandings of realities are key for governance but not enough
alone to make intentions determine results at the workplace. What comes on
the company agenda, how decisions are made, how resources are controlled
and who has the power to implement policies will all influence the correlation
between intentions and results in organizations (Engelstad, 1999; Engelstad &
Hagelund, 2015).
Most studies on democracy at work treat employee participation and
union co-determination as core elements of the Nordic working life model
(Gustavsen et al., 2001; Levin, 2002; Ekman et al., 2011). In this chapter, we
define employee participation and involvement and union co-determination as
democratically oriented principles and models of governance and management
at workplaces. Employee participation and co-determination are managerial
and organizational means and tools, not only employee and union rights and
obligations, in this perspective.
Measuring the four models

In 2016, we launched an annual survey on co-determination (Medbestemme-
lsesbarometeret, Falkum et al., 2017). A partnership of five Norwegian unions1
is funding the survey. We also ran the survey in 2017, and we analyse the
present state of workplace democracy in Norway on the basis of the 2017 data.
We sent the survey to a sample of 6,000 employees, drawn from a respondent
panel of 45,000 inhabitants. Kantar TNS owns the panel, drew the sample and
collected 3,054 responses in 2017. The net sample of 51% response is repre-
sentative of the Norwegian workforce with regard to independent variables
such as age, gender, education, job, industry, size of enterprise (number of
employees) and region of Norway.
We used the above theoretical discussion and definition of the four forms
of governance and management to identify questions in the survey that meas-
ured characteristics of each of them. We then ran reliability tests to measure
the inter-correlations between the chosen variables. Cronbach’s alpha of 0.7
or above meant that the chosen variables could merge in an index to measure
each model of governance and management.
Standardization and control were measured using the statements below and the
scale 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85:
• “Top management is getting more and more power”

• “The manager role has been bureaucratized during the last decade”
• “Middle managers have low infuence on enterprise governance”
• “Management is more and more about control and measuring deviances”
• “Formal guidelines reduce managers’ opportunities to use their competencies”.
Loyalty and obedience were measured using the scale 1 = completely disagree
to 5 = completely agree, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89:
• “Top management does not like discussion of critical issues”

• “Criticism is interpreted as lack of loyalty”
• “We compete with each other”
• “Managers spend a lot of time controlling employees’ attitudes”
• “Managers spend a lot of time controlling employees’ behaviour”.
For participation and involvement, we used the same scale, Cronbach’s

alpha = 0.69:
• “My immediate superior is open for suggestions when we disagree on facts”

• “My primary manager motivates me to make an efort”
• “Managers lead the enterprise in motivating ways”

• “I have authority to make decisions on work issues”.
Co-determination had the same scale, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89:
• “We dare to express our opinions about managerial decisions”

• “The management meets opposition constructively”
• “Top management is open for suggestions when we disagree on facts”
• “The management welcomes critical comments on business performance”
• “Relations between top management and employees are good”.
Comparing autonomy at work in 2009 and today

A survey from 2009 contained questions about employee influence at work
(Falkum et al., 2009). The 2016 and 2017 co-determination surveys adopted
some of these questions and analysed the answers identically for comparison.
Figure 4.2 shows that Norwegian employees have very high influence on
their work situation (autonomy). However, it is statistically significantly much
lower in 2016 and 2017 than it was in 2009. Autonomy at work has fallen dur-
ing the last decade. In 2016, we asked the respondents, “In what direction do
you think working life is developing?”:
• 45% answered, “in a more authoritarian direction”

• 10% answered, “in a more democratic direction”
• 21% said, “don’t know”
• 24% said, “no change”.
MB 2017 1 3 17 43 37
MB 2016 1 3 20 43 34
Fafo 2009 2 9 34 55
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
1 None 2 3 4 5 Very much
Figure 4.2 Employee-experienced infuence on their own labour situation (index of

autonomy at work: How much infuence do you have on: (1) your work
tasks, (2) the quality of your work, (3) performance of your tasks) in
2009, 2016 and 2017
The responses from 2017 showed only insignificant differences from those of
2016.
These results question the common assumption that Nordic working life is
stable and democratic. The participants perceived working life to be develop-
ing in a less democratic and employee-friendly manner than one would assume
from recent studies of the Nordic model (Dølvik et al., 2015).
Formal democratic structures and managerial

models in use
Nordic working life is generally supposed to involve collaboration between
unions and management that leads to consensus and reduces levels of labour
conflicts. Strikes and lockouts have been very few in number in Norway, while
Denmark experienced significantly more labour conflicts in the 1990s and
2000s, but these have declined during the 2010s.
Unions and management, despite the common perception of consensus
and harmony, often disagree on their respective interests at workplaces. The
agreed democratic structures are tools to reach consensus on differing interests,
mostly in terms of compromises. Since the late 2000s, however, we observe
that a growing number of companies establish democratic structures formally,
according to labour laws and agreements, while their actual practice serves
managerial interests that differ from the legal and formal democratic intentions
(Nordrik & Falkum, 2017).
A comparison of the results of the co-determination survey in 2017 with
the workplace democracy survey of 2009 (Falkum et al., 2009) shows only
minor and insignificant differences in terms of the presence of formal demo-
cratic structures such as unions, negotiated wage formation, works councils,
shop stewards, employee-elected HES representatives and working environ-
ment committees. However, based on register statistics, Hagen (2017) finds a
significant decline in employee representation on company boards.
We find only minor differences between private enterprises with foreign
and domestic owners. More surprisingly, employees at workplaces with for-
mal democratic structures (collective bargaining, basic agreements, employee
board representation and labour unions) show similar results for influence at
work as employees without such structures. As mentioned, 45% of Norwegian
employees conceive working life to be moving in an authoritarian direction.
How can that be, when we observe no significant change in the presence of
most of the formal democratic structures?
In Table 4.1 we see that employee influence correlates negatively with
standardization and control, and with loyalty and obedience, but positively
with co-determination, and with participation and involvement (autonomy).
Most correlations are moderate to strong. Standardization and control show a
strong positive correlation with loyalty and obedience, but a negative correla-
tion with co-determination, as well as with participation and involvement.
Table 4.1 Correlations between the four management/governance models and

employee infuence at workplaces in 2017 (Pearson’s R, signifcance
(p, two tailed))
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Standardization 1
and control
2 Loyalty and 0.67** 1
obedience
3 Participation and −0.42** −0.50** 1
involvement
4 Co-determination −0.50** −0.60** 0,74** 1
5 Infuence on own −0.24** −0.31** 0.44** 0.40** 1
work situation
6 Infuence −0.25** −0.22** 0.41** 0.38** 0.53** 1
on work
organization
7 Infuence on −0.31** −0.20** 0.53** 0.49** 0.46** 0.53** 1
governance
** p = 0.001 (sig.)
Norwegian Police Federation, n = 2890−1096.
Management models such as standardization and control, and loyalty and

obedience, seem to be quite incompatible with the working life models prac-
tised in the Nordics. Furthermore, Table 4.1 shows consistency in the Nordic
model. Employees who have strong influence on their own work situation are
more likely to have strong influence on the organization of work and on the
governance and organization of their company. These three types of influence
correlate positively with co-determination, and with participation and involve-
ment, and negatively with standardization and control as well as with loyalty
and obedience. These findings are also valid when we exclude respondents
with managerial positions from the analysis. Working life seems to divide into
two parts: one dominated by the values and principles in the Nordic col-
laboration models, and one that applies principles from the Anglo-American
concepts of organization, governance and management. What are the contex-
tual boundaries in this division?
Sectors, industries and ownership

The general view of Nordic working life gives the impression that the working
life model works in an almost similar way at any workplace. By comparing sec-
tors and industries, we may test this idea of the “one and only way” to practise
democracy at work, and perhaps reveal differences.
The difference between employee influence in private and local govern-
ment enterprises is quite small, while employees in enterprises owned or
The state 19 39 32 10 1
Local government 9 32 39 16 4
Private enterprises 14 31 33 15 7
1 None 2 3 4 5 Very much
Figure 4.3 Respondents’ infuence on governance and organization at the

workplace (measured by an index consisting of 12 variables: How
much infuence do you think you have on enterprise decisions
on (1) strategies, (2) quality demands, (3) effciency demands,
(4) proftability demands, (5) choice of work technologies, (6) who
gets to know what, (7) recruitment, (8) enterprise organization,
(9) customer/user relations, (10) cooperation with other enterprises,
(11) social responsibilities, and (12) enterprise environmental
responsibilities, tested by factor analysis), in percent, n = 2335
organized by the state differ considerably from both of them (Figure 4.3).
Respondents employed by the Norwegian state have less influence on gov-
ernance and organization at their workplace, and this difference is statistically
significant (p < .001). They experience higher degrees of standardization and
control, and lower degrees of co-determination and autonomy at work than
do employees in private and local government enterprises. In Figure 4.4, we
present differences in degrees of governance and forms of management across
industries. The panel data includes 20 different industries, which implies that
the numbers of respondents in some of them are quite small. We include only
those industries with sufficient numbers of respondents (about 100 or more)
to be significant.
Health services have the lowest degree of co-determination and the third
lowest degree of participation and involvement. We will comment in more
detail on the low ratings in the public sector and connect them to the introduc-
tion of new public management in the next paragraph.
The main point in Figure 4.4, however, is the variations in levels of co-
determination, and participation and involvement (autonomy) across industries.
We use indexes of all the four types of governance and management that we
elaborated in the introduction to this chapter. These indexes give robust findings
that are statistically significant (Falkum et al., 2017; Falkum & Drange, 2018).
Union–employer collaboration and high levels of union co-determination
dominated governance and management in the oil and gas industry until 2008,
when the largest companies introduced standardization programmes for produc-
tion and maintenance, including HES issues in North Sea installations (Colman
Construction 69
66
Education/kindergarten 62
61
Manufacturing/technology 55
59
Governmental offices 54
56
Banking/finance 53
57
Oil/gas/energy 46
44
Nursing/care 45
43
Health services 34
46
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Co-determination Participation and involvement
Figure 4.4 Respondents’ perceived degree of co-determination and participation

and involvement/autonomy (percentage scoring 4 or 5 on a scale from
1 = very small degree to 5 = very high degree, n = 326−93)
et al., 2011). Table 4.1 showed positive correlations between co-determination

and participation and involvement, as Figure 4.4 clearly illustrates.
Comparing Figures 4.4 and 4.5, we find that those industries where
employees experience a high degree of co-determination, and participation
and involvement, seem to show a lower degree of standardization and control,
while the levels of loyalty and obedience seem to correlate in the same way,
but less statistically significant, when we compare industries (Falkum & Drange,
2018). Figures 4.4 and 4.5 show that governance and managerial forms vary
considerably between industries. This variation challenges the idea of “one best
way” that “fits all”. We need to question the idea of a common working life
model in Norway and therefore also in the rest of the Nordics.
A widening range of tools for management, governance and organiz-
ing activities is another source of varieties of industrial relations in practice.
41
Construction
15
Education/kindergarten 47
13
Manufacturing/technology 50
29
44
Governmental offices
16
53
Banking/finance
31
60
Oil/gas/energy
28
53
Nursing/care
24
56
Health services 22
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Standardization and control Loyalty and obedience
Figure 4.5 Respondents’ perceived degree of loyalty and obedience, and

standardization and control (percentage scoring 4 or 5 on a scale from
1 = very small degree to 5 = very high degree, n = 326−93)
Who owns an enterprise matters. In corporate governance and new pub-

lic management (NPM) principles, the owners become the most important
actors to instruct management and the entire enterprise. Firstly, they will
dominate the understandings of realities, environments and surrounding
events as inputs to decide strategic intentions and means. Secondly, they will
set goals and objectives, such as return on investments, productivity demands
and acceptable cost levels. Thirdly, they will decide what to produce, where
to produce it, how to produce it and with what resources. Their interests
determine the plans, decisions and actions taken by CEOs and top manage-
ment. The relations between shareholders and top management become the
vital and central relationship in a company. In the original Nordic working
life models and the stakeholder perspectives, the relations between manage-
ment, unions and employees dominated companies and organizations.
The co-determination survey in 2017 shows huge differences in govern-
ance and forms of management in corporations and other ways to organize
enterprises. Corporations are normally a structure of several enterprises that are
run from the same headquarters. Non-corporations are autonomous companies
and other enterprises (Figure 4.6).
A regression analysis shows that the differences in co-determination
between corporations and non-corporations is statistically significant (Falkum
& Drange, 2018). The three other forms correlate in the expected directions,
but the differences are at present not big enough to be significant. Thus, cor-
porations reduce levels of co-determination. That means that unions, their
representatives and their members have less influence in corporate structures
than in non-corporate structures. Corporations reduce the roles of collectively
oriented representative democratic institutions. There are no significant dif-
ferences in autonomy and participation when we compare corporations and
non-corporations.
Non-corporate enterprises have about the same levels of standardization
and control as corporations have. Loyalty and obedience score lower than all
three other forms of governance, in both corporate and non-corporate struc-
tures. Thus, the organizational structure varies, and they carry different forms
of governance, management and collaboration between employers, unions and
employees. This is quite surprising when we know that they do not differ
in having established the formal democratic structures prescribed by national
industrial relations and working life institutions. Institutionalization of demo-
cratic structures seems to be no guarantee for the practice of democracy at
3.8
4 3.7
3.4 3.5 3.4
2.8 2.8
3
2.4
0
Standardization and Loyalty and obedience Participation and Co-determination
control involvement
Corporations Non-corporations
Figure 4.6 Distribution of the governance and management models in corporate

(workplaces under corporate headquarters) and non-corporate
structures (autonomous workplaces) (employees’ average scores on a
scale from 1 = small degree to 5 = high degree, n = 783−286)
workplaces. What characteristics distinguish corporations from non-corporate

enterprises, and will such characteristics explain some of the differences?
• 63% of employees in our survey work in a corporation, nearly twice as

many as those in non-corporate enterprises.
• 51% of employees in corporations have domestic owners, compared to
95% of employees in non-corporate enterprises.
• 49% of employees in corporations have institutional owners (foundations
or fnance institutions), compared to 13% in non-corporations.
• 40% of employees in corporations are in those with 500 or more employees,
compared to 7% in non-corporative enterprises.
Figure 4.6 confirms the common assumption that the introduction of cor-
porate governance, and shareholder perspectives, would affect democratic
practices and labour relations at workplaces. Differences in ownership, size and
site of the headquarters will affect distances and thereby communication lines
and labour relations. These characteristics may explain some of the differences
in the practical use of governance and management methods, and employee
and union influences at work. However, these characteristics are likely to be
the result of the introduction of corporate governance and NPM, and not the
opposite, i.e. that the introduction of corporate governance and NPM is a
result of size, ownership or site of headquarters. They are the owners’ preferred
ways to govern a large part of working life. The differences still remain when
we control for number of employees (size).
Corporations let the owners’ interests dominate enterprises according to
corporate governance principles (Hagen, 2010, 2015). Relations between own-
ers and management become dominant in the shaping of the understandings
of realities, strategic choices and principles of governance and management.
In this way, relations between employers, unions and employees will be of
less importance in the running of enterprises. Shareholder perspectives take
over from stakeholder perspectives through labour relations and the practice of
industrial relations at workplaces.
We found that the practice of workplace democracy varies by industries,
sectors and by enterprise structures. Models of work and working life have
to reflect realities at workplaces in order to support predictability, stability
and consensus. Despite the proven varieties of workplace practices, conflicts
between employers and unions are still scarce in Denmark and Norway.
Workplace differences by ownership (foreign or

domestic)
The co-determination survey reveals only minor differences between com-
panies with foreign- and with domestic-dominant owners in terms of the
establishment of democratic structures such as unions, shop stewards, works
councils, collective bargaining, basic agreements, HES committees and more.

Obviously, they practise these differently, as in for example the use of individ-
ual or collective wage negotiations. Foreign owners practise individual wage
negotiations more often, according to our respondents. Table 4.2 shows the
differences in the use of the four management and governance models.
We tested the figures for several independent variables such as size of the
enterprise (number of employees), industry and more. The differences observed
in Table 4.2 are statistically significant (Falkum & Drange, 2018). Employees
in enterprises with foreign owners score higher on standardization and control
than employees in enterprises with domestic-dominant owners. Employees in
enterprises with domestic owners score higher on participation and involve-
ment (autonomy) and co-determination than employees in enterprises with
foreign-dominant owners.
Foreign owners seem to bring in different models of governance and
management than domestic owners, and to practise Norwegian democratic
workplace arrangements differently. When a foreign investor buys a domestic
company or enterprise, they will often include it in corporate structures with
headquarters abroad. That increases distance and possibilities for communica-
tion and dialogue. This may affect the relations between the headquarters and
the local management, unions and employees, and thereby the model of gov-
ernance and management in use. In a recent case study (Nordrik & Falkum,
2017), an international corporation implemented corporate standard models of
HR systems and business governance that we found partly incompatible with
national agreements and labour laws. This may indicate how internationaliza-
tion and the ongoing globalization of economies can affect national working
life models and workplace organization and management.
Privatization of state enterprises

A social-democratic government (Stoltenberg 1) introduced NPM to Norway
in the early 1990s. The British Labour Party developed NPM under the reign
of Tony Blair (Giddens, 2013). NPM sought to adopt logics of “new market
Table 4.2 Employees’ experience of governance and management, dominant

owners compared (degree of the four models, average score on a
scale from 1= very small degree to 5 = very high degree, (n))
Model Domestic Foreign
Standardization and control*** 3.0 (544) 3.4 (285)
Participation (autonomy)*** 3.5 (845) 3.3 (405)
Loyalty and obedience 2.6 (401) 2.8 (234)
Co-determination *** 3.5 (737) 3.3 (352)
*** p <= 0.001 (signifcance)
liberalism” from the early 1980s in the public sector. Customer/user orienta-
tions in public services, cost control and reduction of public spending were
high on political agendas (Christensen & Lægreid, 2007). In parallel with cor-
porate governance in the private sector, NPM put a public variant of owners’
governance in charge.
NPM led to the privatization of many public services. Privatization intro-
duced variants of corporate structures as the main way to organize services
like telecommunications, railways, the national postal service, the national oil
company and more. Parliament established them as “state limited companies”
(statsaksjeselskap) by legal acts. The relevant ministry was to hold the general
assembly of the new limited company. The general assembly in limited compa-
nies represents the shareholders. It elects the board of directors in representative
democratic structures. NPM carries principles of corporate governance (Meld.
St. 27 (2013–2014)). Today the Norwegian state owns 74 such companies
(Nærings- og fiskeridepartementet 13.01.2018).
The public authorities restructured hospitals in a somewhat similar way
in the early 2000s. The state now organized hospitals and defined them as
health corporations and enterprises, known as “special law companies” (sær-
lovsselskap), i.e. state companies with particular authority. Political decisions
transferred the responsibility for hospitals from the 18 counties to 5 state-
owned regional health trusts (helseforetak) in 2002. This was a huge reform
implemented in a very short time. The Ministry of Health is in charge of
the five health regions. The reform introduced corporate structures similar to
those of the limited companies owned by the state. However, this was not a
Norwegian innovation. The same model applied in Denmark and several other
European countries.
We have examined differences in governance and management models in
some of the workplaces under governmental authority.
Table 4.3 shows the survey responses on the indexes for the four models of
governance and management in different areas of state activities. The figures
show the average scores in the different areas on a scale from 1 = very low
degree to 5 = very high degree. It also shows statistically significant differences in
the degree of participation and involvement (autonomy) and co-determination
in the different types of enterprise. Autonomy and co-determination in privatized
state-owned limited companies and health enterprises score significantly lower
than the other types of enterprise. Universities and university colleges are at
the top. Standardization and control scores are highest in health enterprises
and state-owned limited companies compared to all the others, significant at
the 0.01 level.
These findings may have many different explanations. The restructurings
took place in the early 2000s. The privatized limited companies used to have
strong labour unions, party collaboration and union influence on the man-
agement and business in their period as public enterprises. Since then they
have developed their business and reorganized and restructured the enterprise
Table 4.3 The four models of governance and management in different

state-owned enterprises (degree of the four models, average score
on a scale from 1 = very low degree to 5 = very high degree, (n))
Enterprises Standardization Participation Loyalty & Co-determination***
& control* & interference obedience
***
Ministries, 3.5 3.4 2.6 3.3
directorates, (105) (162) (94) (132)
adm.
Defence, police 3.5 3.5 2.7 3.2
(52) (74) (46) (62)
Universities, 3.4 3.5 2.4 3.6
university (48) (71) (36) (60)
colleges
Health 3.8 3.2 2.7 3.0
enterprises (96) (140) (75) (112)
State-owned 3.7 3.1 2.8 3.0
limited (66) (93) (59) (78)
companies
*** p <= 0.001
organization and management more frequently. Reallocation of staff, downsiz-

ing, expansion into new markets, and mergers and acquisition are taking place
continuously in some of them. We know from the surveys in 2016 and 2017
that restructuring correlates negatively with autonomy and co-determination.
Health professions, especially physicians and nurses, held positions of power
in their period under the governance of the counties. Disputes with health
authorities over budgetary issues and cost control were common. The intro-
duction of the health corporations and enterprise reform was intended to
change the situation by establishing governance models that clearly divided
management and administrative functions from service provision. It is reason-
able to assume that this rearrangement of managerial authority and governance
in hospitals would influence professionals’ understandings and experiences of
co-determination and participation and involvement at work (see Chapter 11
on NPM in this volume).
Privatization of public services was intended to improve them by several
processes of change of managerial authority and responsibilities. We believe
we have observed this in our findings. One of the main questions in our survey
is “In what direction do you think working life is developing?” The possi-
ble responses are “In a more authoritarian direction”, “In a more democratic
direction”, “No change” or “I don’t know”.
In health enterprises, 47% felt that working life was becoming more authori-
tarian. In state-owned limited companies, the figure was 57%. These scores are
higher than in most other areas and industries, except for oil and gas, where 58%
thought that working life was developing in a more authoritarian direction.
We have controlled these findings for numbers of employees and other
independent variables by regression analysis (Falkum & Drange, 2018). Size
matters but not so much to make the correlations statistically insignificant.
We take these findings to indicate that the restructuring of public sector
workplaces by the logics of NPM are changing workplace structures and
cultures in a less democratic direction.
Consensus or co-optation: pressures on the

Nordic workplace models
In this section, we turn to a case study in order to outline how a large mul-
tinational corporation in the oil and gas industry avoids co-determination in
practice. Here, we reveal corporate actions that undermined industrial relations
and the institutionalized formal democratic structures, simply by changing
the practices of agreements and labour laws, not the laws and agreements as
such (Nordrik & Falkum, 2017). This particular large international corpora-
tion decided to implement the same organizational structure and managerial
codes of conduct in all subsidiaries and units, irrespective of location. The idea
to standardize production processes and maintenance as well as administra-
tive processes, management and formal relations between management and
employees seems to have been permeating the oil and gas industries at least
since 2008 (Colman et al., 2011).
The Norwegian subsidiary in our case study decided to implement trans-
formation management principles and HR systems based on measurement
and control of individual performance, behaviour and attitudes. The cor-
porate headquarters developed large numbers of guidelines and instructions.
The Norwegian corporate headquarters introduced the restructuring strategy
in the Norwegian plant in 2010. Union representatives, shop stewards and
elected health and safety representatives have reported and complained about
the lack of participation, co-determination, involvement and consultation with
management in the implementation of the corporate HR system. We have
documented this with copies of minutes of meetings, letters, emails and 14
formal qualitative interviews and more than 40 conversations with employees,
elected HES representatives and union representatives as well as the management
of the Norwegian subsidiary and the plant under study.
Elements of the imported HR system

Corporate management introduced a programme for operational excellence
in production in 2014 to cut costs and increase productivity by defining social
values assumed to improve results. The programme started with an exploration
of options to define improvement objectives and goals. It transformed aims and
objectives into standard operating procedures as a strategic baseline. Measures

of operational results had to agree with defined goals. The local union and
the HES representatives claimed that they were not involved in the decision
making or the planning of the four phases of this programme as they were
entitled to by laws and agreements. Plant management claimed otherwise: that
union and HES representatives did participate but none of our interviews with
employees and union representatives confirmed that.
A second programme was intended to match capacities and competencies
in operational tasks: to define and establish the “critical competencies” in all
tasks. Management introduced the programme in 2014. External consultants
explored and made the operational design of the programme, including a new
schedule of working hours and shifts at the plant. The local union and its rep-
resentatives claim that they neither participated nor had any influence in this
process. Again, the plant management and the top manager of the Norwegian
subsidiary claim that the union representatives were involved, although the
CEO admits that:
[t]here have been some problems with the union’s co-determination in

recent years. But we are now improving industrial relations.
(Interview, 15 November 2016)
The third programme, introduced in 2015, was a verifcation system that

mapped each employee’s individual knowledge and competencies. In the “life-
saving rules”, for instance, there are 12 points of “dos and don’ts” with more
than 100 outlined codes of conduct. This mapping system was intended to
prevent major accidents by controlling the performance of all tasks in detail.
The local union and the plant management disagree on the practice and degree
of co-determination and employee participation in this process.
The final element was the introduction of a governance system based on
individual employee goals, performance measures and recording of results intro-
duced in 2016. This completed the corporate governance package. Again, the
union and HES representatives asked for co-determination and participation in
the planning, decision making and implementation, and again managerial and
HR staff tell a different story.
Implementation of the HR system came in separate portions but was never
introduced as connected strategic elements of a complete system for corporate
governance. When management eventually introduced the element of individ-
ual performance measures, the links between all four elements finally became
obvious to unions and employees like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Interviews, conversations and email correspondence between employees
expressed a shared understanding of this process as planned and implemented
stepwise in order to hide the full corporate intentions until the process was
irreversible. The final introduction of the individual performance measures
became the eye-opener that gave local unions the full understanding of
corporate intentions: the introduction of a system of corporate governance

based on individual human relations and human resource management prin-
ciples. The by-passing of industrial relations, collective interests and union
influence in decision making and planning was a tactic to fulfil corporate
intentions, according to the interviews with unions and employees. All our
employee informants labelled these managerial acts as manipulation aimed at
reducing the co-determination of unions and employees. The CEO and plant
managers refused to accept such interpretations of the processes. Nevertheless,
the way management introduced the system seemed to produce negotiation
myopia (Martin, 2015, pp. 17–33) among the actors, intentionally or not.
This case study shows how a large multinational corporation set national
industrial relations aside by introducing their own corporate governance and
management systems, intended to be implemented in all organizational units
worldwide. They did so, however, not by challenging industrial relations and
working life institutions but by changing the game itself, by introducing new
practices that in principle were breaking some of the institutionalized rules,
although claiming throughout the process that industrial relations and HES
structures were recognized. Corporate managers in the Norwegian subsidiary
and at the plant claimed that their new principles were in line with national
industrial relations, while the implementation process showed otherwise. The
corporate intention to introduce transformation management did not comply
with the rules of participation by union and HES representatives. The corpo-
rate programmes prescribed individualization of labour relations and individual
participation and support for the programmes by employees and union and
HES representatives. They ignored collective and representative democratic
structures and intentions in practice, while simultaneously stating that they
were following the national rules of the game. Lawyers have evaluated the
process and concluded in favour of the unions (Nordrik & Falkum, 2017).
Workplace democracy can be formally in place, while practice tells a dif-
ferent story. Such systems, of corporate governance disguised as democracy,
diminish the opportunities for employee opposition and union influence.
Management presumes that the unions are participating and supporting the
corporate programmes in line with the logics of what we have labelled loyalty
and obedience, not the logics of co-determination. Corporate governance that
rests on subordination more than trust in labour relations may lead to co-
optation of unions and false co-determination. Top managers will have the
power to define understandings of realities. They will take the support from
co-opted unions and employees for granted. Institutionalized industrial rela-
tions no longer fit with practice, and corporate practice trumps the working
life institutions.
Our survey data tells us, however, that there are still many corporations
and enterprises that follow the rules of national industrial relations, domestic
as well as foreign enterprises in almost all industries. But cases like the one
here occur more frequently than before. The Nordic working life model is
under pressure, a pressure that originally stems from the neo-liberalism of the
1980s and the logics of corporate governance and new HR strategies derived
from that ideological base. This case study, as well as the survey data, indicate
that the collective democratic structures of co-determination are under greater
pressure than individual participation, but there are also examples of attempts
to transform individual participation and involvement into loyalty and obedi-
ence, as in the case here.
Changing the understandings of realities and

the game of democracy at work
The research findings presented here challenge the common assumption that
the Norwegian working life model is democratic, stable and uniform. This
assumption is based on some macro studies of industrial relations and com-
panies in the Nordics (Moene, 2006; Dølvik et al., 2007, 2015). We have
questioned these interpretations of institutional impacts with our studies of
the practice of democracy at work, using questionnaires with representative
samples of employees.
Comparing the identical questions from the surveys in 2009, 2016 and
2017, we conclude that participation and autonomy at work have been fall-
ing in the 2010s. In 2009, 89% scored 4 or 5 on the scale from 1 = none to
5 = much. This figure was 12% lower in 2016, and 9% lower in 2017, than in
2009. Individual influence on one’s own work situation was one of the fea-
tures of the Norwegian model of work organization and business development.
There is a downward trend in dialogue and collaboration between managers
and individual employees, as democratically oriented methods of management.
However, the formal democratic structures are still in place and do not seem
to change. The institutions of industrial relations remain while the democratic
practice of them is declining.
The four methods of governance and management correlate in different
directions. Standardization and control correlate positively with loyalty and
obedience, and negatively with co-determination, and with participation and
involvement. Anglo-American research, studies and practices are the sources of
the first two methods, while Norwegian working life institutions and practices
have developed the latter two. The four forms of governance represent differ-
ent methods to shape shared understandings of realities in working life. The
standards introduced at workplaces are reflections and operational definitions
of certain understandings of the realities of work and the workplace. Some
workplaces use the methods of co-determination and individual participation
to outline and form the standards. Workplaces that have a high degree of stand-
ardization and control combined with a high degree of co-determination and
participation reflect these possibilities. These workplaces are few, however,
since standardization correlates negatively with co-determination and partici-
pation. Workplaces are more likely to introduce standardization and control
top-down than bottom-up. Management establishes truth regimes based on its

understanding of realities. Standardization and control are methods to make
employees accept these understandings.
Participation and involvement score quite high in workplaces with both
foreign and domestic owners, in corporations as well as non-corporations
and in most industries. We found no significant differences in the practice
and distribution of this kind of governance. Participation and involvement
relate to Thorsrud’s and Emery’s ideas of individual participation in company
development. In our analysis, we suggested that participation and involvement
were a necessary basis for collectively oriented democratic elements such as
co-determination, i.e. a foundation for industrial relations in the Nordics.
The statistical correlation with co-determination is strong and significant.
Participation and involvement correlate negatively with standardization and
control as well as with loyalty and obedience.
In companies that practise loyalty and obedience, management defines and
shapes realities and convinces employees that their understandings of these real-
ities are true. This form of governance is less widespread than the other three
forms. It correlates strongly and significantly with standardization and control,
and negatively with the two Nordic forms of governance.
Organization and mobilization of collective interests are the basic premise
for co-determination. The social partners constructed the working life institu-
tions in the Nordics through the social-democratic era from 1935 to about
1980 when the neo-liberal era took over. Shared understandings of reali-
ties are the result of negotiated compromises at the levels of the workplace
and working life in general. The social parties have shaped, maintained and
developed industrial relations incrementally, in collaboration with the state.
Co-determination is now under pressure from corporate governance and HR
systems in the private sector. The state introduced corporate structures to a
large part of public services. It is a paradox and a surprising finding that enter-
prises owned by the Norwegian state practise standardization and control to
a higher degree than the rest of working life, and a majority of employees in
limited companies owned by the state think that Norwegian working life is
developing in a more authoritarian direction.
Working life seems to divide into two parts: one is moving away from
democratic methods of organization and management, especially through
standardization programmes, while the other part still keeps to the Norwegian
working life model. So far, standardization programmes are gaining ground,
and levels of co-determination and participation are declining at workplaces
that implement such programmes. The case study presented showed an exam-
ple of how this can happen. The models and methods of government and
management from neo-liberal sources can prove to be more or less incompat-
ible with the models and methods developed in Nordic working life.
Practices of the Norwegian working life model are not “one best way”. We
have shown variations between sectors and industries in their practice of the
four models of governance and management. We found that organizational

structure also matters, as there are significant differences between corpora-
tions and non-corporations. Corporate structures established by privatization
of former public services are less democratic and more standardized than other
state enterprises. The bumblebee is still flying, but seemingly in less predictable
directions under the shifting conditions of the neo-liberal era.
Note
1 Medbestemmelsesbarometeret is funded by Lederne (The Norwegian Organization
of Managers and Executives), Legeforeningen (The Norwegian Medical Association
(NMA)), Forbundet for ledelse og teknikk (The Norwegian Engineers and Managers
Association (FLT)), Forskerforbundet (The Norwegian Association of Researchers
(NAR)) and Politiets Fellesforbund (Norwegian Police Federation).
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Chapter 5
International management
concepts meeting Nordic
working life
Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen and Pål Klethagen
Introduction
Management concepts travel across contexts. Protagonists present management
concepts as universalized knowledge that fulfils desirable goals by following the
ideas and prescriptions proposed. But what happens when decontextualized
knowledge developed in one context travels across contexts and is recontex-
tualized? In this chapter, we explore how international management concepts
travel into the Nordic working life – and to what extent international man-
agement concepts challenge the work environment and transform inherent
principles in the Nordic Working life Model (NWM). In the first section, we
sketch out what we understand as NWM in order to explore how this inter-
acts with international management concepts. We then identify two rough
theoretical perspectives in the understanding of management concepts and
organizational transformation. The first perspective aligns to the idea that man-
agement concepts represent universalized knowledge that is transferred across
context and transforms organizations. This perspective, which we label Transfer,
includes two opposing approaches: one is that of the proponents and advo-
cates of specific managerial concepts; the other is that of those who critically
scrutinize management concepts and the outcomes they produce. The second
theoretical perspective we label Translation. The translational approach adheres
to the idea that management concepts can never be transferred without also being
translated. Each has implications for understanding the relationship between
management concepts and organizational transformation.
This leads us to the second section of the chapter, in which we explore
the travel of Lean into Nordic working life. We begin by sketching out Lean,
and then, by means of earlier literature studies, ask what can be said about the
influence of Lean on work environment and health. While these studies reach
beyond the scope of the Nordic countries, we reflect upon their implications
for Nordic working life and implications for the principles and characteris-
tics implied in NWM. This leads us to explore in more depth some of the
translational processes of Lean into the Nordic countries, including the role of
researchers and social parties. We present three cases of translational processes
in Norway and Denmark.
Management concepts meeting Nordic life 93
Although the exploration of the relationship between international man-

agement concepts and the work environment has general implications, this
chapter is rooted within the industrial area. Our delimitation includes the
role of consultants in translating managerial concepts (Hagedorn-Rasmussen,
2001; Holmemo et al., 2016). In the following paragraph, we define what we
mean by Nordic working life and summarize principles and characteristics that
signify what we have chosen to give the problematic label NWM.
The NWM and work environment

Why is it problematic to speak of an NWM? Asking whether the NWM is
challenged by international management concepts might be an odd question,
given the model is itself a result of a historical international melting pot. Just
some of the threads from which the Nordic model has been woven are the
origin and institutionalization of social parties that acknowledge differences
in interests; the systematization of a “model” that is in an ongoing process of
becoming by means of negotiation, possible conflicts and democratic participa-
tion at many levels; the historical role of origin and cooperative dissemination
of Taylorism in the aftermath of World War II; and the integration of ideas
from sociotechnical studies in the UK. This texture is still in the becoming but
also forms the context of contemporary industrial organization and the work-
ing life in Nordic countries. Democratic institutions and practices in the form
of formal representation as well as participatory, employee-involving practices
have been institutionalized as strong principles and characteristics of the Nordic
working life, although also continually contested. In the following sections, we
thus focus on the emergence and institutionalization of principles and charac-
teristics of the NWM with specific emphasis on the sociotechnical influence,
on democracy and on work organization. This complements Chapter 3, which
provides a broader introduction to the Nordic working life tradition.
In both Denmark and Norway, rebuilding after World War II was assisted
by the Marshall Plan, which brought North American thinking on organiza-
tion and management with it. Rationalization and Tayloristic principles in
general seemed to prosper in the Nordic countries (Hvid et al., 2003, p. 12).
Even though Taylor’s principles came late to the Nordic countries, when
first introduced during the 1940s they were quite strongly implemented,
likely due to an improved cooperative relationship (Burchardt, 2001, p. 79).
Trade union representatives and work councils supported the search for tech-
niques for increased, efficient and quality-based production in order to raise
the general standard of living (Johansson, 2013, p. 243). Work tasks became
fragmented and labour-intensified. Highly specified and controlled work roles
allowed for little participation in terms of development and maintenance of
skills, and very little freedom to take initiatives, perform judgements or make
decisions (Gustavsen, 1990, p. 40).
In the UK, the coal mine studies targeted the downsides of mechanizing
the industry. Today, these studies are often applied as a somewhat esoteric
94 Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen and Pål Klethagen
reference point within the field of working life studies and organization the-
ory. The scene of what later became such an influential stream of thought, the
sociotechnical school at the Tavistock Institute, was set by Eric Trist and Ken
Bamforth (the latter had been working in the mines for 18 years). In “Some
Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal-
Getting”, Trist and Bamforth describe how the “outstanding feature of the
social pattern with which the pre-mechanized equilibrium was associated”
had deteriorated (1951, p. 6). The loss of responsible autonomy within the
smaller groups who had previously worked in the coal mines was associated
with the shift towards a work organization with large groups with very little
or no autonomy. The key learning points from these studies was that, when
changing the work organization, social and technical systems had to be con-
sidered in combination. It exhibited how innovations in the work organization
increased productivity as well as the social quality of working life, greater
cohesiveness in groups, greater personal satisfaction and a decrease in sickness
and absenteeism (Trist & Bamforth, 1951).
The researchers behind the studies had ambitions of reforming working
life in order to create an industrial democracy, but in the UK such a move-
ment proved difficult to establish. In Norway, on the other hand, such studies
found fertile ground; the research program Industrial Democracy was established
in 1962 and became a source of inspiration in the formation of Nordic work-
ing life in the decades that followed. The Industrial Democracy program “grew
out of a widespread public discussion of alienation in industry and utilization of
human resources” (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970, p. 187) and was led by Thorsrud
and Emery, aiming at a democratization and sharing of social power of all those
engaged in industry (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970, p. 188). The programme’s first
phase was concerned with employee representatives on company boards, while
the second phase consisted of field experiments on employees’ “opportunities
to participate in determining how they did their work” (Thorsrud & Emery,
1970, p. 187).
The programme documented the somewhat conflicting roles of the rep-
resentatives on boards which had been instigated in the 1950s. The boards
prioritized the economic prosperity of the firm (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970,
pp. 189–191), thus externalizing issues relevant for working conditions. Here,
work councils were seen as sites for negotiation of a more practice-oriented
influence, in which employees were capable of handling problems in the con-
crete work settings. The insights from the first phase led to focus on some basic
needs in the following experiments, for example:
[r]easonably demanding job content, a need to learn on the job, a need to

have a minimum opportunity for decision-making, a need for some mini-
mal degree of social support and recognition, and to relate what he does
and produces to his social life.
(Thorsrud & Emery, 1970, p. 194)
These ideas and principles came to inspire and permeate projects and pro-
grammes around the Nordic countries, thus giving strength to the formation
of an idea, almost reifed as NWM, although always in its becoming. This was
not without challenges. The Industrial Democracy programme was a reac-
tion to decades of joint practices based on Tayloristic principles. Likewise,
the sociotechnical approach during the 1970s was criticized for neglecting the
power relations within companies. In this process, the Norwegian professor
Bjørn Gustavsen, who was also at the Norwegian Work Research Institute,
played a signifcant role. By means of action research into the continuation
of experiments on work organization, he emphasized the role of language
and dialogue. Technology policies came to play a role, and a revitalization
of the idea of equal cooperation was strengthened and gave birth to new leg-
islation strengthening employee rights at company level (Hvid et al., 2003,
p. 12). Concepts like The Developmental Work arose in the 1990s in Sweden and
Denmark and were propagated by unions and also disseminated by research-
ers (Hvid et al., 2003, p. 12). As such, Nordic working life was in an ongoing
transformation. Although the nature of this becoming had its own dialectic char-
acter, the formation of a line of principles and characteristics thrived. It thrived
to a degree that the NWM became a concept in “such a wide spectrum of areas
as management, user-friendly technology development, industrial democracy,
group-work, welfare legislation, and industrial relations. Many observers even
came to Scandinavia to study the future” (Byrkjefot, 2003, p. 29). Byrkjefot
emphasizes how this climaxed in the mid-1980s, when international man-
agement concepts became more important. In the following section, we will
probe the landscape of management concepts before we turn to explore their
travel into the Nordic working life.
Transforming by transferring: management concepts

that travel across contexts
Managers apply management concepts in order to cope with organizational
complexities. Management concepts consist of a coherent set of ideas and
heuristics that include a theory of practice on how to succeed within a spe-
cific area (Hagedorn-Rasmussen, 2000; Koch et al., 2003; Kamp et al.,
2005). Examples could be Total Quality Management (Deming, 2000;
Hagedorn-Rasmussen, 2000), Diversity Management (Kamp & Hagedorn-
Rasmussen, 2004), Organizational Learning (Senge, 1990; Bottrup, 2001),
Business Process Reengineering (Koch et al., 1999; Moltu, 2003; Hagedorn-
Rasmussen, 2000; Hammer & Champy, 2009) or Lean (see later) to mention
but a few. The theory of practice prescribed by each of these is based on experi-
ential evidence. The concepts and their inherent tools intend a transformation
of work organization that includes important modes that affect working life,
often with (un)intended effects on work environment and health, as well as
principles and characteristics implied in NWM: autonomy, scope of tasks,
decision latitude, involvement, job demands, development of skills and com-

petences, reward system, are affected by the “improvements”, “innovations”,
“reengineering”and “value streaming” that flow from the implementation of
concepts and the tools.
The concepts thrive as a result of the need for complexity reduction expe-
rienced by managers in a complex world of information overflow. In the
introduction of management conceptual literature, the claim most often repeated
is that the world is changing ever more rapidly. The subsequent claim is that
those who are likely to survive are those who follow the philosophy and tools
prescribed by this particular book. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (Grey,
2008), followed by a fear among managers of missing out and an inclination
to adopt socially legitimized management concepts (Rosenzweig, 2014). This
leads to the understanding of the management industry as a fashion industry
(Abrahamson, 1996; Benders & Van Veen, 2001; Björkman, 2013), in which
makers become masters and gurus of management (Huczynski, 2012) who offer
the ideas by which organizations become ever more isomorphic as a result of
ongoing imitation of one another (DiMaggio & Powell, 2000).
The proponents of management concepts conform to a realistic philosophy
of science that makes strong claims about the opportunities for successfully
transforming organizations. By far, most of the management concepts are
rooted in a North American context and lend themselves to the isomorphism
of organizational practices internationally. This led Clegg and other post-
modern inspired organizational scholars to apply the acronym NATO, North
American Theory of Organization, to describe contemporary organization the-
ory (Shenhav, 2003, p. 203). Managerial concepts might have roots in other
contexts, but the potential for becoming a leading star surges when they are
reinterpreted and vitalized in the North American context.
Critical perspectives on management concepts

Strong claims for positive outcomes in terms of organizational transformation
stem from these prescriptive ideas. However, a notable field of critical research
shares the idea of Transfer, in which concepts are perceived as knowledge that
does transform organizations directly. But the critical approach reached quite the
opposite conclusion with regard to the consequences of the transformations: from
the earlier Labour Process Theory and later Critical Management Studies, man-
agement concepts have been explored as means of managerial control (Braverman,
1974; Burawoy, 1979), while others have highlighted their effect on discipline
and redistribution of power (Lukes, 1974; Clegg, 1989). In the legacy of these
critical approaches, management concepts are considered as part of the instigation
of regimes that cause a deterioration in the work environment; intensify work;
reduce autonomy at work (Skorstad, 2013); and influence identity, subjectiv-
ity, meaning and politics in organizations (e.g. Knights & McCabe, 1998, 2000,
2002), thus being more subtle but ever more advanced means of control.
Also in the Nordic countries, criticism of and concerns over the possible
influence of mainstream management thoughts on working life have been
put forward. The Norwegian social anthropologist Tian Sørhaug stayed
at the Norwegian Work Research Institute (AFI). Sørhaug, who had also
been Director of AFI, stayed there during the times of Thorsrud. He writes
on the influence of US consultants in the aftermath of World War II (as part
of the Marshall Plan) and argues that the influence of the US consultants was
seen to clash with the ideas outlined and practised within the programme on
Industrial Democracy in Norway, in which a sharing of social power in indus-
try of all who are engaged in industry was seen as a means to de-alienate
the industry (Sørhaug, 1996, p. 188). US consultants, Sørhaug wrote, had a
far more hierarchical perspective on management, in which robust organiza-
tion equated to a clear, straightforward, authoritarian leadership. Likewise, the
influence from Japan increased (Gustavsen et al., 2010; Skorstad, 2011). Both
authors emphasize the difference between Japanese and Norwegian approaches
to involvement, implying a critique of transferring concepts and ideas from one
context to another. During the 1980s, an instrumental approach to involvement as
a means of creating ever more efficient and flexible companies superseded that of
involvement as a driver for democracy and equality. This made critical researchers
conclude that, for instance, Lean equals “loss of autonomy and further intensifica-
tion of work” (Skorstad, 1994, p. 429). Gustavsen et al. (2010) specify that working
life research in Norway was weak at the end of the 1980s. This created an open
space for influences from other sources. The prescriptive management literature
expanded (Peters et al., 1982) and provided a source for inspiration and influence.
The Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al., 1990) was a bestselling book
that paved the way to success for Lean as a specific management concept.
What the critics and proponents share is a belief that decontextualized manage-
ment concepts work across contexts: by transferring decontextualized knowledge,
it is possible to transform organizations. Proponents argue for the sake of improve-
ments, quality and efficiency in terms of company goals. Critics argue there
is a negative influence on the work environment, which may be said to stem
from the externalization of variables, principles, practices and characteristics such
as autonomy, psychosocial work environment, balanced job demands, learning
opportunities and whole tasks, not to mention democracy and participation. Such
ideas are externalized from the agenda and from the mental maps that managers
(and consultants) apply as sense-making heuristics (Weick, 1995; also see Simon,
1971). The critique unmasks the flaws and failures following from such externali-
zation by interpreting, analysing and describing the complex dynamics of power
and discipline associated with the practice of these mental maps.
Contexts and concepts: a translational perspective

These approaches imply an almost causal relationship between concept and
transformation, including – from the critics – an implied negative impact
on working life. But each of these perspectives might neglect the complex-
ity and micro-sociological processes implied in the ‘transfer’ of universalized
knowledge. A neo-institutional approach was formulated in which the need
for more critical examination of the micro-sociological processes of organi-
zational change was suggested (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996), presumably to
uncover a much more diverse, complex and rich understanding of organiza-
tional change. Sometimes this is referred to as the Scandinavian neo-institutional
approach and sometimes as the pragmatic neo-institutional approach. Czarniawska
and Joerges (1996), together with other colleagues, explored the travel of ideas
and challenged the notion of how management concepts unilaterally influence
organizational transformation. An important contribution was that ideas them-
selves are also transformed by literally, as well as metaphorically, going through
the process of translation. This idea provided a rich ground for research on dif-
ferent perspectives on translation studies (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996; Røvik,
2007; see also Spyridonidis et al., 2014). Any transfer of a managerial idea from
one context to another implies translation. The idea is woven into the context
and cannot be moved without its fundamental content being translated.
As a contributor to the pragmatist Scandinavian neo-institutionalism,
Norwegian professor Kjell Arne Røvik (2007) provides an account of trans-
lation within sociological studies. He distinguishes between two paradigms
(Røvik, 2007, p. 251). The early paradigm of translation predominantly
emphasized literal translation, in which the author is obliged to translate word
by word: the aim is to reproduce the text as precisely as possible. The transla-
tor’s obligation is to be loyal to the text and only the text. Metaphorically, this
would be tantamount to an organizational change process guided by a manage-
rial concept, including tools/heuristics, which is implemented 1:1.
This standard of translation was challenged during the 1980s. The chal-
lenge contended a cultural turn, in which the translator was “expected now to
consider the receiving culture” (Røvik, 2007, p. 252). The original idea of an
author, Røvik argues, is intimately linked to the cultural context in which it is
produced. If you transfer the text to another cultural context, the meaning of
the original text is likely to get lost in translation. Translation needs to include
co-authorship on the part of the translator in order to bring the ideas to life in
the new context.
Any consultant, management guru, manager or employee who participates
in dissemination of a managerial concept becomes part of the translation pro-
cess and, consequently, a potential co-author. If you practise the managerial
concept 1:1, and are true only to the text, you are likely to expect cultural
clashes of meaning. If you, for instance, take a managerial concept that origi-
nates from a culture in which the group is the smallest foundational social unit
(e.g. Japan) and transfer this to a cultural setting in which the smallest social
unit is the individual (e.g. the United States or the Nordic countries), the
actual practice is likely to have very different processual outcomes. Likewise,
taking a concept that represents a coherent meaning system founded on specific
institutionalized power structures will obviously have significant implications

depending on whether this is practised within an authoritarian or egalitarian
organizational culture.
Several important observations can be extracted from this: first, translation
happens, no matter what; second, translation is contextually and culturally
bound; and third, translation can happen more or less explicitly and more or less
consciously. It is reasonable to suggest that contextual clashes between ideas/
concepts and new contexts can be eased by means of reflective action. Explicit
translation, ongoing learning, participatory (re)design of tools that embed prac-
tices within the “receiving” context, and reflection as part of this, are important.
Røvik does not suggest normative approaches, but he does take up the idea of
reflecting on distinct capabilities for the sake of better translation. If knowl-
edge and ideas are supposed to be transferred from context to context, critical
resources and skills will make a profound difference. Being a skilled translator is
about the ability to practise a distinct set of deeds. Four essential characteristics
of a translator are being knowledgeable and multi-contextual; courageous and creative;
persistent; and resilient/strong (Røvik, 2007, pp. 319–337, our translation).
Transfer or translation by means of

management concepts
We have presented two distinct theoretical perspectives on the potential influ-
ence of management concepts: Transfer and Translation. Both proponents and
critics assume that management concepts transform organizations. Proponents
apply them as knowledge that provides opportunities for competitive success,
but seldom, if ever, consider democracy, autonomy and representation – as
well as the working environment or health – as legitimate issues. Ironically, the
critical approach shares the assumption that management concepts are decon-
textualized knowledge that is transferred and transforms organizations. But the
critics argue that management concepts cause a deterioration in the work envi-
ronment and health and are a means of control and discipline. This perspective
implies a strategy of critique and resistance: “Within such a context resistance
will appear as a more probable reaction than creative involvement” (Skorstad,
1994, p. 429).
The second theoretical perspective, the translational approach, is less inclined
to accept the implied causal relationship between concepts and transformation.
Instead, it emphasizes the need to enquire into micro-sociological processes to
understand the processual complexity and the social dynamic of the symbolic
interaction that shapes practices and outcomes. This perspective opens a differ-
ent room for agency that may lead to positive – or less negative – outcomes in
terms of work environment and health associated with the travel of ideas into
Nordic working life.
In the next paragraph, we explore the travel of Lean into Nordic working
life. First, we sketch out the concept of Lean. Then we draw on earlier research
to explore the relationship between Lean and the work environment. Here, we
broaden our scope from the Nordic to an international perspective but reflect
on the findings’ possible implication for Lean and the work environment in the
Nordic countries. Last, we follow the idea of Translation and enquire into cases
that can be seen as expressions of translation in order to understand possible
strengths and weaknesses of such creative involvement.
Lean meeting the NWM

Lean refers to the production system and management concept which, in its
broadest terms, focuses on eliminating waste. The historical roots go back to
Sakichi Toyoda (1867–1930), who established Toyoda Automatic Loom Works
and automated the process of looming. To reduce waste, he invented a device
that automatically stopped the machines when a problem occurred. This
principle was coined jikoda, and it became a “red thread” in the later Toyota
Production System. In the decades following, different fundamental principles
and tools that later became associated with Lean were developed. For instance,
in the late 1940s, Taiichi Ohno at Toyota developed with a “common sense”
approach just-in-time production. Also, the single-minute exchange of dies
(SMED) was invented as an important means of reducing the time taken to
shift between different products (Holweg, 2007, p. 422).
The Japanese economy expanded during the 1960s and 1970s, becoming
something of an admired wonder whose competitive abilities challenged the
Western world (Björkman & Lundqvist, 2013, p. 19). The export of Japanese
cars increased dramatically and paved the way for joint ventures between US
and Japanese car manufacturers. This accelerated the knowledge exchange,
resulting in visits to factories in Japan and the United States, that had already
occurred in the earlier development of different tools mentioned earlier. The
popularity of Lean surged after being (re)discovered in the North American set-
ting, when quality engineer John Krafcik worked on a joint venture between
Toyota and GM (New United Motor Manufacturing) in California. However,
it was when Krafcik went to MIT to do an MBA (Krafcik, 1988; Björkman
& Lundqvist, 2013, p. 23) and turn the GM-NUMMI into research data with
Womack and others that it surged as a management concept (see Holweg,
2007 for a more detailed account of the genealogy of Lean). Lean was “born”
as a management concept that was presented as universalized knowledge, and
The Machine That Changed the World (Womack et al., 1990) became one of the
bestselling management books in decades.
Today, Lean is often associated with a set of tools; for instance, Value
Stream mapping, Kaizen, 5S, 5 Whys, Go to Gemba and SMED. Value Stream
Mapping is a means of carefully identifying work flows that create value and
those that can be apprehended as waste; Kaizen is a means of systematically
conducting continuous improvement; 5S is five Japanese words beginning
with the letter ‘s’ for processes that help organize work in order to achieve
efficiency that have been creatively translated into several other languages to
keep the 5S’s (in English, the words are translated as Sort, Set In Order, Shine,
Standardize and Sustain); and the 5 Whys is a technique applied to find the root
cause of a problem.
But what does Lean not include? In the general philosophy, among the
fundamental principles and known tools of Lean, there is no mention of democ-
racy, quality of working life, meaningfulness, autonomy, whole tasks, balanced
job demands, learning, or other themes that we met within the sociotechnical
thinking and the principles and characteristics that were institutionalized his-
torically in the emergence of NWM. In the Nordic countries, vast investments
in programmes have been made to reform working life. As a consequence, as
Björkman and Lundqvist point out (2013, p. 33), role models should be chosen
carefully; the authors emphasize that Japan has never invested in the humaniza-
tion of working life to institutionalize it in the same way that Nordic countries
have. Likewise, Sandberg emphasizes that Lean production can never “be the
ultimate goal and form for human productive activity. Some ‘fat’ is needed to
make the workplace a decent place for human activity, a place where you can
unfold as a human being” (Sandberg, 2007, p. vii). The “fat” includes an inclu-
sive orientation towards some characteristics, principles and practices that have
been institutionalized historically. Learning is important for the experience of
balancing job demands with an experienced control (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970;
Gustavsen, 1990; Hagedorn-Rasmussen & Elsborg, 2016) and is a necessary
“fat” mark of a resilient, inclusive organization.
Are Lean mean? Leaning against “science”

We have found only one survey that looks into the role of Lean on the (psy-
chosocial) work environment and related issues within the Nordic countries:
Leanus – a contraction of “Lean uden stress”, which means “Lean without
stress” – was a Danish research project that followed the interventions within
ten companies introducing Lean. We will return to that later in the chapter.
Leanus applied a survey that included the ten participating companies within
the specific research programme. Looking internationally, we found three
international literature studies, summarizing and making inferences about the
relationship between Lean and work environment. However, we also found
Norwegian surveys that focused on the adoption of Lean in Norway that we
return to at the end of this paragraph.
First, we look into three international literature studies which have inves-
tigated possible effects of Lean on the work environment and health. Like
the first of our two presented theoretical perspectives, Transfer, the research
design is based on the idea that it is possible to establish a causal relationship
between a management concept (independent variable) and its consequences
(dependent variables). It should be emphasized that these studies do not
address Nordic working life specifically. However, the findings do provide us
with important insights into the relationship between Lean and its travel into
organizations, from which we can make inferences about Nordic working life.
In 1999, Landsbergis et al. published a survey of the literature on the impact
on worker health of Lean production and related new systems of work organiza-
tion. They identified 38 studies, of which 20 were published in peer-reviewed
journals covering mostly the United States, Canada and England, with one in
Finland. Of these, 13 were in the auto industry, 13 in other manufacturing
industries, 11 in the health care industry and 1 in telecommunication. They
concluded that, in general, the introduction of Lean production does cause
some challenges in terms of the work environment: “Increases in decision
authority and skill are very modest or temporary, and decision latitude remains
low. Thus, such work can be considered to have job strain” (Landsbergis et al.,
1999, p. 122). But they also emphasize exceptions to these deteriorating influ-
ences: “The exceptions to these general conclusions tend to appear in groups
of workers who participated in the implementation of new work systems, or
in which worker influence was secured through a collective bargaining agree-
ment” (Landsbergis et al., 1999, p. 122). Toivanen together with Landsbergis
(2013) conducted a literature survey covering the period from 2000 until 2011.
They identified 15 relevant studies, 14 in peer-reviewed journals and 1 book
covering 9 different countries. Although ambiguous, the studies documented
an increase in work pace as well as an increase in work intensity. In line with the
prior literature study, this literature study documented higher levels of stress,
as well as a deterioration in wellbeing, fatigue and tension among employees
within Lean production with manual work (Toivanen & Landsbergis, 2013,
p. 97). Their study shows that “Lean production practices are often related to
intensification of work pace and job demands, relatively low influence and only
modest or temporary increase of influence in work” (Toivanen & Landsbergis,
2013, p. 97, our translation). Some of the studies accounted for the role of
unions, and two of those suggested that the involvement of unions lessens the
risk of stress on the job.
Almost simultaneously, Hasle et al. (2012) published a literature study which
overlaps with Toivanen and Landsbergis (2013). In contrast to Landsbergis
et al.’s (1999) study, Hasle et al. make greater efforts to consider the scope
and context of Lean more clearly. The review likewise predominantly sug-
gests evidence for negative effects on work environment, employee health
and wellbeing when we look into manual work with low complexity. But
it is also argued that the assumed causal relationship inherent in the research
design is overemphasized and needs to be revised, because Lean takes many
forms in terms of context, implementation and practice. These differences,
they concluded, will have different effects: “In order to understand the effects
of Lean on the working environment, we must examine the workings of Lean
as a socio-technical system where the causal relations with the working envi-
ronment are a matter of contextual and practical interpretation” (Hasle et al.,
2012, pp. 845–846).
In the Norwegian surveys on adoption, Heien (2012) focused on organiza-

tions with more than 100 employees and found that 48% of the responding
organizations had implemented Lean. Storsveen (2016) and Moum and
Bordewich (2017) did not select respondents based on size but found adoption
rates of 21.8% and 19.5% respectively. Storsveen (2016) further investigates the
role of consultants who play an active role in implementing Lean. Only 23.9%
of respondents have implemented Lean without the help of consultants, and,
even more interesting for the scope of this chapter, the consultants primarily
related to top and middle management (50.3% and 45.8% respectively) against
employee representatives (13.5%), which confirms the idea of Lean not being
particularly inclusive in terms of employee involvement.
The literature studies in general identify some negative consequences of the
introduction of Lean on the work environment, etc. However, it also seems
as if processes of translation can take place. We infer that such understandings
of the interpretive flexibility of Lean also open the way for active strategies of
translation. In the following sections, we will investigate cases in which transla-
tion of Lean has occurred.
Translating: the strategy of enacting work

environment and NWM
Translation occurs regardless of whether you engage consciously in the process
or not. As such, translations are likely to occur arbitrarily if not reflected. The
quality of translation is likely to depend on the strategy and action undertaken.
Historically, the social parties and researchers have, in general, taken an
active (though different) role in translating management concepts. In Norway,
the Lean Forum was established in 2009 to create a Norwegian Lean model
(Rolfsen & Ingvaldsen, 2013, p. 263), followed by reflections and discussions
on whether unions as well as employee representatives became co-opted by
managerial ideas and manipulated by consultants and Lean experts (Rolfsen &
Ingvaldsen, 2013). Researchers suggest that it is important that companies take
ownership of the concepts and develop them for their own purposes, and they
encourage them to invite unions to do the work of “appropriation” (Ingvaldsen
et al., 2012). In Denmark, the development of and research on Lean occurs in
local experiments across sectors (Edwards et al., 2010). In Sweden, a national
research and development programme has been financed by several different
national funds (Abrahamsson & Sederblad, 2013, p. 324) following the line of
investments in programmes that also consider work environment and working
life. These cooperative efforts do not mean that Lean has been embraced uncon-
ditionally. Arguments against Lean and other management concepts, being an
instrument of the reduction of autonomy, intensification, etc. (described earlier
in the section “Critical perspectives on management concepts”) have also influ-
enced the approach in a dialectic process of becoming which has characterized
the NWM.
In the following sections, we provide a renewed analytical perspective on

three earlier projects that all represent the travel of Lean into the Nordic work-
ing life. The three projects are exemplary cases. It is our understanding that they
strongly elucidate processes of translation. First, we investigate Lean Operations
in Norway. In short, we start out by describing the introduction of Lean in
Norway and then focus specifically on the research project Lean Operations.
We investigate one specific case study within Lean Operations that provides
insights into some of the translational dynamics, when Lean travels into organi-
zational practice. After this, we turn to the second project, Leanus, mentioned
earlier. This Danish intervention research programme explored how Lean was
introduced within ten distinct companies. One of the ideas was to explore
opportunities for introducing Lean without stress. We interpret this as an exam-
ple of intentionally exploring the opportunities of translating Lean. This section
ends with the third project that was designed to explore opportunities for the
development of vocational training of production employees: what skills and
qualifications do production employees need when Lean and other managerial
and production concepts are introduced in industrial companies? What do the
employees need to know to make sense of managerial ideas in the everyday
practice of work organization and practices? One of the authors of this chapter
participated in this project. These three projects enlighten various aspects of
opportunities for actively engaging in translation as a strategy, while keeping in
mind the need for critical scrutiny.
Engaging with Lean Operations

For a long period, the circulation of Lean among Norwegian organizations was
limited (Levin et al., 2012). Apart from the process industry and automotive
part manufacturers, diffusion was limited (Rolfsen, 2014). The concept started
to attract interest among a diverse set of industry and sectors in 2008 and 2009,
and, in the following decade, reports on Lean started to appear in printed
media (Madsen et al., 2016). Work researchers with ambitions of diffusing and
developing NWM had an ambivalent attitude towards the concept (Gustavsen
et al., 2010; Skorstad, 2011; Levin et al., 2012). Lean was acknowledged as a
concept that could potentially improve productivity and quality, but it could
also lead to intensification of work and reduced autonomy (Skorstad, 2011)
and reduced capabilities for learning because of standardization and reduced
slack. As the concept gained popularity, researchers from institutions with a
long tradition within NWM decided to take part in a research project aimed
at developing a Norwegian approach to Lean. This project, Lean Operation,
lasted from 2010 to 2014. The project arranged an annual two-day conference
with about 500 participants (between 460 and 580 participants in the period
from 2012 to 2017).
Lean Operations was probably the first Norwegian research project in
which working life researchers engaged with a managerial idea potentially
in conflict with the NWM. Working life researchers and companies went
together to explore opportunities for a Norwegian translation. Lean influ-
enced the way researchers, companies and social parties worked together
across sectors. Working life researchers actively explored ways of transforming
the management concept and “adapting” aspects of the concept to the insti-
tutional context within Norway. The intention was to develop knowledge
on the functioning of Lean within Norwegian working life, as well as making
a research-based contribution to the participating companies. The case stud-
ies from the project show that Lean could both conflict with NWM or be
a useful tool for improvement based on broad participation. It also showed
that the effects of Lean could differ over time within the same organization,
as exemplified by Bygdås and Falkum (2012). They conducted a case study,
Lean in the Sunset, in which they investigated the role of Lean during a period
of economic success as well as decline. The case study presented two distinct
approaches to Lean applied at REC Herøya.1 In the first version, up until
2008, management introduced an instrumental version of 5S that enforced
a top-down, rule-oriented approach with a strict interpretation of creating
order (Bygdås & Falkum, 2012, pp. 5, 23). The implementation of Lean was
met with significant resistance and had limited or no results. A combination of
the financial crisis and increased competition from China created a “burning
platform”. The factory was at risk of going out of business, and a restructuring
took place. The executive group was replaced, and new initiatives were taken.
A second, and very different, approach to Lean was presented, although still
decided by management. The new plant manager had a long history of pro-
ducing results in collaboration with workers from the process industry. A new
trade union representative was also elected, also with process industry experi-
ence in both fighting and collaborating with management in crisis situations.2
The innovative approach was far more inclusive and cooperative. Employee
representatives were included in:
[p]lanning and decision on how the methods of improvement should

appear and be applied. Even though much of this was already defned in
RBS, Six Sigma and other tools that where applied, had to be translated
and adapted to the context.
(Bygdås & Falkum, 2012, p. 30, our translation)
This led to a quite distinct process that supported and engaged employees;
for instance, absence caused by injuries decreased by 88%, complaints about
inferior quality reduced by 95% and production cost per wafer reduced by
44% (Bygdås & Falkum, 2012, p. 11). Comparing the two approaches of
Lean shows how “diferences seem far more striking than the resemblances”
(Bygdås & Falkum, 2012, p. 29, our translation). While management decided
both initiatives, they difered in terms of creating an inclusive and cooperative
approach with employees. Bygdås & Falkum conclude that:
Lean is not necessarily an impediment to the Norwegian cooperative

model. On the contrary, it documents that work towards continuous
improvement conducted as a translation of Lean may beneft from letting
managers, employee representatives and employees become equal actors.
(2012, p. 29, our translation)
They conclude that REC Herøya succeeded in reaching their goals, precisely
because they spent time creating a mutual understanding of what they needed
to do, how and by whom. The study documents the importance of translation
and draws attention to the need for participation by employees and the poten-
tially devastating efects of a narrow, control-oriented approach.
Lean without stress

In 2010, researchers from Danish Technical University, National Research
Centre for the Work Environment, and Aalborg University published the
results of their research project Lean and Work Environment (Edwards et al.,
2010), referred to as Leanus. The foreword is written by the CEO of the
Confederation of Danish Industry and Secretary of the Central Organisation
of Industrial Employees in Denmark. The researchers worked together with
ten very distinct organizations (design, construction, accounting, logistics,
machine producer, waste treatment company, surgery, cancer department,
domiciliary care, and bank) and followed them before, during and after their
implementation of Lean. Compared to other researchers within the work
environment, the programme is optimistic about the opportunities for bring-
ing in issues related to employee involvement and influence (Edwards et al.,
2010, chapter 5). For instance, they emphasize the general claim of Womack
et al. (1990) that employees will find greater challenges in work, since the idea
of Lean is to instigate responsibility down the organizational ladder (Edwards
et al., 2010, p. 113). Whether their expectations were confirmed is a complex
subject to address. Leanus did measure the development of the psychoso-
cial work environment during the process within each company with quite
ambiguous results ranging from significant improvement to significant dete-
rioration; in summary, four had positive changes in the psychosocial work
environment, five had no changes and one had negative changes (Edwards
et al., 2010, pp. 89–90). With regard to involvement, 56% of employees who
experienced the introduction of Lean answered (in the follow-up survey) that
they had experienced having some influence on Lean activities. The baseline
survey documented that, in general, the answer from employees experiencing
involvement was 50%. The result is interpreted as a positive result (Edwards
et al., 2010, pp. 119–120). It could be argued that these results occur within a
project in which the attention to the issue of work environment, involvement
and so on was expected to be significant. Consequently, it would be reasonable
to expect a greater increase.
In general, the results reflected a large diversity across companies. The com-
panies took very distinct approaches to adopting the Lean practices, partly
given their primary tasks but also because of other institutional settings. The
researchers suggested that the companies differed with regard to two axes in
their approach to the practice of Lean: pragmatic vs dogmatic approach, and
shortsighted vs longsighted approach, creating Sporadic-Lean, Tool(based)-Lean,
Standard-Lean and Transformation-Lean (Edwards et al., 2010, pp. 53ff).
The Transformation-Lean approach (pragmatic/longsighted) included a more
learning-oriented approach that also implied continuous translation of tools,
etc. The more dogmatic came close to a fundamentally tool-based approach
(Edwards et al., 2010, pp. 53 ff). The researchers also emphasize how Lean may
be apprehended as a process of learning (Edwards et al., 2010, p. 157), implying
a longsighted pragmatic perspective and emphasizing the translational process.
The researchers concluded that there is no straightforward way to judge the
influence of Lean on the work environment: it is possible to have a positive
work environment with Lean and even improve, but they rush to state that
the question is too simple. It is necessary to look behind how employees and
managers interact with Lean and how they transform it (Edwards et al., 2010,
p. 183). The research project created a foundation for the companies, together
with the researchers, to explore strengths and weaknesses, and possible clashes
between distinct institutional logics of Lean meeting variants of the Nordic
working life, and also enlighten some opportunities and barriers for translating
Lean with regard to work environment, involvement, etc.
Equipping production employees to meet the future

management concepts
Under the headline Skilled Employees in a World of Production and Management
Concepts, the Danish Ministry of Education financed a joint project between
the Educational Secretariat for Industry (Industriens Uddannelser, IU) and a
consultancy firm specialized in analysing the need for vocational training and
education within different sectors (Clematide et al., 2011).3 IU is an independ-
ent institution comprising Dansk Metal (the Danish Metalworkers Union),
3F (United Federation of Danish Workers) and DI – Dansk Industri (the
Confederation of Danish Industry). Thus, IU embodies the NWM insofar
as it is a joint effort in which the employers and employees are represented
in exploring the need for and developing vocational training and education
to support the needs of the future industry. The project aimed at producing
an analysis which could provide the foundation for developing vocational
training within industrial education to equip future skilled employees to partici-
pate in confronting Lean, Performance Management and other production
and management concepts. Recently, they have conducted a similar project
on team structure and group organization in industrial companies in Denmark
(Voxted, 2017), in which they concluded that teams are influenced by Lean
team thinking, but that it also works in reverse (Voxted, 2017). Strengthening
the vocational training within specific areas will provide processes of translation
that contextualize the managerial ideas.
Based on an analysis of how six industrial companies adopted Lean and
Performance Management, the project explored how the ideas travelled into
each company. In particular, the project focused on how industrial employees
interacted in the processes of adopting and translating the managerial con-
cept, including how the organizations created room for participation, levels of
autonomy and so on. The six qualitative case studies included interviews with
skilled and semi-skilled employees, managers with responsibility for training
and development, and production managers and shop stewards. The employees
were interviewed in focus groups in which their approach to adopting Lean
and Performance Management was explored. By means of a literature survey,
an interview guide was developed to explore distinct approaches to Lean and
other management concepts. Themes explored in the interviews included: To
what degree does the company emphasize employee involvement? To what
degree is Lean practised as a cultural, processual change or as a more tool-
oriented approach? To what degree are Lean practices and tools performed by
the employees as part of the ongoing work, or are Lean practices and tools a
matter for experts and managers?
The results showed a high degree of variety in ways of translating Lean.
Three ideal typical configurations were presented in the study, here labelled
ManagingLean, ApplianceLean and CulturLean. In ManagingLean, the company
worked in a very tool-oriented way with selected Lean tools. It was managers,
above all, who enacted Lean roles, and employee involvement was relatively
slight. ApplianceLean was much like ManagingLean, although employees had a
high degree of involvement. The involvement was focused on applying their
knowledge, feeding it in to make continuous improvements. The involvement
did not transgress those process improvement initiatives selected by manage-
ment. In the last configuration, CulturLean, Lean tools were seen as important
in order to make process improvements. However, the tools were selected
cooperatively by employees and management, while the selected tools reflected
the opportunity of sense-making, given the context. Employees enacted the
Lean roles, and employee involvement was, in general, high. This included
what to adopt from Lean, how to adapt the Lean tools to make sense within the
context and how to actually perform the tools in everyday practice.
Based on the analyses, skills which were important in working with and
confronting the production and management concepts were identified: 24 skills
in 7 different areas, such as technical-professional, methodological, organiza-
tional, communicative, IT, numeracy and personal competencies. These were
skills and competencies that may be important when employees are introduced
to new managerial ideas and concepts that will benefit from a constructive
critical examination by professional and knowledgeable employees. The com-
mittees related to each of the distinct industrial educational areas within IU
adopted these insights and systematically reviewed teaching plans and curricula
to see if improvements were needed.
This project illustrates not only how the social parties within IU enacted a
translational strategy but also how the employers and employees enact various
aspects given the opportunities for translation, e.g. in work councils. It also
directs attention towards the role of vocational training as a potentially valuable
resource for translation.
The three examples show different cases of translation in which the social
parties, employees, employers and managers at company level, as well as
researchers, enact roles as translators implying some degree of co-authorship.
The cases do give – although not in depth – ideas on how this co-
authorship may include principles and characteristics otherwise externalized
by the agenda provided by Lean. While this is no guarantee of a positive
outcome, it does stress the interpretive flexibility of Lean that is open to
some degree of translation.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have explored what happens when decontextualized
knowledge travels into Nordic working life; specifically, the extent to which
international management concepts challenge the work environment and
transform inherent principles in the NWM. First, it is important to stress that
the NWM is a social construction – a model; second, it is in an ongoing process
of becoming; and third, it is to some degree normative, insofar as the principles
and characteristics that signify it are far from permeating all the institutions
that constitute everyday working life in the Nordic countries. Moreover, it is
a model that reflects a historical process of institutionalization which is open
for translation. However, these reservations considered, we would argue that
it is possible to speak of a loosely coupled NWM even in its becoming. This,
in particular, is characterized by an institutionalization that – to a larger extent
than represented among mainstream management in general and manage-
rial concepts specifically – emphasizes what we have labelled principles and
characteristics of the NWM, such as, for instance, democracy, participation,
responsible autonomy, together with a reasonably demanding job content and
the availability of learning opportunities at work.
Most managerial concepts in general, and Lean more specifically, tend to
externalize these at the expense of a narrower, instrumental focus on organi-
zational goals and the related core in the managerial concept. As such, our
findings suggest that Lean does challenge the work environment and the NWM. It
is documented that Lean within specific contextual circumstances is likely to exter-
nalize important issues with regard to the work environment and the NWM.
However, the degree and appearance of influence are ambiguous. Context
matters. In general, the causal idea that to some extent is implied in the research
question – and propagated by both proponents and critics of management
concepts – has inherent flaws that need to be considered. The practice of Lean
(like other management concepts) is very diverse. This emphasizes the need
for sensitivity towards the translational and contextual aspects of managerial
concepts and the transformation of organizations. Strategies of active transla-
tion are likely to pave the way for more positive outcomes. Furthermore, it is
concluded that, historically, the social parties, together with researchers within
the field of work environment in the Nordic countries, have been engaged
in such processes of translation, and that this is an inherent part of the model.
This calls for continued strategies of active translation. However, likewise
it is stressed that there is a need for balancing this with a continuous critical
examination of the outcome of the introduction of international management
in the work environment and the principles and characteristics implied in the
NWM. When relating to managerial concepts, researchers, as well as social
parties and actors at company level, may take on at least two distinct roles:
the critical role and the translational role. It is important to balance those two
roles in a continuation of strategies for developing a sustainable future work
environment.
Notes
1 REC Herøya produces wafers, and the market changed dramatically during this
period. However, the case emphasizes the distinct transformations that Lean under-
took during this period. In the period of success up until 2008, the price of wafers
increased. However, the fnancial crisis and increasing competition from China chal-
lenged the company (Bygdås & Falkum, 2012, p. 7).
2 The change of trade union representative is not mentioned in the report.
3 One of the authors participated in the project, conducting a literature review, case
studies and analysis.
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Chapter 6
Working environment regulation

in Norway and Denmark
Jan Erik Karlsen, Klaus T. Nielsen and
Robert H. Salomon
The initial development of labour law legislation

Across industrialized countries, there is more or less consensus that working
life needs regulation in order to become safer and enhance protection, health
promotion and welfare for employees.
In Denmark, the Parliament passed the first labour protection law in 1873.
The aim was mainly to reduce child labour in factories. Following this leg-
islation, Denmark established its first labour inspectorate. The issue of child
labour in the tobacco industry was clearly addressed in their first annual report.
Later, accident protection was also included in the legislation, and in 1901, a
more general industrial labour protection law was introduced in Denmark.
The labour inspectorate was then established as an independent agency, in
fact the first independent agency in the Danish governmental system, which
indicates the salience of the issue.
Labour law developments in Denmark inspired early Norwegian labour law
work. Norway did not follow Denmark until 1885, when the Government
appointed a commission to prepare a law. Child labour was also a main issue
in Norway. Finally, in 1892, the first factory inspection law was approved by
Parliament (Karlsen, 2018). This first law covered factory workers, but other
groups of workers also had some legal rights, such as miners, who had been
covered by a law since 1842. The aim of the first protection laws in both coun-
tries was accident protection and reduction of health hazards in the factories,
and the focus was on technical solutions.
In Norway, the regulation of working hours was also an important issue at
that time. The emergent workers’ associations pushed for a regulation, sup-
ported by the liberal bourgeoisie, who were also in favour of reduced working
hours. The main arguments for reduced working hours were: (1) improved
health and welfare, (2) greater possibilities for workers to improve skills,
(3) improved working methods (productivity) and (4) opportunities for work-
ers to take part in democratic processes in society (Byrkjeland, 2006).
There were several attempts to include working hours in the legislation of
1892, but without initial success. It took 23 years before the standard working
116 Jan Erik Karlsen et al.
day was fixed at 10 hours and included in a revision of the 1909 legislation.
In Denmark, working hours were regulated in collective agreements rather
than legislation.
The labour protection laws until the 1970s

The Norwegian labour protection law of 1936 had a wider scope and coverage
than previous legislation and can be characterized as a general labour protec-
tion law. There were also attempts to change the Danish labour protection
law in the 1930s. However, these attempts were fruitless at first, and World
War II postponed the process further. Finally, in 1954, Denmark managed to
introduce a new labour protection law. This new legislation covered most of
the labour market in Denmark. There were three complementary laws cover-
ing: (1) trade and office work, (2) agriculture and (3) miscellaneous industries
including industrial production and construction.
The revision and extension of the labour protection laws in the 1950s were
also influenced by activities and policies outside the Nordic countries. Included
in the new regulatory regime was the national implementation of conventions
of the International Labour Organization (ILO) such as the Labour Inspection
Convention of 1947. This illustrates how national legislation was influenced by
and adjusted to international legislation and conventions.
Occupational health and safety back on the

agenda in the 1970s
Several European countries, including Denmark and Norway, revised their
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) legislation during the 1970s. The revi-
sions were partly inspired by the British Lord Robens’ report (Lord Robens,
1972) and a general upsurge in radical political thinking among students and
workers following the 1968 movement. In addition, an accumulation of prob-
lems stemming from the success of Taylorism, expansion of mechanization
and the increasing use of chemicals in many industries, ran concurrently with
a growing knowledge of the risks associated with work in modern workplaces.
In Denmark, left-wing students wrote a series of reports on various aspects
of the working environment, such as “the painters report”, “the slaughterhouse
report” and “the brewery report”. It was not high science, but the reports
made it clear that there were serious challenges for both trade unions and
labour inspections to overcome. The “painters report” was particularly success-
ful. Soon, the health problems of organic solvents were almost eradicated, and
Denmark was a pioneer in that issue. A commission to prepare a new OHS act
issued four reports, including one that proposed wellbeing as a significant and
novel OHS issue. However, when the act was finalized, the four reports did
not play a decisive role, and wellbeing was not included in the legislation. In
the comments to the act, which in Denmark have legal significance, wellbeing
Working environment in Norway and Denmark 117
was explicitly exempted from the legislation. The act, adopted in 1975 and
effected in 1977, was named “The Working Environment Act”. It signalled a
shift from individual protection from harm to a concern to make the general
workplace environment risk-free. All Nordic countries adopted this new term,
working environment, as a substitute for OHS during the 1970s.
In Norway, the development of the working environment legislation was
partly influenced by the cooperation experiments in Norwegian industry,
which began in the late 1960s and continued into the next decade. In these
experiments, the main employers’ association and the largest labour union
agreed on field experiments in different sectors, including an iron plant, a
paper and pulp factory, a factory making electric ovens and a large Norwegian
process industry company (Thorsrud & Emery, 1970). The experiments were
later expanded to the hotel and restaurant, offshore and shipping industries.
The experiments took place with the participation of the workers, in order to
improve work processes and maintenance work and routines.
The field experiments showed interesting results, improving both produc-
tivity and the working environment. Important questions were also raised, e.g.
who will benefit from the productivity increase: the owners, the management,
workers who took part in the experiments or all workers? Such questions are
also relevant today. The field experiments also created an important training
ground for industrial democracy, e.g. allowing for the organization of work
in self-governed groups as alternatives to assembly line work. To disseminate
the experiences from these experiments to other workplaces and the industrial
sector in general was a challenge (Gustavsen, 1992). One important follow-up
activity was the introduction of self-governed groups in the Swedish Volvo car
factory. In fact, Swedish employers were very active in reforming industrial
work in this period (Agurén & Edgren, 1979). In Norway, the dissemination
effect was smaller than hoped for, although the idea of worker participation
was followed up in many sectors. However, the potential of involving workers
in improvement of production processes was also relevant for the improvement
of the working environment. This insight was brought into new Norwegian
legislation in 1977.
Until 1977, working environment legislation was based on factory inspection
and workers’ protection laws. The basic elements of these laws were contin-
ued in the new 1977 legislation. However, several new elements were also
included. While the former legislation was protective (and thus reactive), the
new law focused also on the development of a sound working environment,
which enabled a higher quality of work combined with increased productivity.
The Norwegian 1977 legislation included five new characteristics (Karlsen,
2018, pp. 174–179):
• A holistic perspective: none of the factors of the working environment

should be considered in isolation; the working environment should be
examined as an interplay between various factors.
• Continuous improvement: the employer has a continuous task to ensure

a sound working environment. In reality, this is a request for continuous
improvement of the working environment.
• Psychological and social conditions: to include psychological factors was
quite novel. The relevant paragraph was criticized for being too vague.
However, it was argued that such a paragraph had an educational function
in encouraging managers to consider social and psychological factors.
• The use of lay opinion: workers are not experts on working environment
in general but can be assumed to have good knowledge of their own
working environment as they experience it in their daily operations. The
act allowed for whistle blowing by employees when things were not in
order and for employees to participate in continuous eforts to improve
the working environment.
• Worker participation: one of the aims of the act was to strengthen working
environment eforts in each company with a focus on its particular challenges.
Direct and representative participation by the workers was a prerequisite for
improvement of the working environment locally. This principle was built
into the main mechanisms for improving the working environment today.
The legislation in Denmark presented some of the same features, but not
all of them. It had a holistic perspective. Indeed the name, the Working
Environment Act, signalled a shift away from individual environmental risk
factors towards the all-encompassing situation in which work was taking place.
Further, worker participation in activities initiated to mitigate OHS problems
and improve the working environment was in focus in the Danish legislation.
However, despite the proclamation in the first paragraph of the act that the aim
was to create “a safe and healthy working environment which is at all times to
be in accordance with the technical and social development of society” (The
Danish Working Environment Act, 1975), the notion of continuous improvement
is not a very prominent feature of the Danish legislation.
The distinct difference between the countries is, however, the rules con-
cerning the psychological and social environment. In principle, the psychosocial
working environment has been included in the Danish legislation since the
1970s, due to the general aim of the act cited here and due to other general
references in the act and underlying executive orders. Nevertheless, not until a
2012 amendment to the act were there specific references to the psychosocial
working environment in the paragraphs of the act, and even today, there is no
particular executive order relating to these aspects of work in Denmark.
Present working environment in Norway and

Denmark versus the EU
Before we discuss the more contemporary developments of working environ-
ment regulation in Norway and Denmark, let us consider the status of the
quality of the working environment.
Data collected in the European Working Conditions Survey (Parent-Thirion

et al., 2016) and processed in the study (Aagestad et al., 2017) addresses sim-
ilarities and differences between working conditions and health in Norway
and the EU, including Denmark. Most of the working environment factors
described in their report reveal significant similarities between Norway and
the other Scandinavian countries. Across Europe as a whole, it is especially
the Netherlands, but also Switzerland, that share characteristics with Denmark
and Norway with regard to working conditions, health and wellbeing in the
workplace (Table 6.1).
Flexible and predictable working hours, a shorter working week and a high
prevalence of part-time work, especially among women, are key characteristics
of the Norwegian and Danish labour markets. Such factors are conducive to
a good work–life balance. Around nine in ten Norwegian and Danish workers
report enjoying an overall good work–life balance. In the EU, the figure is
eight in ten. However, in some respects, e.g. working hours decided by the
company, as illustrated in Table 6.1, the differences between the European and
Danish and Norwegian workers are greater.
The psychosocial and organizational working environment is in general
more positive in Norway and Denmark than in the EU. As many as 94% of
Norwegian workers, 91% of Danish and 86% of EU workers are satisfied with
their working conditions. The majority of Norwegian and Danish workers feel
that the organization they work for motivates them to do a good job.
Compared with their EU counterparts, a smaller proportion of Norwegian
and Danish workers suffer mechanical exposure such as painful working positions
Table 6.1 Major working environment indicators for Denmark, Norway and EU28,
2015, percentages
Working environment factors Denmark Norway EU28
Work–life balance; working hours decided 37 39 61 (EU15)
by the company (in %)
Psychosocial and organizational working 91 94 86
environment; overall satisfaction with
working conditions
Work autonomy; decide or change:
Ordering of job tasks 85 82 68
Work methods/applications 83 84 69
Work pace 84 83 71
Participation in health, safety and 90 91 73
environment
Health and safety at risk 19 15 23
Quality of work:
positively challenging working environment 39 38 21
poor quality job 10 8 20
Source: Aagestad et al. (2017, various tables).
and repetitive hand or arm movements. Norwegian and Danish workers are
less likely than the EU average to experience exposure to chemical risk fac-
tors in the workplace, although they report being more exposed to biological
hazards. Norway and Denmark perform well on almost every quality of work
factor compared with the EU. Almost two in five workers in Norway (38%)
and Denmark (39%) find themselves in the “‘high flying’ job quality profile”
(Parent-Thirion et al., 2016, pp. 130–131), translated in Aagestad et al. (2017,
p. 16) as a “positively challenging working environment”. In the EU, the
figure is 21%. Conversely, the relative number of people in the “poor quality
job” profile in the EU generally is 20%, whereas in Norway and Denmark the
figures are around 10%.
Parent-Thirion et al. (2016) conclude that working conditions for EU workers
have generally improved. However, as Aagestad et al. (2017, p. 13) summarize:
[a] number of challenges remain, especially in relation to working condi-

tions amongst specifc groups of workers and in terms of gender, age and
business size. There is also an accumulation of risk factors in certain occu-
pations and sectors.
The main conclusion of Aagestad et al. (2017, p. 13) is that working conditions
in Norway are good compared with the EU, although in Norway, too, some
challenges exist in certain occupations and sectors. As the various fgures above
indicate, the situation in Denmark shows similar characteristics.
A closer look at working environment changes and trends since the late
1990s in Norway reveals some improvements and some challenges, as sum-
marized in Table 6.2.
These figures are probably too positive. Norway also has a grey and black
labour market in the hotel and restaurant sector, construction work and
Table 6.2 Selected working environment indicators among employed persons

18–66 years, percentages
Year 1996 2006 2016
Exposed to dust, gas or steam most of the time 14 8 4
Pain in neck, shoulders or upper back, due to work 14 11 10
Often or always feel motivated and engaged in own n/a 89 85
work
Feel mentally weary when returning home from 29 14 19
work, weekly
Experience bad relationship between employees 34 37 31
and management, often or from time to time,
employee
Source: Statistics Norway https://www.ssb.no/en/statbank (2017).
services such as car washing, cleaning, etc. These workers have temporary
jobs, often without any written contract. They are at risk of losing their job
and will often hesitate to take part in surveys and are therefore underrepre-
sented in these tables.
The chosen physical working environment measures show a promising
trend. In 2016, 85% often or always felt that they were motivated and engaged
in their own work, a slight decrease since 2006. It is interesting to notice that
the percentage of employees who weekly feel mentally weary when they return
home from work decreased from 1996 to 2006 but rose again in 2016. The
relationship between employer and employee has (according to the employees)
been nearly stable during the 1996–2016 period.
We see a similar picture in Denmark. However, in Denmark an official
working environment strategy adopted in 2011 by the government did set
three reduction goals to be met in 2020: 25% fewer serious accidents, 20%
fewer employees with excessive psychosocial stress and 20% fewer with
excessive musculoskeletal stress. When measured in 2016, the figures were
approaching the target for accidents, but in the other two areas, the figures had
gone up rather than down. Excessive psychosocial stress showed an increase
from 14.5% (2012) to 16.9% (2016), while for musculoskeletal problems the
figures rose from 9.7% to 11.1% (same years) (Det Nationale Forskningscenter
for Arbejdsmiljø, 2017).
The overall picture is one of better working conditions in Norway and
Denmark than in most other countries. The situation varies with the sector and
the particular aspect of the working environment. Perhaps there is a challeng-
ing lack of overall progress, especially when stipulated goals are moving further
away rather than being approached.
The regulatory institutional settings, more specifically the legal regula-
tion and the labour inspection authorities, are far from the only important
contextual factors to take into account when discussing this status and these
developments. Nevertheless, the rosy picture painted suggests we should take
a closer look at some of the specificities of working environment regulation in
Norway and Denmark, as we shall do in the rest of this chapter.
Psychosocial working environment: different routes

for Norway and Denmark?
For years, Norway has been at the forefront of regulating the psychosocial and
organizational aspects of the working environment. The work by Thorsrud
and Emery (1970) lists a set of six psychosocial factors of importance for the
working environment, apart from salary and safety:
• Job content – challenging and varied

• Continuous learning at work
• Opportunity to make decisions related to own work
• Social support and recognition

• Positive relations between work, outcome and outside world
• Prospects for a desirable future.
It is important to emphasize both positive and negative aspects of working

life. Social support from management and colleagues when needed, and the
possibility to take part in the design of one’s own work, will influence job
satisfaction, motivation and learning.
In general, Norwegian managers and workers realize the value of a good
psychosocial working environment. However, there are differences between
sectors of the economy (Eiken et al., 2008). An increasingly important aspect of
the psychosocial working environment is conflict mediation. Table 6.2 reveals
that almost one-third of employees experience a bad relationship between
themselves and management, often or from time to time. Some of the bad
relationships have the character of cool conflict. That is a conflict where the con-
flicting parties are represented by someone else, e.g. a union, and where there
are formal rules for handling the conflict. Wage formation through negotia-
tions is an example. Usually, such conflicts do not become personal since the
negotiating parties are acting on behalf of others. The same statistics cited also
reveal that 8% are often or sometimes involved in unpleasant conflicts with
management or other employees. At least 1 to 2% of these conflicts are hot con-
flicts. A hot conflict is a conflict between an employee and manager or between
employees where there is a dispute about job performance, role interpreta-
tion, communication, recognition, support, etc. Such conflicts are common
in knowledge work when employees invest their personality in their job and
have to cooperate with others to get the job done (Heen & Salomon, 2018;
Sørensen & Grimsmo, 2001).
There are formal rules in the Working Environment Act to handle bully-
ing and harassment but no clear rules to deal with other types of hot conflicts.
Hot conflicts can be handled by psychological approaches offering individual
or group therapy. Both approaches may work. Serious hot conflicts will some-
times end up as a court case. If not mediated, they will end up in a “win–lose”
situation where the winner takes all. Labour court cases may last for two to
three years and are very burdensome for all involved. Hot conflicts may also
be mediated in an organizational context where the parties try to find out if
the conflict is related to the working environment or the work organization.
It is not recommended to solve all hot conflicts by legal means because of
the excessive costs in time, money and a protracted indeterminate situation.
It is therefore necessary to develop local mediating mechanisms at the work-
place to deal with hot conflicts. Participatory processes to improve the working
environment and establish internal codes of conduct are examples of what can
be done locally.
In Denmark, it has taken a long time for the psychosocial working environ-
ment to become integrated into the legal framework and regulatory practice.
The most symbolic element was the 2012 reformulation of the Working
Environment Act to include the following paragraph:
§ 1a. This Act shall cover the physical and psychological working
environment.
The prime mover of this amendment was the Confederation of Professionals

in Denmark (FTF), most of whose member unions cover the public sector.
In the mid-1990s (see also Rasmussen et al., 2011) when the government
had shifted from right to left, the Danish Working Environment Authority
started to issue notices relating to the psychosocial working environment. This
paved the way for a committee, primarily consisting of representatives of the
social parties. This committee, known as the “methods committee”, finalized
their work with a report that, despite its legally unconventional status, has
dominated the field since. The parties agreed to differentiate between two
types of problems (Metodeudvalget, 1995):
• Problems that are directly related to general decisions concerning the

company and related to the interplay between management, employees
and their representatives, in addition to conditions outside the company,
i.e. problems which do not directly or indirectly stem from the individual
job function.
• Problems directly or indirectly connected with the individual work
situation.
Based on this distinction, the Working Environment Authority is only allowed

to issue notices related to the second group of problems, and local working
environment committees in companies are not supposed to deal with the first
group of problems but should transfer them to the local cooperation commit-
tee. This arrangement has been in operation since 1995, and although it has
been renegotiated recently, it is continuing almost unaltered.
As Rasmussen et al. (2011) demonstrate, the Danish Working Environment
Authority has worked with tools to focus and streamline methods of inspect-
ing the psychosocial working environment. But a comparison of notices in
this field with all notices issued by the Authority reveals figures for 2011,
2014 and 2017 of only 2.2%, 2.8% and 2.3% (based on figures available
on the website of the Authority: arbejdstilsynet.dk/da/). The majority of
psychosocial notices concern the risk of violence from citizens, rather than
stress-related problems. It is clear that the relative focus on the psychosocial
problems has not grown over this period. There is widespread recogni-
tion that psychosocial problems are difficult to regulate through traditional
command-and-control regulation (e.g. Jespersen et al., 2016), but the
low numbers and lack of growth are still surprising, given the political and
public attention.
Concurrent working environment regulation models

Labour law rules are based on various notions of what constitutes the chal-
lenges of working life and how they can be solved. In other words, they are
subject to political awareness processes and can be changed due to new knowl-
edge and under the impact of new discursive ways to articulate the problems,
the field and the conflicts. Graver (1995) suggests the concept of regulatory
models in relation to the judicial rules of working life. His three models largely
coincide with clear historical epochs. The period from 1892 to 1936 saw a
“parliament model” based on public governance; the “organizational model”
from 1936 to 1977 is based on the regulation of opposing interests of the social
parties; and the “company model” coincides with the introduction of the two
working environment acts in the mid-1970s, based on consensus and reflexive,
participatory democratic ideals. These terms indicate that different parts of:
[l]abour law regulation rest on diferent models of how behavioural pat-

terns between actors in companies unfold when problems and conficts are
to be solved.
(Graver, 1995, p. 149, own translation)
At the turn of the century, a new model has emerged, based on market principles
rather than on refexive practices. We can see this fourth regulatory model with
the introduction of internal controls in Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE)
work in companies in Norway from 1992, which gained further momentum
with the phasing in of these HSE requirements into the Working Life Act of
2005 and subsequent Working Environment Act of 2006. In Denmark, the
primary manifestation of this model is the introduction from 2004 of a scheme
whereby companies can exempt themselves from regular labour inspection
if they become certifed according to an OHS management standard. In the
international arena, the emergence of this model is visible in the literature (e.g.
Frick et al., 2000). This model we may term a “market model”.
In Norway in particular, new regulations on working hours and more lee-
way for precarious employment contracts indicate a change towards market
regulation rather than institutional arrangements. Firstly, the market model sig-
nals stronger management-based internal control than previous legislation.
Secondly, the government’s motivation is to develop an inspection-regime-
based second-order inspection – a regime anticipated to be both cost-saving
and deregulating. Thirdly, the companies themselves need to identify the
actors among their stakeholders (shareholders, suppliers, customers and inter-
est organizations) that will influence HSE work in addition to the company’s
own employees.
In Denmark, the market model is synonymous with the phasing out of a
compulsory occupational health service that applied to certain sectors, repre-
senting about 40% of the labour market. At first, this was accompanied by a
stricter inspection regime under which all companies were to be inspected, or

rather screened, within seven years; that is hardly a market model, although it
was argued that it created more equal market conditions. After the first screen-
ing round, in which almost all workplaces were visited, the labour inspection
authorities returned to a sampling approach, now termed risk-based inspection.
We can now expand Graver’s (1995) models of labour law regulation
regimes into four types, as shown in Table 6.3.
In today’s working life, all four models are operating side by side, but they
have different impacts when problems and conflicts are to be resolved. Declining
endorsement, support and influence for unions indicates that the regulatory
importance and impact of the organizational model will decrease. Some general
considerations of the welfare, health and safety of vulnerable groups, and the
regards for the external environment, suggest that the regulatory function of
the parliament model ought to be expanded to ensure appropriate minimum
working environment standards. Enhanced competencies, improved insight
into the solution of technical issues, social processes and interaction, as well as
more realistic management theories, suggest that the company model will need
greater leeway in future regulatory regimes. Local problem solving and com-
mon interests of employers and employees should be in focus.
In the following two sections, we shall dig deeper into some aspects of work-
ing environment regulation that have constituted major differences between
the Norwegian and Danish regulatory systems since the 1990s.
Table 6.3 Models of working environment regulation regimes

Themes Parliament Organizational Company model Market model
model model
Regulatory Authority Lateral Tripartite regulation Bilateral checks

principles execution regulation In-house and balances
Concise rules Procedural co-determination Self-inspection
rules
State interest Delimitations Mitigate Increase productivity Deregulation
of industrial conficts Democratization Cost-saving
work Accountability
Types of Intervention Institutionalized Consensus on goals, Market-based
interaction Regulation confict frames and stakeholders
resolution means
Examples Factory Labour Dispute Working Internal control
Supervision Act Environment Act regulations
Act Basic Companies Act Working Life
Working Agreement Act
hours Worker
regulation Protection
Act
Source: Karlsen (2018, p. 270). In the typology, the examples pertain mostly to Norway.
In Norway, internal control has been a dominant strategy. At first, this was seen
by some as an overly bureaucratic way of dealing with the problems (Skaar et al.,
1994), more tailored to the oil industry than ordinary land-based workplaces.
Indeed, both Sweden and Denmark were inclined to follow similar strategies
but finally chose to do it differently. In Denmark, there is very little that resem-
bles the internal control regime, perhaps with the exception of those companies
that chosen to have a certified OHS management system. Sweden chose what
could be seen as a middle road between the Norwegian and the Danish strategy:
Systematic Work Environment Management (Walters et al., 2011, chapter 6).
The Danish case is a transformation of the EU requirement of risk assess-
ment by management in relation to OHS. In Denmark, this has become the
workplace assessment that in most cases is not performed by management but
by the local working environment committee, which includes both managers
and employee representatives.
The Norwegian case: internal control

In the Norwegian context, a central and vital regulatory vehicle since 1992
has been the Internal Control Regulations (regulations relating to systematic
health, environmental and safety activities in enterprises, hereafter IC-HSE
Regulations). Arguably, in Norway, internal control, with its broad spectrum
of company obligations, is deemed a road to sustainable working life. Internal
control is:
Systematic measures designed to ensure that the activities of the enterprise

are planned, organised, performed and maintained in conformity with
requirements laid down in or pursuant to the health, environmental and
safety legislation.
(Karlsen, 2011, p. 58, own translation)
Because the capacity for the labour inspectorate to actually inspect workplaces
is always relatively limited, the work necessary to create and maintain a safe and
sound working environment needs to be performed by people at the work-
place. Based on this assertion, the labour inspection should focus on the quality
of the system or organization dealing with working environment issues in the
workplace rather than the quality of the working environment in itself. This is
the core thinking behind internal control.
The system, i.e. rules and procedures, put in place by management has to
be documented and made easily accessible for management and workers. It
should identify health, environment and safety problems and produce an action
plan for improvements. Companies are requested to follow up with an annual
review of the OHS status, based on a written procedure.
The implementation and follow-up of an internal control varies consider-
ably between companies. The largest companies, especially in the petroleum
sector, have comprehensive written procedures, while smaller companies may

have a written internal control document prepared by an external consultant
and then placed on a bookshelf without being much consulted.
The IC-HSE Regulations cover practically all companies and employees
(270,000 units, employing 2.7 million employees) in Norway. These regu-
lations encompass much more than OHS; in fact, eight different laws, five
ministries and eight regulatory agencies administer the regulation and supervi-
sion of the HSE situation in companies. Businesses are obliged to document
their efforts always to stay above the minimum level set out in the HSE leg-
islation. This legislation actually requires companies not only to reach the
minimum standards but also to continuously improve their HSE level beyond
this limit. The IC-HSE Regulations also require companies to adapt to new,
more bureaucratic management routines, principles and systems.
Despite this interactive and joint strategy of OHS management, the
Norwegian regime has not yet led to step-change improvements in occupa-
tional health, environmental quality and safety. This may reflect the paradoxical
situation of the government-enforced self-regulation regime: in theory, it is an
ideal framework for OHS improvement, but in practice it has yielded rather
mediocre and modest upgrading. The proclaimed zero visions and continu-
ous improvement assertions are still mostly political ambitions. On the other
hand, we could argue that the status of working environment quality could
have been inferior if these regulatory instruments did not exist. We should not
forget that the Norwegian working environment (and arguably the Danish) is
still world class.
The Danish case: workplace assessment

In Denmark, workplace assessment is a compulsory procedure for all compa-
nies and has to result in a written document. It must be renewed at least every
third year, or when work processes change.
The rules on workplace assessment are, as mentioned, a Danish transfor-
mation of the EU OHS Framework Directive (89/391/EEC). According to
Jensen and Riis (2002, p. 73), risk assessment as outlined in the directive was
considered by both employers’ organizations and unions as too bureaucratic
and “was perceived as an expert-based, systematic approach, out of line with
the Danish tradition of emphasizing local activities as the prime driving force
in preventive actions”. However, the unions were in favour of written assess-
ments in all workplaces, while the employers were opposed to demands for
written documents and wanted only “risky” jobs covered. “Workplace assess-
ment” as a term and future practice became a compromise that both parties
could accept.
A core element in the thinking was that the assessment was to be per-
formed in cooperation between management and representatives of the
employees. The workplace assessment as a practice has now become one
of the major activities of working environment groups and committees in

many workplaces.
There is a high degree of freedom in how to perform a workplace assess-
ment. Today’s version of the rules, however, include a requirement for five
different elements: mapping of the working environment, assessment of the
problems, considerations of sick leave, an action plan to prioritize the problems
and guidelines for follow-up work. This is a fairly standard version of a plan-
do-check-act cycle, but with much leeway in practice.
In Denmark, 14% of all workplaces visited by the Danish Working
Environment Authority in 2017 received a legal notice due to their lack
of a workplace assessment (based on figures available on the website of the
Authority: arbejdstilsynet.dk/da/). Although the risk-based sampling strategy
followed by the Authority of picking out the “bad apples” would suggest that
the actual average is lower, there is no doubt that many companies have no
workplace assessment procedure, or a very weak version of it. Even when
workplace assessment is in operation, it is no guarantee that the working envi-
ronment is of high quality and continuously improving. Indeed, Jensen and
Riis (2002), among others, suggest that the system of employee participation
and workplace assessment is almost exclusively reactive and unable to tackle
more difficult problems, such as those related to the psychosocial working
environment. Yet again, the situation had no system been in place, is open for
speculation.
In this context, another trend is important. In a situation where the former
occupational health service system with its professional OHS knowledge has
been phased out, many workplaces, particularly larger, well-organized compa-
nies but also medium-sized construction firms, are now introducing in-house
working environment professionals (Seim et al., 2016). Their role varies; some
include employee representatives in their work, while others reduce the repre-
sentatives to data providers and ambassadors for their systems. The role of the
representatives as people who promote the legitimate interests of the work-
force and participate in an informed dialogue with management is perhaps
under threat.
Trends, threats and opportunities in the new working life

The changes in today’s working life in Denmark and Norway affect ways of
solving health challenges at the individual workplace. The concept of working
environment actually reflects opinions on, and use of, safety delegates and the
involvement of new forms of control and regulatory regimes in the solution of
the entire range of HSE challenges. New types of expertise, especially system
comprehension and the ability to handle formal HSE schemes, are required,
which results in new formally qualified occupational groups.
Arguably, each of these change drivers promotes trends, and trends offer
both threats and opportunities (Karlsen, 2018), as outlined in Table 6.4.
Table 6.4 Trends, threats and opportunities

Trends Threats Opportunities
Local adaption Health effects are There is involvement in
of theories overlooked, and learning working environment
of working gains from other sectors efforts in individual
environment and countries are companies
overridden
A new concept The working environment The working environment
of working profession is diluted and is encapsulated
environment marginalized in corporate
emerges development
The safety delegate The working environment The working environment
system loses its loses its competent is linked to individual
signifcance spokespersons daily work
Internal control Working environment work An alternative local cause
of HSE as a gets stuck in ineffective of understanding
major form of routines working environment
regulation is being developed
Source: Karlsen (2018, p. 310).
The first trend we can observe is that working environment efforts are
increasingly being tailored to the character of the individual. The threat is that
certain companies will ignore both short-term and long-term workplace threats
and fail to invest in preventative, health-promoting and inclusive working envi-
ronment measures. On the other hand, some companies will use their working
environment to create a reputation that also serves their business interests.
The second trend is that the working environment concept is gaining
ground and is gradually expanding. This may mean that the working environ-
ment’s traditional priority in the overall HSE work is becoming weakened,
and new challenges such as resource management and external environmental
conditions are receiving the most attention. On the other hand, the possibility
opens for HSE (including working environment) to be more closely integrated
into the overall business development of a company.
A third trend is that safety delegates and working environment committees
are again becoming a kind of “empty democracy”. This means that the work-
ing environment loses its competent spokespersons because their contribution
becomes irrelevant to the company’s operation and strategy. However, if the
HSE work is linked to daily work, i.e. everyone is engaged in HSE improve-
ments, this trend can promote a more sustainable production system.
The fourth trend is linked to the very idea that companies should have
more rights to control themselves in the HSE field. There is a risk of creating
a new corporate bureaucracy. HSE work will then become a clearer part of
the employer’s governance, and internal control will be a management tool
in line with other models and tools the company uses. The optimistic side is
that internal control of HSE is actually perceived as the most promising model
for modern and effective management and that this gives rise to a new under-
standing of the connection between optimal and safe production and the HSE
threats that the production can lead to. Changes in the tasks and duties of the
safety delegate system will enhance the link between elected and professional
involvement in the operations of a company, to the benefit of HSE quality.
Some concluding remarks

A rationale of the Danish and Norwegian working environment regulations
since the 1970s was to encourage the emergence of a favourable in-house
safety climate in companies, which in turn might influence safety behaviour
and safety culture. The regulatory model, being both innovative and future-
oriented, was based on a three-pillared system, involving employer, employees
and the government. It was genuinely different from those found elsewhere in
Europe and has influenced the principles later enshrined in the EU framework
directive on the working environment. However, as briefly sketched in this
chapter, it has a distinct history, a blurred present and possibly a bleak future.
On the other hand, Norway and Denmark have a better working environ-
ment than most countries. However, both countries are facing some challenges
of a political nature and some challenges that companies have to deal with them-
selves. The direction of the work of the labour inspectorates is influenced by
the development of the open European labour market, international migration,
open economies, restructuring processes in most industries and the influence
of international management and control systems, such as lean management.
As described in other chapters of this book, the labour migrations and the
open economy have increased the number of precarious workers operating
in the grey market. There also seems to be an increase in social dumping and
economic crime. It has been necessary to focus more on physical OHS factors,
especially in the construction industry where migrant workers from Eastern
Europe and elsewhere work at high risk without the necessary safety equip-
ment. According to a report evaluating the Norwegian Labour Inspection
Authority, this development has led to a shift of attention by the Authority
from preventative OHS measures to economic crime and social dumping
(Wathne et al., 2017). Obviously, this is necessary, but it is given priority at the
cost of broader preventative OHS work.
Although both Norway and Denmark score well on working environment
quality, there are distinct differences between the strategies the countries pur-
sue in relation to the psychosocial working environment, and how the labour
inspection authorities interact with companies and try to motivate them in
their working environment and HSE efforts. Norway has been a distinct
leader in terms of the psychosocial working environment, or organizational
working environment as it has been very appropriately termed in Norwegian.
Denmark has also started to deal with these issues, but much later, and in a
situation where the problems just seem to grow rather than being contained
by policy interventions.
In relation to company motivation, Norway has followed a formal high road
with its internal controls that make the Labour Inspection Authorities take a
step back by inspecting how companies deal with their problems rather than
inspecting the results of the companies’ efforts. At the same time, the working
environment in Norway has been integrated with a number of other issues,
such as fire prevention and the external environment. In Denmark, a low road
was deliberately taken, but a road with a strong emphasis on employee repre-
sentatives, as workplace assessments are performed by working environment
groups and committees, which are cooperative organs in the companies. More
recently, many employers in Denmark seem to be shifting their preferences by
moving in the direction of more integrated management systems that take the
working environment more seriously and at the same time tend to squeeze out
the participatory aspects of the “low road”.
Frustratingly, neither of the different national models seems to have found
the direct road to serious continuous improvements in the working environ-
ment. It is more like continuously counteracting, what Jens Rasmussen (1997)
has termed a “migrating toward accidents”. A migration that is due to man-
agement’s continuous strive for effectivity and competitiveness, which often
pushes the working environment in a negative direction.
This leaves us with some open-ended questions: Is counteracting the nega-
tive trends enough? Or do we have the wrong focus or the wrong model in
Norwegian and Danish working life? Can we optimize the strategies we have
adopted, or perhaps learn from each other?
Perhaps, we should focus on the reasons why most of our daily work opera-
tions in fact are going well, rather than on deviations, mishaps and accidents.
Should we shift our focus from non-compliance and minimizing risks to the
ability to respond, monitor, learn and anticipate reasons for adjustments, in
order to achieve a safer workplace? Is organizing for resilience a more viable
and sustainable model than organizing for safety (Hollnagel, 2014)?
Alternatively, is the opposite approach more reasonable? After all, two
recent systematic reviews (performed in Denmark and Norway, but referring
primarily to US studies: Andersen et al., 2017; Johannessen et al., 2017) find
stronger effects of legislation and inspection with sanctions compared with
measures like guidance, training, campaigns, etc. Should the present working
environment regulation leave its “soft” and supervisory position and move into
a harder regime where companies are constricted by tougher regulation and
stricter control?
In short, does the conceptual opacity of our current understanding of work-
place safety, in combination with the “discursive blindness” fuelled by the
current organizational safety literature, distract our attention away from the fact
that “we are not improving health and safety” as we would like to?
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Chapter 7
New working time and new

temporalities
The erosion of influence and rhythms
in work
Henrik Lambrecht Lund
Introduction
The overall aim of this chapter is to identify some of the advantages and
disadvantages of working time flexibility. This is done by pursuing three
underlying purposes.
The first purpose of this chapter is to contextualize the way in which ques-
tions of working time manifest themselves when working hours are shaped
in accordance with the Nordic industrial relations model and the Nordic
model of working environment traditions. This is necessary to understand
why the chapter’s illustrative case deviates, including how it differs from the
Nordic model approach and from the recent tendency to give employees
more autonomy. It provides a basis for understanding the ability of the Nordic
model to create quality in working life but also a number of challenges and
paradoxes. One of the challenges is that trade unions are entering into collec-
tive agreements with employers’ associations about flexible work hours that
can create new workloads that are difficult to find solutions for in the collec-
tive agreements and in general. In addition, a lack of solutions in the collective
agreements must be seen in light of the fact that daily work is subject to the
right of employers to direct and distribute work. However, this is not unam-
biguous. These rights can be challenged, e.g. through demands for autonomy
related to structuring working hours or through local agreements to manage
flexible hours to suit the specific work in question.
The second purpose of the chapter is to identify some of the new types of
psychosocial stressors that arise when flexible work hours erode the rhythms of
everyday life at work. Here, a qualitative perspective on time at work is used,
inspired by the sociology of time. We look into the time-related conditions
and circumstances in work that go beyond the linear clock measurement of
time in minutes, hours and days.
The third objective of this chapter is to include an illustrative case study that
captures the challenges and dilemmas of psychosocial stressors when long hours
of work with high autonomy are changed to a fixed organization of working
hours. Further case studies conducted with colleagues and other researchers
will also be used to identify relevant concepts and state of the art knowledge.
New working time and new temporalities 135
Working time, historically and in the contemporary

flexibility agenda
The length of the working day has been a key area of conflict between unions
and employers’ associations since the establishment of the labour movement.
In 1889, the mantra of the workers’ second international congress was eight
hours of work, eight hours of free time and eight hours of sleep. This became
for many years the main demand of May Day demonstrations worldwide. The
main argument for the claim was that everyone has the right to freedom in
their lives. Everyone should have the right to be with their family, take part in
social activities and have time for political participation in society. In the years
after World War I, the labour movement had become strong enough to allow
the demand to be met in a large number of countries. In Denmark, in 1919,
the labour unions and employers’ associations agreed on an 8-hour working
day and a 48-hour working week. Since then, working hours have been nego-
tiated in periodic collective agreements between the unions and employers’
associations. Unlike many comparable countries, the state has not passed legis-
lation on working hours, with the exception of this chapter’s illustrative case.
The Nordic countries are thus differentiated by the fact that working time is
determined only by the unions and employers’ associations, which also means
that hours are not regulated in companies without such agreements. Since
1919, when the first agreement on working hours was established, the hours
have gradually been reduced. In 1986, an agreement was reached on a 37-hour
working week, which was finally implemented in 1991. Since then, weekly
working hours have not been reduced, but holidays have been extended and
are now six weeks, and maternity leave has been extended to one year. These
changes are also the result of agreements between the unions and employers’
associations. In addition to general agreements on the number of working
hours, a large number of agreements on how time at work is structured have
been made. Such agreements, which are mostly industry-specific, cover tim-
ing of hours, fixed breaks, overtime rules, including prohibition of systematic
planned overtime, as well as compensation for overtime in the form of payment
or leave, financial compensation for atypical working hours, annual leave, rules
on working hours with atypical employment terms, availability allowance, etc.
Since 1990, there have been no strong demands from the trade union
movement to reduce the standard weekly working hours from 37. This may
be because working time has become far more flexible than earlier, which
has hampered traditional regulation of working time in collective agreements.
A number of agreements previously aimed at limiting working time flexibil-
ity. However, many of these directives have been weakened or terminated,
mostly according to the wishes of employers. The unions have allowed more
employer-required flexibility in working time in return for other benefits.
Another important reason why trade unions have allowed a greater degree of
flexibility in working hours is that many members have wanted it. Working
hours thus constitute a problem that is difficult to regulate and handle with
136 Henrik Lambrecht Lund
previous approaches taken in this area (Thomas, 2006). One of the problems is
that flexible working hours in self-organized work are associated with longer
working days (Albertsen et al., 2007).
The different forms of flexible working hours

The limitation of work in time and space is a relatively new phenomenon.
For farmers, fishermen and craftsmen in pre-industrial society, there were no
established boundaries between work and leisure. Productive activities and free
time were integrated and often the same thing to the pre-industrial worker. As
Thompson describes, it took almost 100 years in England to discipline workers
to their industry’s time structure. To check in every day at the same time and
place, concentrate on work throughout the working day and then go home at
the same time every day did not seem particularly natural or attractive. It was
therefore necessary for capitalism to punish those who could not or would not
subordinate to the specific industry time structure. Thompson argues that the
modern era of industrialization in England created totalitarian time discipline
because the emergence of capitalism needed synchronization of labour. He
describes how the entire life of the employee was embedded in the capitalist
era, supported by a new cultural and religious work ethic (Thompson, 1967).
With the focus on flexibility in recent decades, there has evolved a certain
fracturing, or perhaps a renewal, of the time structure of industrialization. In
the 1980s, the growing demand for employers’ flexibility was perceived by
the unions as an opportunity to humanize work, which explains the Nordic
unions’ positive participation in some aspects of the creation of flexible work
(Hvid & Moeller, 2001). More flexible forms of production required the
development of new skillsets and greater autonomy for employees (Piore &
Sabel, 1984; Kern & Schumann, 1984). It was also possible to make flexible
working time arrangements that provided for the needs of leisure time. Later,
flexible work was internationally identified as the very source of social decline
and cultural erosion (Sennett, 1998; Beck, 2000). In Denmark, the darker side
of flexibility has also been identified, for example, short-term employment.
But this has been somewhat moderated through the solutions of unions and
employers’ associations, labour market welfare policies such as unemployment
benefits and the flexicurity model to avoid long-term unemployment by e.g.
using labour education institutions to try to support employees’ return to regular
standard employment.
In addition to these points, it has always been difficult to clarify what the
concept of flexibility covers. It has mostly developed into an interest-driven
struggle about what is definitely not flexible. From the beginning, employers
pointed out that what were perceived as rigid collective agreements were bar-
riers to flexibility. Employee arguments were that many companies were stuck
in bureaucratic and Taylorist organizational structures that prevented people
from developing and flourishing at work.
The main difference between the Nordic working week and that of other
EU countries is not the number of hours but the flexibility of working time.
Parallel with the development of flexible organizational forms, employees gain
more influence on scheduling working hours and have more autonomy to
adjust hours in response to their own needs and the needs of the work. This
Nordic design of working hours has been created in a relation between agree-
ments on working time and influence and participation at work in accordance
with the sociotechnical tradition (see Chapter 3). Flexible working time has
been seen as potentially creating more autonomy in work. Workers are not
forced to follow certain management-based divisions of work and daily rou-
tines; rather, they can adapt their work to what makes sense in relation to the
overall workflow. In addition, they can adapt their work to reduce strain.
Sociotechnical methods created the basis for the spread of autonomy in the
workplace and are now influencing the development of flexible working hours.
According to the European Working Conditions Survey database,1
Denmark is the EU country where employees have greatest influence on their
working hours, followed by Norway, Sweden and Finland. In Denmark, 65%
of employees have a say in how their working hours are set. In particular,
many workers in the Nordic countries state that they can adapt their working
hours within certain limits, e.g. different types of flexible working arrange-
ments. For Danish workers, the figure is 40% and in Norway it is 44%. For
comparable countries like Germany and Hungary, the figures are only 20% and
15%, respectively. Denmark and Norway are also the countries where most
employees report being very satisfied with their working hours. In Denmark,
the figure is 47%, in Norway 44%, while the EU average is 26%. Almost
all employees in Denmark (91%) and in Norway (94%) are either very satis-
fied or satisfied with their working hours. Some 76% of Danish and 82% of
Norwegian employees find it easy to take care of personal or family matters
during working hours. However, in relation to this, there are still groups of
workers in Denmark who do not have any influence on their working hours.
In today’s society there are still people who have no possibility to make choices
on how to spend their time (Goodin et al., 2008).
Advantages of flexible working hours and

temporal autonomy
This section focuses solely on the possible benefits for employees and employ-
ers of employee autonomy and self-management of working hours. Criticism
and negative aspects of this are addressed in the following section.
The most widely used form of influence on working hours is flexitime.
For Danish employees working with different kinds of flexitime arrange-
ments, there are possible benefits in terms of quality of life. Flexitime
represents a move away from the disciplinary time structure of industrializa-
tion. Individuals do not all have to come to work or go home at the same
time each day. Often, they can also save up hours to get more time off, either
in their daily work or as longer holidays. The working day can be organized
according to domestic and family needs and provide greater opportunity to
pursue leisure activities. Workers may have other reasons for choosing flexi-
time, such as sleep, finances, health, personal capacity, opportunity to study,
etc. They may wish to control their working hours to enhance the timing
of individual duties and activities. Collective agreements on flexible working
time may give employers certain rights to apply more working hours in peak
periods and to decrease worker capacity when there is less work. Flexibility
thus gives employers the opportunity to optimize the use of working time.
For employees, it can prevent them having to waste time waiting for tasks.
It can be emancipatory for employees to have working time governed
by tasks rather than an obligation to clock in and out. For employees, it is
primarily about temporal freedom, i.e. being able to perform their work inde-
pendently of time and place, and thus having control over where and when
they work. For instance, this may allow employees to work when they feel
most energetic. Many of those who work with self-managed flexibility are
often driven by a conviction that they themselves can find the most suitable
temporal framework for their work. Work is less governed by external con-
trols, measures, rules and trivial working days, and more by the tasks at hand
and tasks that appear, thus creating meaningful utilization of time. In this way,
work released from time and space also mitigates the time discipline of early
industrialization. For employers, flexible solutions allow for better handling
of unpredictable situations and less disturbance of the flow of products or
services. One solution might be that employees themselves choose what tasks
they want to solve. Flexible working time also implies that employees need
not wait for each other. If a task meets temporary barriers in the organization,
the employee can switch to another task. For employers, it also can provide
flexible access to labour.
Turning now to shift work, we must consider its influence on working
hours in the light of its problematic nature in relation to work–life balance and
leisure time activities. Its harmful effect on health is also a key factor (Albertsen
et al., 2007). A previous project focused on 13 workplaces in the health sec-
tor where changes had been made to the shift work structure in an attempt to
give employees greater influence over their own working hours. The project
was conducted in collaboration between Roskilde University and the Danish
National Research Centre for the Working Environment. It was a qualitative
and quantitative longitudinal intervention study over three years (Hvid et al.,
2011; Nabe-Nielsen et al., 2013; Albertsen et al., 2014; Hansen et al., 2015).
Each workplace tested an IT system for scheduling. The main purpose of these
IT systems was to make working hours more flexible while giving employees
more say in setting their own working hours, prioritizing when they wanted
to work and when they wanted time off. The benefit for the employees was
that they experienced an improvement in work–life balance. The benefits for
employers were that they could create improved working conditions and a
more attractive workplace, thus maintaining and recruiting sufficiently quali-
fied labour. The schedules were generally set without management having to
intervene. These benefits made the companies choose to continue using the IT
systems after the end of the research project.
However, autonomy related to working hours can be illusive because of
high demands, performance standards, workload, obligations, collaboration, etc.
Psychological strain related to autonomy due to

flexibility creating fluid temporality
As a basis for a critical interpretation of the disadvantages and dilemmas of
flexible working hours and for an analysis of the illustrative case study, this
section presents the development of a conceptual framework using the core
concepts of the sociological study of time and space. As Gabriella Paolucci
argues, changing working hours expresses a new postmodern temporal condi-
tion where desynchronization dominates contemporary society, and time is
experienced as fragmented due to the complexity created by different temporal
regimes (Paolucci, 1996). This puts a temporal perspective on the characteris-
tics and quality of time related to flexible working hours. Clock units of time
cannot give us an understanding of the quality of time; we need qualitative
concepts of time to tell us whether time has been intense, uninteresting, frag-
mented, slow, fast, chaotic and so on. Some qualitative perspectives on time
are already well known in working environment research, for example, pace
and intensity.
The concept of rhythms is central to the sociology of time. It originated as
an inspiration from Henri Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 2004). His idea was that rhythms
can be used to understand everyday life, as they form a kind of background
structure. It is meaningful to analyse working time and temporalities from such
a perspective in order to prevent strain and create rhythms in work. Linear
time, such as clock time and fixed timing of working hours, separates the past,
present and future. When clock time has passed, it does not return.
However, the time structure of work is also rhythmic. Employees per-
form similar activities every day, rhythmically structured in time and space.
Sometimes they repeat themselves with small variations. Rhythms are tied to
work and social life; they define human life and our interaction with those
around us. When these rhythms are challenged, it can affect our social life, our
biorhythms, and our cognitive and mental capacities. Routine and practices
cannot be maintained without rhythms; thus, missing rhythms at work can lead
to overuse of human resources, involving strain that makes it difficult to create
meaning and time structures (Hvid et al., 2008). Flexible working time and
fluid temporality can challenge everyday rhythms.
Flexible working hours can obstruct the time-based synchronization of
colleagues, thus creating problems for the common rhythms that we support
in stabilizing our own rhythms and in interaction with colleagues. Flexible

working hours can make it difficult to coordinate time. In the earlier example
of workers having control over their working hours in shift work, it was found
that opportunities for mutual learning were reduced because there was no
longer a common meeting time. In some cases, it was impossible to transfer
oral knowledge from one shift to another shift, as there were no longer any
joint handover meetings. This loss of time-structuring rhythms can also weaken
social relationships between colleagues. An interesting finding was that many
employees prioritized their working time in ways that maintained certain time
structures in their everyday lives. Employees setting their own working hours
establish new rhythms but not common rhythms. Employees are separated in
time and space. Failing to maintain some structures during working hours can
be problematic for employees both socially and in terms of social support as a
buffer against psychosocial stressors. From an employer’s point of view, flexible
working hours may also have negative consequences. If colleagues rarely meet,
workplace culture can be weakened, as can common norms, values and prac-
tices. Opportunities to share experiences can decrease, learning can become
individualized and employees may need greater support from management.
Even employees having far-reaching influence over their own working
time do not necessarily have an effect on the demands of their work. This can
result in a decoupling of demands and resources, as the demands may erode the
freedom associated with self-management of working time. Thomas Hylland
Eriksen’s (2001) concept of ‘fast time’ and Hartmut Rosa’s (Rosa, 2013) con-
cept of ‘acceleration’ can help us understand the dynamics and mechanisms that
can lead to flexible working hours and autonomy becoming a burden in the
psychosocial working environment. Hylland Eriksen discusses conflicts between
time systems as conflicts between fast and slow time. Hartmut Rosa argues that
the acceleration of contemporary Western societies due to technology, social
change, competition and the pace of life is leading to alienation. It can be dif-
ficult to hold onto rhythms when time accelerates. Fast time can lead to more
desynchronized colleagues and fragmentation of tasks. Time can be charac-
terized by many urgent tasks. Slow time enables long-term planning, which
supports our ability to maintain rhythms. Flexible working time and quickly
changing temporalities can create unpredictability in everyday life, which can
cause family and leisure activities to be subjected to work. Therefore, fluid
temporality can result in work being done at times that challenge the family’s
basic rhythms. It can also be harder to commit to firmly structured spare-time
activities. In addition, acceleration can increase intensity, both at and outside
work. Employers using flexible working arrangements to optimize labour can
create such high demands that it causes a chronically high pace. The natu-
ral breaks that previously existed in work may be filled up, leaving less time
for socializing with colleagues (Fritz et al., 2013). Employees find themselves
unable to complete required tasks because new, more urgent work is always
cropping up. This can lead to stacking of tasks and difficulty in finding time to
immerse oneself. Thus, flexible working time does not necessarily result in a
better balance and less strain (Grönlund & Gro, 2007). This is also described as
24/7 work where employees are always available for work needs that may arise.
Hence working time is not measured in hours.
The above-mentioned European Working Conditions Survey shows that
approximately a fifth of employees in Denmark decide on their working time
without demands on time and place. To illustrate the possible disadvantages of
flexible working hours, I will draw on a case study by the Finns Oili-Helena
Ylijoki and Hans Mäntylä (2003) and re-interpret their results. They conducted
a study on self-management of time among university academics, presented in
their article ‘Conflicting Time Perspectives in Academic Work’.
The two researchers found that the university employees have a utopian
pursuit of ‘timeless time’ (Ylijoki & Mäntylä, 2003) marked by immersion, and
slow time where they forget time and place and experience smooth workflow.
Teaching duties, development projects, dissemination of knowledge in society,
administration, meetings and interaction with colleagues and managers all frag-
ment the research and thus obstruct the necessary immersion.
Immersion and the state of ‘timeless time’ require slow time for longer
periods, which is made difficult when employees are expected to engage in
university organizational processes. In this way, organizational tasks, teach-
ing and research often become a time-consuming chaos without rhythm and
with daily time conflicts both relationally and between different types of task.
Researchers are expected to be passionate about their work, which can be
translated into high performance requirements. Work is assignment-controlled
time where employees’ time-based practice is often so individual that there is
limited common experience with co-workers’ working hours.
Work is usually done in individualized and weak rhythms, with nobody
knowing how much and when others work, or how busy they are, all of
which makes it difficult to help each other. Such employees are thus left with
a very personal choice about the place of work in their life. Demands in this
kind of work are diffuse and complex, which in turn increases the workload
and makes it difficult to prioritize time spent on the various tasks. Some tasks
will be poorly executed, while others will be over-performed, depending on
the employee’s allocation of time for each task. This can make it difficult to
develop a temporal practice with common rhythms.
During periods of writing and immersion, which may take place at home and
are usually not fragmented by meetings, teaching and administration, research-
ers can establish their own rhythms and experience timeless time. But these
rhythms are vulnerable because they are personal and not embedded in col-
lective rhythms. Self-managing researchers tend to intervene in each other’s
rhythms because they are rarely at the same stage in their work processes. There
is temporal disorganization between academic staff in their everyday work,
creating many disturbances and interruptions, even though work immersion
is a prerequisite for achieving results (Spurling, 2015). The above-mentioned
challenges can be enhanced when researchers participate in different research

projects and work with other complex interpersonal relationships. This can
result in researchers finding themselves in a constant state of planning where
timing and management of time become a key skill. This is ‘time work’ in con-
stantly changing circumstances determined by the way the work manifests itself.
Further, the flexible time management of the university from semester to
semester must be included in the management of researchers’ own time. The
challenge for temporal autonomy is thus to be in the right place at the right
time in order to complete the tasks on time, without wasting time and without
becoming a colleague perceived as a person who creates barriers to the solu-
tion of others’ tasks. Researchers can be expected to align themselves with the
organizational ‘common’, which can make them postpone their major writing
tasks repeatedly.
Acceleration and long working days can also be linked to the darker sides of
working at universities. In many cases, work takes place in a highly competi-
tive environment. There is constant competition for recognition, publication,
research funding and student evaluations. This can easily push researchers to
make their work take up as much space as possible in their lives. Many other
jobs have the same lack of clear boundaries (Allvin et al., 2011).
Working according to self-managed time can make it difficult to develop a
practice where weekends are kept free from work and colleagues do not pres-
sure each other to complete tasks for which they themselves are responsible.
Work that is released from time and space will in some environments create
an ‘online culture’ (Agger, 2011). Lack of temporal practice thus affects life
as a whole; it is difficult to realize personal time preferences, in terms of both
working life and life outside work. There is no longer any balance measured
in hours in the work–life relationship; rather, there are complex interactions
between the two spheres (Felstead et al., 2005). Work–life balance is not only a
matter of hours but also of energy and vitality (Brannen, 2005). Work without
formal or informal upper limits on working hours has a time structure that may
pervade the person’s entire life, and it can be difficult to distinguish between
work and free time. A work–life balance can be considered as the control of
temporal boundaries (Perlow, 1999).
Old and new temporalities related to teachers’

working hours
I will now present the pros and cons of flexible and fixed working hours for
teachers and their work-related temporality. Teachers in Denmark are a par-
ticularly interesting case here, because in recent years they have experienced
extensive conflicts about working time. The case of teachers makes it possible
to examine both positive and negative aspects of flexible and fixed working
time arrangements and the relationship between working hours and temporal-
ity at work. First, I present the conflict about teachers’ working hours, as it has
played out within the Nordic negotiation model. Then I investigate the way
in which changed working hours have influenced temporal autonomy and thus
also the Nordic tradition of influence on an employee’s work.
From profession-driven working time to

management time control: the Working
Time Act
The regulation of working hours for teachers has historically played a key
role in the policy strategies of the teachers’ union to achieve better working
conditions without long working days but also professional autonomy. The
fact that professional autonomy has played a key role in the negotiations is
somewhat atypical. As mentioned, it is a topic where management rights also
matter. Control of their own working time has always played an important part
in teachers’ professional identity. Professional autonomy included both self-
management of time and self-management of teaching methods, and scheduled
teaching time was the only regulated time. But even this scheduled teaching
was most often planned by a team and subject to some restrictions on the hours
allocated to different subjects.
The allocation and management of the remaining time were handled by the
individual teacher and the team to accommodate lesson preparation and other
work. It is difficult to calculate the distribution of hours between teaching,
preparation and other work before the change in working time in the 2013
Working Time Act (WTA), because it varied from school to school, depend-
ing on the nature of the work and a large number of local agreements. Local
agreements are important as the labour unions and employers’ organizations
have sought decentralized framework agreements to create flexibility in work-
ing time, thus avoiding bureaucratic calculation of working time. Similarly,
teaching time can be difficult to identify when using teaching methods such
as experiments, projects and interdisciplinary processes. A cautious estimate is
that preparation and time for other work constituted half of the total working
hours before the WTA.
Previous cutbacks in preparation hours created political mobilization and
radicalization of the teachers’ union, as union awareness was raised among teach-
ers during periods of school cutbacks. During these periods, there was always a
demand for a settlement with unpaid hours. After each period of political mobi-
lization against deterioration, teachers have returned to a profession-oriented
union strategy and identity under the new conditions. Within this strategy,
the requirements are embedded in the teachers’ ambition to take professional
responsibility for the national development of the schools as individual teachers,
as local working community and as national trade union.
As described in an earlier chapter of this book, Denmark has a strong tra-
dition of labour market regulation through collective agreements between
employer organizations and employee unions. For teachers, the negotiation
of the 2013 collective agreement failed to create a result before the existing
agreement expired. The longest labour market conflict ever seen in the public
sector arose. The core of the conflict was the allocation and timing of teach-
ers’ working hours. The conflict lasted 25 days and was nationwide. It was an
‘employer lockout’. Local Government Denmark represented the employers
(the local authorities in charge of the schools), and since the teachers’ union
is considered to be the strongest public-sector union and union density was
at that time 96% of the workforce, all schools were effectively shut down
during this period. There was widespread union activism. The media was
filled with accusations about who was to blame: employer, teachers’ union
or government? The problem for the government was that, in parallel with
the negotiations, it wanted to introduce a new reform of public schools that
included longer school days. Within the existing collective agreement, it
meant a considerable supply of new labour to schools, which should be seen
in conjunction with general public-sector cutbacks. After the 25 days of con-
flict, the government intervened and forced the new working time through
by law, since there was no indication that the labour market partners were
going to reach a solution. This was considered unacceptable political inter-
ference in the collective bargaining negotiations in relation to the Nordic
model. Historically, intervention by the government is seen as problematic
because it can destabilize the Nordic model of industrial relations. This could
mean that labour unions and employers’ associations would consider whether
there are benefits in creating a breakdown in the negotiations, if they think
government intervention will be to their advantage. It could also make it
legitimate for the government to indicate a desired result of the negotiations.
Implementation of an agreement through legislative intervention has histori-
cally been handled by the already existing collective agreement or a proposal
by a mediator being passed as law. Even these cases have historically been
very rare. In the case of the teachers, the government decided to follow the
employers’ demands. As stated, this is a remarkable intervention in the Danish
context and has been criticized from all sides by supporters of the Nordic
negotiation model.
A distinctive feature of the conflict was that it was very emotional. It was not
a classical labour market conflict about working hours, salary or other benefits.
Teachers felt mistreated in relation to their professional integrity, and there was
deep mistrust and massive demonstrations both during and after the conflict.
The Nordic model is based on compromise and consensus where nobody is
entirely happy but both parties are equally satisfied. After the final negotia-
tions with the government and the employer, the chairman of the teachers’
union declared: ‘Friends, we lost’. They were furious about the mistrust associ-
ated with the indication that teachers were incapable of managing their own
working time. The result was complete managerial control over working time
and a demand that teachers spend all working hours at the school, including
preparation time.
The case study

The case study is based on a variety of qualitative data collected within a
two-year period before and after the WTA, although different methods were
used before and after the WTA. The studies before the WTA were some-
what ‘classical’ qualitative workplace studies, with empirical data collected
at 2 schools involving 10 days of observation at each school and 20 inter-
views. The interviews focused on how working hours and temporalities were
embedded in workplace culture, values, norms and practices. There were also
questions about where and how preparation was done, individually and in
teams. We observed execution of teachers’ work as well as meeting culture
and practices, and we conducted short debriefing interviews both during and
after the observations (Kamp et al., 2011).
The insights and knowledge after the WTA came from own consultant
assignments such as workshops and seminars where teachers were invited to
interpret changes in the temporalities of work and in the psychosocial work
environment. The starting point in these workshops was a presentation of the
results from the studies before the WTA. This is ongoing work and we have
now completed about 30 seminars and workshops, with 20 to 150 teachers
participating in each. The workshops have been conducted with employee
representatives, school managers, union consultants, politically elected repre-
sentatives from the union and teachers at local schools. We developed a dialogue
method for the workshops where we ‘translated’ some of the complex concepts
and research questions from the sociology of time into everyday language and
structured it to fit the workshops. In some of the workshops we used four
dichotomies: (1) ‘slow time’ (e.g. questions about opportunities for immer-
sion and thoughtfulness) versus ‘fast time’ (e.g. questions about tasks conducted
at a high pace); (2) ‘synchronization’ (e.g. questions about coordinated work
with efficient cooperation on the core tasks) versus ‘desynchronization’ (e.g.
questions about poor cooperation and coordination and lack of understand-
ing of co-workers’ tasks); (3) ‘flow and timeless time’ (e.g. questions about
organized work with smooth workflows) versus ‘fragmentation’ (e.g. questions
about interruptions, disruptions and tasks that interfere with each other); and
(4) ‘productive time’ (e.g. questions about time for the important tasks) versus
‘unproductive time’ (e.g. questions about barriers to performing the best teach-
ing, events where energy is taken out of the work, time spent on unimportant
tasks). The approach was to ask the teachers to reflect on the character and qual-
ity of time as it manifests itself in concrete work situations. The interpretation of
all the studies was framed thematically using concepts from psychosocial work
environment research and sociology of time research (Lund, 2017).
Findings
We examined the rhythms of teachers’ work and how they were affected by
the new WTA organization of work time. We sought insights into how teachers
are trying to create more rhythms in their daily work and the barriers to estab-
lishing those rhythms. The WTA has made it more difficult for teachers to time
their work. Based on the studies before the WTA, it could be assumed that at
least some fixed working hours would make it easier to establish rhythms, but
this was not the case in relation to the WTA.
The WTA challenged the timing of work. Teachers in the workshops used
the example of preparing a lesson. Before the WTA, they would do it as close
to the lesson as possible. They found that this reduced their mental workload
and provided a more natural order of work. For example, in one workshop, a
teacher talked about sometimes being obliged to prepare on Monday for a les-
son to be given on Thursday. The reason could be that Monday has an opening
in the schedule, but if the opening is one hour and the preparation only takes
half an hour, time is wasted. In addition, if preparation takes longer than one
hour, the teacher will have to wait until a new opening appears in the sched-
ule before going back to it. Often there are no more scheduled gaps before
the class, which results in poorly prepared teaching. Since the WTA, work
is characterized by a lack of processes with time allotted for every purpose,
which disrupts rhythm and flow. Before the WTA, this attempt to follow the
principle of one task at a time often resulted in days with long hours and often
team meetings in the late afternoons, evenings, weekends and vacations. On
other days, teachers had short but very intense hours at school. They found it
difficult to find time for concentration and preparation at school and therefore
took work home. They reported that they worked many more hours than was
expected of them before the WTA and that too many teachers suffered from
stress and chronic fatigue. It was difficult to find rhythms in work, family life
and social activities.
Structuring of time for preparation and teaching was disturbed by the
WTA. It created a rigid scheme where every activity is compressed into an
8 a.m. to 4 p.m. working day. After the first study, we brought up the problem
of the long working days and lack of time structures. The consequence of the
WTA was that the shorter working days did not reduce the strain. Working in
the evening when it can be avoided is difficult to recommend from a work-
ing environment perspective, but with teachers’ work, it was actually a way
of organizing tasks in a logical progression. It was a process that moved for-
ward, often fragmented by disturbances and changes, but nevertheless with a
timely logical and chronological process. This at least created cognitive mean-
ing despite the chaos. Since the WTA, the timing of work is determined not
by the work content but by the fixed working hours. The result is compressed
workdays with high pace and intensity. There could sometimes be a reason-
able time allocation for a task, but the teachers said that their work was all
about timing, and a lack of timing led to exhaustion and inferior teaching. In
the workshops it was often said that it is a daily struggle not to deviate from a
good standard of teaching and not to give poorly prepared lessons. Before the
WTA was implemented, teachers could decide when to do their preparation,
often preparing, e.g. Thursday’s work on Wednesday evening and working

until they were satisfied that everything was finished. The consequence was
many days with long hours, which became even more of a norm with the
addition of emails, text messages and phone calls in the evening and early
morning to do last-minute preparation in the teams.
The changes in working hours created major changes in synchronization
and contained dilemmas regarding teachers’ work–life balance. Before the
WTA, the need for time coordination created a culture in which it was an
ideal to be accessible around the clock. Teachers saw time synchronization
with colleagues as necessary for pupils’ learning processes, and this ideal was not
limited to colleagues but also applied to parents and pupils. Since the WTA, it
is in principle not possible to contact teachers after working hours. Before the
WTA, working time organized by tasks was demanding on the teachers, cre-
ating periodical fluctuations in working hours and intensity. Since the WTA,
teachers argued that fixed hours limited their opportunities for coordination
in line with their professional needs, causing them to experience the work
as more demanding and to find working life at school more uncertain due to
lack of synchronization with colleagues. This is another paradox, as one would
think that it had become easier since the introduction of fixed working hours,
as everyone is present at school at the same time.
Before the WTA, the most demanding tasks in terms of professional immer-
sion were performed outside school. Hence, teachers reported huge problems
in balancing work and family life. For example, one said:
I told my family, I’m not here this weekend. I’ll be up to eat, but apart
from that, I’ll be in the basement. And that was simply to be allowed to
concentrate and get fnished. . . I ended up not really seeing anyone else.
My daughter in year 7 replied at the time, ‘What? Again? So you’re not
home today either?’ And that’s the point where I stop up and think, that’s
actually true. How many times have I said to her, I’m going to be home
late tonight, and when I come home, I will need to sit down and work.
The fuid boundaries between working life and leisure time were seen as
a problem by most participants in the study. The rest saw it as a way of
life they chose when becoming a teacher. It would seem natural to see the
WTA as an advantage for one’s work–life balance. However, it is not so
straightforward, because teachers report being more mentally and emotion-
ally drained after work since the WTA because of the many hours spent in a
very intensive environment. They are also more concerned about upcoming
poor teaching after work hours. This should be seen in light of the more
compressed time spent at school. It is obvious that if tasks are not removed
in a shortened working day, work will become more compressed. It had
become difcult to time one’s work and led to fragmentation of rhythms,
desynchronization with colleagues and accelerated work. In the workshops,
the teachers constantly reminded each other that they should not work out-
side the school or exceed weekly hours. Since the WTA, the workday is
over when one goes home, no matter how much work is unfnished. As
time passed, more and more teachers in the workshops stated that they were
doing extra work at home.
There are many types of task for teachers. Each requires a certain mind-
set that can only be achieved if time has suitable characteristics and quality.
A particular task can be so different that it takes time to prepare mentally for
it. It is especially hard to move back and forth between teaching and prepa-
ration. Many teachers experiencing rapid transitions between tasks found it
cognitively demanding, leading to an experience of fragmented, unproduc-
tive and wasted time. This is putting pressure on teachers, because since the
WTA, teachers have to finish preparation within fixed timeframes, instead
of juggling with time until they are professionally satisfied with the outcome
or happy that they are meeting the needs of the team. As one teacher com-
mented: ‘We often allocate things between us and then you just have to
finish the work. You need to continue until the work is done. If you don’t,
someone else is going to miss it in their work’. It was therefore easier for
teachers to create a rhythmic relationship between instant effort and slow
time when the tasks and the end of the working day were fluid. One reason
why the WTA cannot bring about rhythms can be traced back to the rigid
time structures within a chaotic working day. Plans of when and where to
do tasks outside teaching often fail. There is a teaching deadline, but the day
is unpredictable. The temporalities are brutal in the sense that a teacher can-
not create a connection between the necessary quality of time and the task
within the new time regime. This is not just due to lack of time but also due
to poor timing between tasks, including preparation, planning and coordina-
tion. Finding time and space for immersion is difficult and was so even before
the WTA. Teachers saw the WTA as an opportunity to structure common
breaks, but it did not happen. The breaks are increasingly used for preparation
and acute ad hoc tasks.
WTA is based on the principle that it is the school manager who allocates
time for each teacher’s work. In practice, this was impossible and therefore
different standards developed locally contrary to the intention of the WTA.
The WTA did not allow for this possibility. Before the WTA, teachers had
substantial control over their time because the time to do tasks was allocated
to the teams beforehand. It was important that this time was allocated as time
norms, not clock time, i.e. time had an elastic form managed through col-
lectively professional priorities. This enabled teachers to make decisions on
schedules and timing of work more easily. Some teachers used these oppor-
tunities to make work-related decisions on a daily basis. Following the WTA,
each teacher typically already has scheduled time standards for tasks before the
team becomes involved. As mentioned earlier, one would think that such time
structures would help to sustain rhythms. This is true in relation to limiting
the time spent on boundaryless, ongoing and never-ending tasks, such as extra
care for special needs pupils or improving aspects of one’s teaching or the
school in general. Teachers generally report that they work fewer hours since
the WTA but that does not change the fact that work is still highly compli-
cated. The WTA gives a false impression of reduced complexity. Its demand
for more interesting teaching for pupils combined with fixed working time
has become a double bind for teachers and, according to the teachers in the
workshops, at the cost of innovative teaching.
In the interviews, it became clear that the ideal type of teacher is self-
managing, competent, passionate, enthusiastic and dignified. These values came
from management, but even more from the employees themselves. Being that
kind of teacher is therefore not a matter of choice; it is a requirement and one
that is linked to the trust of being able to manage working time without man-
agement control. It is also a self-accelerating culture. Before the WTA, there
were values and a culture of passionate participation, which meant that teachers
put pressure on themselves. As one teacher said:
You need to get involved. You can’t allow yourself to sit back and take
orders, just saying, ‘Yes, fne, it doesn’t really worry me’. The way that
teacher team meetings work, you just need to get involved and give
something. You can’t sit back and relax.
Eforts to divide work often failed and led to increased workloads. Plans and
the ideal of cross-disciplinary teaching led to drained energy and long hours,
including many additional tasks and team meetings. Down to the last minute
there was ad hoc planning as teachers coincidentally collided. Breaks were
often flled with work-related activities, such as brief meetings, coordina-
tion, appointments, planning, extra activities and dealing with pupils’ social
problems. Cross-disciplinary teaching is naturally more unpredictable than
traditional blackboard teaching.
Conclusion
High autonomy associated with flexible working time and workers’ man-
agement of time is particularly common in the Nordic countries. It is also a
phenomenon that demands that the Nordic model must be able to mediate
opposing interests when working time becomes more flexible. When there
is a common interest in improving the working environment, for example
because that will facilitate recruitment of labour, autonomy over time man-
agement appears to be a factor that improves working life quality. Common
interests focusing on a better working environment and labour optimization
show more ambiguous results, as does flexible working time in boundaryless
work. This chapter shows that in general it can be problematic to argue that
flexible working time arrangements are positive or negative for the working
environment. Our previous research project in the field of shift work shows
the most benefits of flexible working hours and that it enhances quality of life.
The Finnish studies show that the problem of excessive demands cannot be
solved with far-reaching autonomy in relation to flexible working hours. The
case of the teachers shows that flexible working hours are necessary to succeed
in teaching work. Here, fluctuating temporality and situational working time
seems preferable.
If we ignore the project about shift work, much of the empirical evidence
suggests that acceleration of work, time conflicts between tasks, fragmenta-
tion, increased intensity and unpredictability are not solved by flexible working
hours. The changes in work brought about by many forms of flexibility create
new temporalities that subsequently need to be handled.
The WTA in the teachers’ case is unfavourable to the working environ-
ment. Fixed working hours are not suitable for hyper-flexible schools with
constant changes in work and often chaotic everyday situations. The quality
of work and the psychosocial working environment were negatively affected.
Teachers seem to need flexible working time to shape their work, as for them
job-crafting is a daily necessity.
The WTA contradicts the earlier description of Denmark as a place with
the ideal aim to give employees maximum autonomy over their working
time, to the extent that the work allows it. The cases of the teachers and the
researchers both indicate that employees, to a large degree, accept long hours
as long as professional autonomy is maintained at work. This means that
autonomy related to flexible working time supports their professional ideals
but does not protect them from the stressors of flexibility. Work has changed,
and it is now no longer meaningful to organize work based on regular work-
ing hours, but limits must be established that support rhythms and stability in
working life and elsewhere. All studies in this chapter show that when flexible
working time is applied in specific work situations, mechanisms and dynamics
arise that lead to dilemmas and paradoxes that can cause mental strain. One
of the ways to enhance the working environment would be by establishing
routines, habits and synchronization in everyday work, i.e. creating more
rhythms in work.
The research has studied work and flexible working time from a temporal
perspective. It is argued that lack of rhythms is a good predictor for mental
stress in contemporary work. It is necessary to seek new theoretical grounds
and empirical knowledge to understand this. There is a need for studies on
various types of work where rhythms potentially can create a less stressful work
environment. On the basis of this chapter, it is suggested that future research
on working time attempts to involve the interaction between working time
and qualitative perspectives of time. In this way, it should be possible to capture
all the most important temporal relationships in work that create new stressors
in the psychosocial working environment and provide new opportunities for
quality in working life.
Note
1 www.eurofound.europa.eu/data/european-working-conditions-survey.
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Part III
Learning, inclusion and

equality
Introduction
Minimum wages are relatively high in the Nordic countries. In spite of that,
the employment rate is also high, including among young people. At the same
time, mobility in the labour market and social mobility are quite high. The
educational system plays a crucial role in making this possible. However, learn-
ing opportunities at work and opportunities for further education and training
also play an important role.
All the Nordic countries have a comprehensive education sector. Education
is free, and universal student grants partially cover living costs while studying.
Much of the education and training system is managed in close cooperation
between the state and the social parties.
It has to some extent been possible to create a positive feedback circle
between high-quality production, jobs with autonomy and learning opportu-
nities and continuous upgrading of skills. There are, however, many dilemmas
related to education, training and learning, which are dealt with in the following
chapters. Courses that are directed at the immediate needs of workplaces cre-
ate relevance but reduce mobility and flexibility. Should inclusion be ensured
by adapting the education of students to the demand, or should companies be
encouraged to adapt their work organization and job designs to the supply?
These dilemmas are handled differently in the Nordic countries.
Chapter 8: Young people’s access to working life in three Nordic countries: what is the
role of vocational education and training? By Christian Helms Jørgensen.
This chapter contains a general discussion of the importance of the Nordic
education system for the quality of work and for social mobility, based on liter-
ature studies. In addition, vocational education and training are investigated in
three Nordic countries, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Dilemmas in the field
are presented. The major differences between the systems are described, and
ongoing initiatives are identified that may overcome some of the dilemmas.
Chapter 9: Bargaining for continuing education: a Norwegian case of ‘lifelong learning
unionism’. By Anders Underthun and Ida Drange.
Unions and governments initiated lifelong learning and continuing education
programmes after the recessions in the late 1980s. ‘Lifelong learning unionism’
was created. The chapter presents a case study of a new way to establish and
provide continuing education to members of a union. The aim is twofold:
firstly, to improve the employability of the individual members, and secondly,
to strengthen the position of the union in collectively oriented bargaining and
negotiations.
Chapter 10: Tackling increasing marginalization: can support-side approaches contribute to
work inclusion? By Kjetil Frøyland, Angelika Schafft and Øystein Spjelkavik.
Some citizens find it hard to find employment. This is especially true for citi-
zens with serious learning disabilities and mental health issues. The chapter
examines different approaches to bringing this group into work. It is pointed
out that the most effective one is a support-side approach, where efforts are
made to qualify citizens, to create appropriate working conditions and to provide
support to companies.
Chapter 8
Young people’s access to working

life in three Nordic countries
What is the role of vocational education
and training?
Christian Helms Jørgensen
Introduction
The high quality of working life in the Nordic countries is closely associ-
ated with their well-educated working populations. A highly and broadly
skilled labour force has been essential for the Scandinavian development path,
based on high-quality production in small open economies (Kristensen et al.,
2015; Senghaas, 1985). The Nordic universal welfare states provide free and
public education at all levels, which contributes to the low levels of educational
inequality. Their comprehensive compulsory school systems reduce social and
gender selection in education, promote social mobility and contribute to high
female employment rates. The high level of female employment is also sup-
ported by the universal provision of public welfare services in the fields of
education, health, childcare and eldercare. The expansion of education for
these welfare sectors has opened up educational opportunities for women,
whose average level of education now exceeds that of men. Therefore, the
high quality of working life and the low levels of inequality in the Nordic
labour markets can partly be attributed to the organization of education as a key
element in the Nordic welfare states. However, this model of the welfare state
and labour market is under increasing pressure from globalization, neo-liberal
deregulation and technological change. Social inequalities are increasing, and
indications of social polarization and labour-market dualization are emerging
(Melin, 2014).
In the Nordic labour markets, young people constitute a vulnerable group
that generally experiences higher levels of unemployment than adults and older
workers, particularly in periods of economic downturn (Albæk et al., 2015;
Halvorsen et al., 2013). Compared to adults, young workers face consider-
ably higher risks of being in part-time and/or temporary jobs and have lower
earnings and labour-market security (Segendorf, 2013). This situation draws
attention to the issue of how young people gain access to working life in the
Nordic countries. This chapter focuses on the role of initial vocational educa-
tion and training (VET) at upper-secondary level in Denmark, Norway and
Sweden. In these countries, VET includes between one-third and one-half of
156 Christian Helms Jørgensen
the members of every youth cohort. VET at this level aims mainly at 16- to
19-year-olds, but in Norway and Denmark it also includes adults. The ques-
tion examined here is how VET provides access to working life for young
people. This includes a broader investigation of the links between VET and
the world of work.
VET is important because the effects of globalization, outsourcing of pro-
duction, labour migration and automation/informatization are particularly
strong for jobs at the lower end of the skills’ hierarchy. A strong VET system
with high standards is essential in order to counteract the increasing dualization
of the labour markets. However, VET in the Nordic countries increasingly
relies on school-based training that is organized separately from the world of
work. A crucial question to be examined in this chapter is how VET con-
nects with the labour market in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The chapter
starts with a discussion of different ideas on the relationships between educa-
tion and work, including the concept of a Nordic transition system. Next, it
examines young people’s transition into working life and examines how the
tensions between the social demands of young people and the requirements
of the labour market are managed. In particular, it examines young people’s
transition into working life in two selected industries: health care and construc-
tion. Finally, it examines three new, innovative institutions set up to mediate
between VET and working life.
The chapter draws on the results from a comparative research project on
VET in the Nordic countries, which includes analyses of the historical and
current development (Jørgensen et al., 2018; Jørgensen & Tønder, 2018;
Michelsen & Stenström, 2018). For each of the four Nordic countries included
in the project, five different research reports were published (www.Nord-
VET.dk); these provide the empirical basis for this chapter. Two of the reports
compare the development of VET for the health sector and the construction
sector, based on a common design and research questions.
Conceptualizing the links between VET and

working life
Diverse theoretical approaches have been developed to study the links between
VET and working life. The influential research approach of Maurice et al.
(1986) emphasized the institutional complementarities between the VET sys-
tem, the organization of work and the system of industrial relations. Together,
they constitute specific national configurations of institutions that shape the
organization of work at the local level (a societal effect). This approach has
highlighted the qualities of occupational work for the autonomy and profes-
sionalization of intermediate positions (skilled workers) in the organization of
work (Gallie, 2009).
The literature on collective skill formation (Busemeyer & Trampusch,
2012) makes a distinction based on the extent of employer engagement in
Young people’s access to working life 157
skills’ formation. In this respect, the VET systems of the Nordic countries
come out differently from each other. While the Swedish and Norwegian sys-
tems are seen as state-led models, the Danish system is categorized as a model
of collective skill formation with high employer engagement. Although this
categorization correctly points to the diversity of the Nordic VET systems, it is
questionable. The Swedish VET system has been strongly marketized since the
early 1990s, and the Norwegian system is based on apprenticeships with strong
employer involvement, similar to the Danish VET system.
Comparative research on VET systems offers another conceptualization of
their links with working life. The concepts of standardization, stratification and
vocational specificity proposed by Jutta Allmendinger (1989) have been widely
used. High standardization is associated with strong regulation and with uni-
formly high standards of training. All the Nordic VET systems are classified as
highly standardized in international comparisons (Pfeffer, 2008). In Denmark,
the setting of the standards is left to the labour-market organizations, while this
is mainly the responsibility of the state in Sweden. Strong national standardi-
zation of vocational qualifications enables their high portability in the labour
market. Occupational standardization promotes the matching of VET pro-
grammes to job profiles in occupational labour markets. This matching smooths
students’ transition to work. However, since the late 1980s, the three Nordic
countries have decentralized the regulation of VET to make the programmes
more flexible and adaptable to local labour markets. This has tended to weaken
the matching of VET with the national standards for occupational work set by
the labour-market organizations.
The level of stratification concerns the extent of tracking, division and selec-
tion of students in the VET system. While the Nordic education systems and
labour markets have generally low levels of stratification, the Nordic VET
systems differ significantly. In Sweden, VET was integrated into a unified
school system with the reforms in 1971 and 1991. In contrast, Denmark has
maintained a strong division between the gymnasiums (academically oriented
upper-secondary institutions), which prepare youngsters for higher education,
and the VET system, which is based on apprenticeships that prepare them for
occupational work. Norway represents a mixed system, with a unified school
for the first two years, followed by a division of students into two tracks:
either one year of higher-education preparatory programmes or two years of
apprenticeships. The higher level of tracking and stratification in Denmark
is associated with a higher level of inequality in educational attainment. The
strong integration of VET with general education in Sweden is associated with
VET’s weak links to working life.
Last, in relation to the specificity of the qualifications provided, the Nordic
countries have given priority to broad and general skills in order to improve
the subsequent flexibility and mobility in working life and to prepare for
lifelong learning. However, the three Nordic VET systems also differ signifi-
cantly in this respect. The Danish apprenticeship system emphasizes specific
vocational skills, and the school-based Swedish system gives priority to gen-
eral and generic qualifications. While specific qualifications are expected to
have only short-term value in the labour market, they are known to promote
fast and direct transition to skilled work (Bol & Van de Werfhorst, 2013).
Therefore, this involves a trade-off that has been managed differently in the
Nordic countries. All Nordic VET systems have limited the specificity of
qualifications and emphasized the role of general qualifications. The number
of programmes and specializations has been diminished in order to reduce
the risk of locking the students into a specific job or occupation (Jørgensen &
Tønder, 2018).
To sum up, the research emphasizes many similarities between the Nordic
countries regarding welfare-state and labour-market models – but differentiates
between their VET systems, especially with respect to their links to the world
of work.
VET and the Nordic model of working life

Working life in the Nordic countries is generally considered to be of a high
quality and allows for high levels of autonomy and opportunities for self-
development (Gallie, 2009). In a cross-European comparison, Dobbin and
Boychuk (1999) term this a ‘skill-governed’ Nordic work model in con-
trast to the ‘rule-governed’ work model in Britain. The breadth and depth
of skills provided by the Nordic VET systems are important for the high
quality of work and for the high levels of job discretion found in these coun-
tries. Comparative studies of production regimes have demonstrated the close
interdependence of the national production regimes, labour-market models,
and dominant forms of work-organization and VET systems (Gallie, 2003,
2009; Streeck, 1992). Therefore, the search for a single causal factor to explain
the emergence of the Nordic model of working life is less appropriate than
studying the interaction of multiple, complementary institutions and policies: a
configurational causation (Thelen & Mahoney, 2015).
Six of the key institutions involved in this Nordic institutional configuration
will be emphasized. First, the centralized wage bargaining in the Nordic coun-
tries has resulted in compressed wage structures and relatively high minimum
wages, which includes young and unskilled workers. Second, the high wage
levels encourage employers’ investment in labour-saving technology and inno-
vation, and their preference for employees with high levels of skills (Busemeyer,
2015). Moreover, the strong employment protection in the Nordic countries
(except Denmark) gives employers incentives to engage in the training of low-
skilled workers and to employ highly skilled labour. Third, the low cost of
high skills encourages employers to move up-market and to pursue strategies
for ‘diversified quality production’ (Sandberg & Movitz, 2013; Streeck, 1992).
Fourth, the low levels of unemployment and the high levels of social security
provided by the Nordic welfare states have strengthened the power position of
employees in relation to employers. Fifth, strong trade unions have restrained

employers’ use of direct control and degrading forms of management and have
facilitated the development of non-hierarchical work organizations (Edlund
& Grönlund, 2010). These flat organizations have supported the collabora-
tion between employers and employees on innovation, upgrading of skills and
workplace learning (Kristensen et al., 2015). This has promoted trade-union
strategies to support the technological modernization of work and the upgrad-
ing of their members’ skills (Lansbury, 2015; Thelen, 2014). The low-skill
differential and low-power distance in work organizations improve knowledge-
sharing between the planning level and the executing level. Finally, this
consensual and skills-driven development is reinforced by public policies.
International comparison shows that the level of public spending on education
and further training is high in the Nordic countries. In addition, an extensive
active labour-market policy has given high priority to getting the unemployed
back into employment through retraining, mobility support, etc. (Kananen,
2016). Although the Nordic VET systems have varying levels of employer
involvement, they are all strong and highly standardized and enjoy high levels
of state support.
These are some of the key interactional effects regarding skill formation and
working life in the Nordic countries. They interact to create positive feedback
cycles between the improvement of high-quality production, the extension of
job discretion and the continual upgrading of skills (Kristensen et al., 2015).
The Nordic countries are, however, not homogeneous: there are substantial
differences between industries and countries, and systems of skill formation
differ significantly (Jørgensen et al., 2018). Moreover, reforms inspired by neo-
liberalism since the 1990s have involved marketization, decentralization and
deregulation, which have weakened the provisions of the welfare state and
contributed to increased social inequality (Kananen, 2016; Melin, 2014). In
addition, the effects of globalization challenge the foundation of the Nordic
model by shifting the balance of power in favour of the employers and by
intensifying the instability and insecurity of working life. This involves new
social risks, particularly for vulnerable groups in the labour market, such as
young people trying to gain access to working life (Harsløf et al., 2013). The
next section investigates how VET adjusts to the changing skills requirement
in working life, and how the tensions between young people’s educational
demands and the supply of work and training placements are regulated.
Balancing social demands with labour-market

requirements
In all the Nordic countries, the governments have set the goal that all young
people should complete at least upper-secondary education to prepare for the
future requirements of working life. VET systems are required to deliver the
specific skills and knowledge that are relevant to working life. However, it
is also generally believed that young people should be allowed to make their
own choices regarding education and work. Thus, the relationship between
the VET systems and working life is about balancing young people’s demands
for education with the labour-market requirements for skilled labour. Due
to differences in the governance of the Nordic VET systems, each has given
priority to one or the other side of this relationship. In the statist VET sys-
tem in Sweden, the main priority for upper-secondary school is to provide
educational opportunities for all young people. The supply of education by
the municipalities is not dependent on training placements provided by the
companies. Meanwhile, the Danish and Norwegian apprenticeship systems
are more sensitive to the requirements in the labour market, and the labour-
market organizations have a stronger role in the governance of VET. In addi-
tion, the capacity of the apprenticeship systems depends on the supply of
training placements offered by employers. Students in these systems spend more
time searching for an apprenticeship, dropping out, or shifting into another
form of education. A much higher proportion of 21-year-olds in Sweden have
completed upper-secondary education compared to the two countries with
apprenticeships (Albæk et al., 2015).
The supply of training placements depends on the employment situation of
the training companies and the industries. This close link between the situation
in the training market and that in the labour market tends to reduce the risk
of mismatch. However, while the apprenticeship system balances the supply of
and demand for skilled labour, these systems also generate mismatches. During
a recession, companies typically stop taking on new apprentices, and an upturn
is often followed by a shortage of skilled labour. This can last for years, as the
training of new apprentices typically takes four years.
In all three countries, students’ transition to the world of work has been
postponed. Before the reforms in the 1970s to 1990s, young people went
straight into apprenticeships after completing compulsory school. Today, they
must attend school-based training before they can take up an apprenticeship.
In Denmark, the school-based course lasts one year and in Norway two years.
In Sweden, students must complete a three-year gymnasium programme before
they can gain access to the post-secondary apprenticeships that are organized
by the labour-market organizations in some industries.
In Denmark, many of the most popular VET programmes limit access to
the first school-based courses using quotas in order to match the number of
students to the number of apprenticeships available. If apprenticeships are not
available, the vocational schools in Denmark and Norway offer school-based
training. In Norway, the county councils (fylkeskommunene) are responsible for
all upper-secondary education. The extent to which they adjust the number of
students they enrol to fit the demand in the labour market is quite minimal, as
the size of the programmes is more dependent on the capacity of the schools
(Høst, 2012). As a result, mismatches between students’ chosen forms of edu-
cation and the demand for labour are common. In Norway, the unsuccessful
search for apprenticeships is a common reason why students drop out of voca-
tional programmes or shift to general programmes in the third year. In Sweden,
until the early 1990s, the capacity of the vocational programmes was deter-
mined by the government’s assessment of the future demand for labour. Since
the introduction of free school choice and the decentralization of regulation,
the capacity of VET programmes has mainly been determined by the demand
of the students, which increases the risk of mismatch in the labour market
(Olofsson & Panican, 2012). This examination has focused on the matching
of VET to the requirements of working life. The next section turns to young
people’s transition from education to work in the three Nordic countries.
A Nordic transition regime

In international studies of young people’s transition from education to work,
the concepts of transition system (Raffe, 2008) and transition regime (Walther,
2006) have gained influence. These ideas refer to the institutional structur-
ing of the pathways from education into working life, including the critical
points of choice and selection in students’ transitions. This approach is useful
for exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the institutional regulation of the
relationships between the VET system and the world of work. The risks and
opportunities for students after completing VET vary considerably, depend-
ing on the institutional architecture of the education system and the labour
market. Previous research has demonstrated the institutional embeddedness of
school-to-work transition (Andersen & Van de Werfhorst, 2010; Müller, 2005;
Raffe, 2014). For example, youth unemployment is considerably higher in
Sweden, which has a mainly school-based VET system, than it is in Denmark
and Norway, where VET is based on apprenticeships (Albæk et al., 2015).
In the typologies of comparative research, the Nordic countries are cat-
egorized as representing a universalistic transition regime (Pohl & Walther,
2007). This regime provides strong and multi-dimensional support for young
people’s transition to working life and reduces the insecurities and risks asso-
ciated with this (Walther, 2006). The institutional qualities of the Nordic
countries – particularly high minimum wages, high skills’ requirements and
strong employment protection – are claimed to limit young people’s access
to employment. However, a review by Tamesberger (2017) emphasizes that
these institutional conditions can also improve the employment rate of young
people. Brzinsky-Fay (2017) shows that institutions influencing youth unem-
ployment unfold their effects only in combination with other institutions. The
Nordic countries have given high priority to keeping youth unemployment
low through a mixture of social support, activation, training and coercion
(Jensen, 2015; Kananen, 2016). The social security resulting from the wel-
fare provisions allows young people to try out different opportunities, make
changes and re-orientate their lives. This process of finding their way tends
to prolong the transition from initial education to full-time, permanent jobs
(Walther, 2006). In the Nordic countries, young people move away from their
parents and become financially independent at an earlier age than in other
European countries. A high proportion of young people are engaged in part-
time work while they are in education. More than half of the age group of
15- to 19-year-olds are in part-time employment; in Denmark, this figure
exceeds 80% (Segendorf, 2013). The Nordic transition regime is often charac-
terized as a collectivist system. However, the universal rights to welfare benefits
encourage individual independence and release young people from depend-
ency on the family and the market. Since the late 1990s, neo-liberal reforms
have affected the Nordic transition regimes. In all three countries, access to
social benefits has been restricted and tied more closely to work obligations
(Lorentzen et al., 2014). In Denmark and Sweden, the level and duration of
welfare benefits have been reduced for young people, and financial benefits
have been made contingent on participation in activation measures (Bengtsson,
2014; Kananen, 2016).
The well-organized Nordic labour markets and the low rates of youth
unemployment have constrained the growth of a secondary, low-wage youth
labour market (Jensen, 2015). Studies indicate that it has become more dif-
ficult for young people to gain access to employment in the Nordic labour
markets since the financial crisis, with the exception of Norway (Albæk et al.,
2015). Low-skilled jobs that used to be accessible for early school-leavers have
disappeared due to the outsourcing of labour-intensive production, new tech-
nologies and immigration (Segendorf, 2013). Researchers find that, in most
European countries, the transition from education to a stable position in the
labour market has become more demanding, prolonged and less transparent
(Walther & Plug, 2006). In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the average age of
establishment in the labour market had increased from around 20 years in the
early 1990s to 28 years by 2016 (OECD, 2016).
International comparison shows that the employment rates of young people
in the Nordic countries are high and that youth unemployment is low (when
excluding students, see Albæk et al., 2015). However, youth unemployment
rates have been growing since 1998 – except in Norway, due to its continual
high growth rates. Young people’s opportunities for getting full-time, perma-
nent jobs without any post-compulsory education have been reduced (Madsen
et al., 2013). Almost all young people continue in upper-secondary education
after completing compulsory schooling. More than half of young people enrol
in general education that prepares for higher education, and between one-third
and one-half of the members of each cohort enrol in VET with the aim of
gaining access to a meaningful working life of high quality. The VET system
in general is in a key position to prepare young people for working life and to
support their access to the world of work. However, the Nordic VET systems
and their linkages to working life differ considerably. In addition, we find sig-
nificant differences in each country between sectors and industries; two such
examples are examined in the next section.
Transition to work in the health-care and

construction sectors
This section presents a comparison of young people’s transition to the world
of work in two different sectors: health care and construction. These sectors
have different traditions for VET and different links between education and
working life. The health-care sector is a predominantly female field of public
employment, where VET developed in connection with the expansion of the
welfare state in the post-war period. In the public health-care sector, young
people’s transition to work is much less affected by shifting economic cycles
than it is in the construction sector. Construction is part of the private sector
and has mainly male employees, a long and strong tradition of well-organized
craft unions and a VET system based on apprenticeships. In both sectors,
occupational training has been integrated into a national VET system in all
three countries, though with some differences between them. In Norway
and Denmark, apprenticeships are integrated into the public upper-secondary
VET system. In Sweden, the state-led VET system is mainly school-based
and has a post-secondary apprenticeship system in the construction industry
(Fjellström, 2014). In both sectors, young people’s transition to the world of
work is challenged: in the health-care sector, by problems of recognition and
by a tradition of recruiting adults; and in the construction sector, by the inflow
of migrant labour from the newer EU countries. The investigations are based
mainly on two comparative reports produced as part of the Nord-VET project
and on two chapters in a book on the Nordic VET systems for construction
(Olsen et al., 2018) and health care (Høst & Larsen, 2018).
Transition to work in the health-care sector

The introduction of VET in the health-care sector is an example of a fruitful
educational upgrading of the formerly unskilled female health-care workers,
who previously comprised the majority of employees in the care sector (Høst
& Larsen, 2018). In the 1960s, new education for auxiliary nurses began to be
established in all three countries. They soon became very popular, particularly
among adults with work experience. The auxiliary nurses tried without success
to become integrated into the professional nurses’ organizations and so formed
their own bodies (Høst & Larsen, 2018). The establishment of vocational edu-
cation for the subordinate health-care workers was driven by a combination of
political objectives. One such objective was to raise the quality of the public-
sector health services; another was to provide post-compulsory education for
all, including women; and a third was to improve the quality of work and
the respect for predominantly female health-care work. In Denmark, the new
occupational group established its own jurisdiction independent of the nurses.
In the other two countries, the auxiliary nurses had a more clearly defined
subordinate position to the nurses, with less autonomy (Høst & Larsen, 2018).
In all three countries, auxiliary-nurse education was replaced by a new and

broader VET programme for health-care workers, when they were integrated
into the public VET system.
The introduction of vocational education for health-care workers has
contributed to the upgrading of formerly unskilled and unrecognized female
health-care work. This education supported the establishment of health-care
workers as an independent occupational group, which has gained recognition
and become one of the largest VET programmes in all three countries. From
the very beginning, the VET programme for health-care workers attracted
many adults. Also, a large proportion of its participants are from ethnic minori-
ties; the programme has been very efficient at integrating these students into
working life (Høst & Larsen, 2018).
Students’ transition from VET to working life demonstrates some com-
mon challenges in all three countries but also some differences between them.
In all three, political measures have been taken to give young people priority
in the VET programme for health-care workers. However, employers have
continued to recruit mainly experienced adults. Consequently, it is difficult for
newly educated health-care workers to gain access to full-time employment in
Norway and Sweden. This helps explain why a large proportion of the students
in these countries prefer to continue studying. In Denmark, health-care work-
ers have maintained a position in the hospitals, though it is declining, and they
generally have access to permanent, full-time employment after completion.
Two-thirds of young employees are in permanent jobs, and the proportion of
part-time employment has been decreasing (PASS, 2017).
Previously, the training of auxiliary nurses was closely connected to the hos-
pitals, and the connection between education and work in this period was very
strong (Høst & Larsen, 2018). Gradually, the auxiliary nurses lost their position
in the hospitals, where nurses became the dominant group. This has happened
because of technological modernization, rising skill requirements and strug-
gles between the occupational groups. Consequently, the new education for
health-care workers has a broad profile that is oriented towards eldercare in the
municipal sector, which is considered less attractive by young people. In addi-
tion, the subordinate health-care work has been subjected to the measures of
New Public Management – with standardization, time control, intensification
of work and reduced autonomy.
In Norway, county councils’ organization of apprenticeship training is not
based on an interest in recruitment. After completing VET, few of the students
are offered employment in the public institutions, which prefer to employ
unskilled adults in part-time positions and rely on informal training at work
(Høst et al., 2014b). In addition, the nurses have succeeded in blocking the
employment of health-care workers in hospitals. Consequently, in Norway
most of the newly educated health-care workers have access only to part-time
and temporary employment in the less attractive primary sector. A large pro-
portion of the students in the health-care programme in Norway do not start
an apprenticeship after the second year but instead utilize the opportunity to
shift into a third year that gives them access to higher education. In the school-
based Swedish VET system, the health-care worker programme is broad and
preparatory, and does not award final occupational competence, which makes
the transition to work difficult. The adult education programme for health-care
workers attracts more students than does the programme for young people. In
Sweden, the transition from VET to working life is also difficult. As employers
prefer adults with work experience over newly educated health-care workers,
less than half of all students are established in the labour market three years
after graduation (SCB, 2012). In Denmark, a reform in 2015 made education
for health-care workers more age-homogeneous – similar to the situations in
the two other Nordic countries – and adults above the age of 25 years are now
referred to separate courses. In spite of this, adults still make up two-thirds of
the students in Danish health-care worker education.
Despite their educational upgrade, health-care workers remain a low-
waged, subordinate female field of staff at the lower rungs of the educational
hierarchy. And VET for health-care workers still contributes to reproducing
the highly gender-segregated working life in the health-care sector. However,
the differences between Denmark and Norway demonstrate the scope for pol-
icy to improve the status and quality of health-care work by securing full-time,
permanent employment and job autonomy for this group of skilled employees.
The development in Norway demonstrates the limits of public educational
policy for the upgrading of health-care work. In general, the transition to
working life from the VET programme for health-care workers represents a
paradox. Forecasts of the demand for labour predict a long-term shortage of
health-care workers due to the demographic shift, but newly educated health-
care workers in Norway and Sweden today find it difficult to gain access to
full-time permanent jobs.
Transition to work in the construction sector

Vocational education for the construction sector is one of the largest fields
of VET measured in terms of the enrolment of students in all three Nordic
countries. It has traditionally provided access to well-paid and well-respected
employment for a large group of young people, mainly men, including students
with low grades in compulsory school. The construction industry demonstrates
some of the negative consequences for working life of the liberalization of the
European labour markets (Friberg & Eldring, 2013).
The trade unions in the construction sector have historically been very strong,
and the organization of work has been dominated by self-managing teams.
A high level of autonomy of skilled workers has been achieved through col-
lective negotiation at the local level between teams and employers. In all three
countries, the construction industry has a strong tradition of craft-based and
occupational work, which creates close links between the VET programmes
and working life. These links are strongest in Denmark and Norway, where the
apprenticeship programmes are closely linked to occupational job profiles. In
the school-based Swedish VET system, the programmes are broader and leave
more of the specific skills to be acquired in post-secondary apprenticeship train-
ing. In Denmark, a strong tradition of craft unionism – rather than industrial
unionism – has reinforced the occupational organization of work.
The construction industry in the three Nordic countries has been strongly
affected by the opening of the labour markets to migrant labour from the ten
new member states of the EU since 2004. The migrant workers have more
precarious and insecure working conditions and lower wages, and they are less
often unionized or covered by collective agreements than are native workers
(Friberg & Eldring, 2013). Particularly in the construction industry, where the
employment of posted and temporary workers is very high, this constitutes a
serious challenge for the Nordic model of labour relations.
The consequences of this situation have been most pronounced in Norway,
which has received by far the highest share of Central and Eastern European
labour migrants. Norway has been a preferred target for migrant labour because
of high wages, low unemployment and somewhat weaker regulation than the
two other Nordic countries. In Norway, temporary staffing agencies have
organized a ‘migration industry’ that provides flexible, low-wage migrant
labour, which undermines organized labour relations (Friberg & Eldring,
2013). As an effect of the influx of migrant labour with low skill levels, the
organization of work has changed to become more segregated, with separate
fields of work for migrant labour and with reduced autonomy and stronger
hierarchies (Haakestad & Friberg, 2017).
Young people’s transition from VET to the world of work in the con-
struction sector has been affected by this development. First, employers’
engagement in apprenticeship training has declined as a result of their access to
flexible, low-wage migrant labour. Employers have shifted recruitment policy
so that skilled, native workers and apprentices are replaced by migrant work-
ers. In addition, the foreign subcontractors and temporary staffing agencies that
allocate a significant part of the migrant labour force do not take responsibil-
ity for apprenticeship training. Second, the employment of migrant labour
tends to change the organization of work in a neo-Taylorist direction, which
reduces the demand for skilled workers (Haakestad & Friberg, 2017). Third,
the quality and conditions of work – and the wages – are affected negatively
by the migrant labour, which reduces the attractiveness of VET for this sector
among young people. This contributes to a shortage of skilled labour, which
stimulates the vicious circle of hiring migrant labour and Taylorization of the
work organization. The construction industry in Norway has been affected
much more strongly by this development than its counterpart in Denmark,
where the collective agreements are stronger and the financial crisis was more
severe. In Sweden, the temporary staffing agencies are subject to stronger
regulation, and the higher unemployment rates among native young people
and settled immigrants have reduced employers’ demand for foreign labour
(Friberg & Eldring, 2013). The construction sector is one of the largest in the
VET system. It has provided opportunities for occupational employment that
is highly respected for a large group of young men. In all three countries, the
liberalization of labour regulation, together with the import and exploitation
of foreign labour, threatens a traditionally important pathway to the world of
work for young people who do not opt for higher education.
Challenges for young people’s transition from

VET to work
Due to the continual expansion and extension of school-based schooling in
all the Nordic countries, young people’s transition from school to work has
been postponed. Compulsory schooling has been prolonged, and vocational
students’ encounters with working life are preceded by preparatory, school-
based training of varying duration. Moreover, the priority in education policy
has shifted from citizenship to focus more on employability (Blossing et al.,
2014; Kananen, 2016). The governments in all the Nordic countries increas-
ingly emphasize VET as a measure to include disadvantaged young people and
to support their transition to working life.
The apprenticeship systems of Denmark and Norway have been modernized
and have expanded into new sectors. The Swedish VET system has included
longer periods of work-based learning and introduced a new apprenticeship
programme in 2011. However, the integration of work-based learning in VET
raises a variety of challenges. One is them is the matching of students’ demands
for training to the supply of training placements in companies. The capacity
of the apprenticeship system is unstable, because it follows economic fluctua-
tions, resulting in frequent mismatches between the demand for and supply of
training. A significant proportion of the students in VET are unable to find
training placements, and employers’ practices for hiring apprentices can be
selective and discriminate against minority groups (Helland & Støren, 2006).
This state of affairs is difficult to reconcile with the political aim of providing
post-compulsory educational opportunities for all young people.
In general, modern working life offers good opportunities for learning,
because of the persistent changes in the production process and the organization
of work. However, access to work-based learning in VET is subject to struc-
tural constraints, and companies are raising the entry requirements for gaining
access to workplace learning (Jørgensen, 2015). When the production process
becomes knowledge-intensive and automated, work becomes more abstract
and requires higher levels of codified knowledge. In addition, the production
process becomes increasingly distributed and specialized. Consequently, each
company concentrates on specific operations in global supplier chains and can
offer only a small part of the wide range of vocational qualifications involved in
learning an occupation. Moreover, the slack in supply chains is being reduced,
and the delivery schedules are being made tighter. Work processes are under
constant pressure to improve intensity, efficiency and quality, which leaves less
room for young people learning from experimentation, trying things out and
making mistakes. In addition, volatile markets reduce the planning horizon of
companies and limit the possibility of engaging in three-year apprenticeship
contracts. Companies increasingly focus on short-term shareholder values that
reduce their propensity to make long-term investment in a skilled workforce
(Casey, 2012). The strength of these changes and their effects differs between
industries, but they indicate that the role of companies in providing work-
based training in VET is becoming more restricted.
These challenges are in conflict with the growing political interest in the
Nordic countries of strengthening work-based learning in VET and improv-
ing the transition to the labour market. These countries do, however, offer
interesting examples of institutional innovations to improve the connection
between VET and the world of work. The next section explores some new
institutions that mediate between VET and working life in Denmark, Norway
and Sweden.
New mediating institutions between VET and

the world of work
The shift from a vocational school to working life is a profound and risky
transition for vocational students. In Denmark and Norway, it is integrated
into the vocational programmes, while in Sweden it takes place after the
completion of the mainly school-based VET programmes. There is a general
recognition of the value of work-based learning in VET but also a broad con-
cern about the quality of work-based training and the availability of training
placements. As the primary objective of work is not learning but produc-
tion, the apprentices’ learning is secondary to the requirements of production.
Considering the challenges for work-based training mentioned earlier, securing
high-quality training is a critical challenge in apprenticeship systems.
Another critical challenge in the Norwegian and Danish apprenticeship
systems is that students have no guarantee of obtaining an apprenticeship place-
ment. Although students receive support from vocational schools, the main
responsibility for obtaining an apprenticeship lies with the individual students.
In Denmark and Norway, a considerable number of students do not succeed
in obtaining their desired apprenticeships; this makes them discontinue the
VET programme. This situation demonstrates two basic weaknesses of the
apprenticeship system at the systemic level: the subordination of learning to
production and the individualization of the responsibility for securing training
placements.
In all three countries, these weaknesses have been addressed in numerous
reforms and initiatives. Most initiatives focus on the individual student by pro-
viding supporting measures for the most vulnerable students, as described in
Chapter 10 by Frøyland, Schafft and Spjelkavik in this volume. Placing sys-

temic problems with the individual student and identifying these students as
vulnerable can, however, have unintended negative consequences (Jørgensen,
2016). Interestingly, innovative initiatives have also been taken at the insti-
tutional level in the form of new intermediary institutions that address the
systemic weaknesses mentioned. These institutions are local training agen-
cies (LTAs) in Norway, training centres in Denmark and vocational colleges
in Sweden.
Norwegian local training agencies

LTAs in Norway are local associations of companies that train apprentices.
They represent an interesting case of the development of local institutions for
collective skill formation in a period characterized by deregulation and mar-
ketization in other countries. The purpose of LTAs is to improve the quality of
training, to relieve the companies of the administrative tasks related to appren-
ticeship training and to prevent future local skills shortages. LTAs are private
associations that are owned and managed by the training companies. In 2013,
the average LTA had three full-time employees, comprised 77 member firms
and offered a total of 118 apprenticeships (Høst et al., 2014a). The number of
LTAs expanded strongly after the reform of VET in 1994, which integrated
apprenticeships into the public VET system. The reforms of VET have raised
the standards for both quality and administration by requiring continual assess-
ments, quality reports and individual training plans for the apprentices (Høst
et al., 2014a).
The main objective of LTAs is to coordinate and strengthen employers’
interests in apprenticeship training. This is achieved by supporting and super-
vising the training of apprentices in the member companies; it includes regular
visits to the companies, interviews with the apprentices and administration of
the electronic training portfolios (Nore & Lahn, 2014). LTAs also organize
supplementary school-based training for the apprentices and training of the
workplace trainers. In addition, they engage in the recruitment of young peo-
ple to apprenticeships and of companies to provide opportunities for training.
The financing of the 340 LTAs derives mainly from public subsidies to the
companies that take responsibility for training apprentices (Proba, 2016). State
funding has been crucial for LTAs’ continual expansion to become contractual
partners in 80% of all apprenticeships in Norway and to include more than
80% of all training companies. The local engagement of employers in LTAs has
been decisive in the huge growth in the number of apprenticeships since the
1980s. LTAs have been successful in managing the common long-term inter-
ests of the employers in training. They have assumed the role of local mediators
between the training companies and the public authorities. In addition, they
assist in mediation in the case of conflicts between apprentices and training
companies. The growth and professionalization of LTAs are backed by regional
and national networks of LTAs that organize knowledge-sharing and mutual

support (Høst et al., 2014a). The trade unions have opposed the inclusion of
LTAs in the formal governance system for VET, because LTAs represent only
the employers. LTAs have, however, become a significant local institution in
the Norwegian system of collective skill formation. They represent a remark-
able innovation that deals with some of the weaknesses of the apprenticeship
system, including the quality of in-company training and the long-term supply
of apprenticeships and skilled workers.
Danish training centres

Similar to students in the Norwegian VET system, young people in Denmark
can start in the first school-based course of most VET programmes without
having an apprenticeship contract. During this course of 6 to 12 months’
duration, they must obtain a training contract in order to complete the pro-
gramme. However, a shortage of apprenticeships has hindered many students’
transition to work-based training. Therefore, from 1993, students have been
offered alternative, school-based training during periods of economic reces-
sion. School-based training was offered only as a compensatory measure, and
students using it were required to continue searching for a company-based
apprenticeship contract. As this measure gained a poor reputation among stu-
dents, it did not prevent students from dropping out of VET. Therefore, a
reform in 2013 introduced a new and permanent institution, the training cen-
tres (praktikcentre) to offer full-time school-based training in VET and to help
students obtain apprenticeships. Now, when VET students are unable to get
an apprenticeship in a company after completion of their basic course, they
can sign a contract with a training centre. In contrast to the Norwegian LTAs,
which have only a weak link to the vocational schools, the Danish training
centres are closely connected to the vocational schools. The running of the
50 Danish training centres is financed by the state, and the allowance paid to
the students is financed by the employers’ training levy, known as the ‘AUB’
(Arbejdsgivernes Uddannelsesbidrag).
The main purpose of the training centres is to provide training for stu-
dents until they obtain a permanent training placement in a company. An
additional aim is to coordinate students’ multiple training placements in com-
panies that do not offer a full three-year apprenticeship contract. The training
centres supplement this with school-based training to ensure that the students
acquire all the skills required to complete the VET programme. In order
to increase the supply of training opportunities, the training contracts can
be organized flexibly as short-term contracts or combined training contracts
(for two or more companies). In some industries, such as construction, one-
third of the training contracts are for short training placements. The curricular
requirements and final exam in the training centres are similar to those in
ordinary apprenticeships. The proportion of students in the training centres
has remained steady – at over 10% of all students – since the crisis in 2008
(according to 2017 figures: www.uvm.dk).
The fact that individual students have responsibility for obtaining appren-
ticeships, and that there is a recurring lack of training placements, have been
weaknesses of the apprenticeship system for decades. The training centres take
over some of the responsibility for students’ successful transition to working
life. The centres have a coordinating function for multisite firm-based training
and for supplementary training that they provide themselves. They also shift
the problem of securing apprenticeships from being an individual responsibility
to being an institutional task for the training centres. This role has similarities
with that of the Norwegian LTAs, though the Danish training centres are
engaged only weakly in supervising the quality of in-company training.
Swedish vocational colleges

When the Swedish VET system was integrated into the state-led upper-
secondary comprehensive schools through reforms in 1971 and 1991, its
connection to the world of work became very weak. In an attempt to change
that situation, the government introduced a new apprenticeship programme in
2011 but received only limited support from employers. The new ‘Vocational
Colleges’ (Yrkescollege) present a different picture. The ‘Technical Colleges’
(Teknikcollege) were initiated in 2004 by the main industrial employers’ organi-
zation and the main union for employees in industry (Olofsson, 2015). Based
on decentralized cooperation, this new institution has reactivated an old cross-
sector alliance between industry and the unions to promote VET (Persson
& Hermelin, 2018). The Technical Colleges are managed by the Industry
Council (Industrirådet), which comprises the largest organizations in the indus-
trial labour market. A similar initiative was taken some years later to establish
‘Health Colleges’ (Vårdcollege) for the health-care sector. A common aim of
the Vocational Colleges is to improve the quality of VET and to make it more
attractive for young people in order to secure the supply of skilled work-
ers. The colleges are primarily a certification scheme for high-quality VET
in collaboration with VET providers, labour-market organizations and public
authorities. The colleges are established as institutions for regional collabora-
tion on vocational training and include a variety of partners. An association of
companies in collaboration with at least three municipalities and vocational
schools can be certified as a Vocational College. They must meet ten quality
requirements, which include high-quality learning environments, state-of-the-
art equipment, systematic quality control and an infrastructure for collaboration
between vocational schools and employers.
The colleges represent a new form of cooperation on skill formation
between training companies, municipalities and vocational schools. By 2017,
the Technical Colleges included 150 certified educational providers and 3,000
companies in Sweden (www.teknikcollege.se). The number of certified Health
Colleges has exceeded 100. The colleges are primarily engaged in improving
the quality of training and the supply of skilled labour. Training in the colleges
is organized in accordance with the vocational curricula defined by the state
in collaboration with the labour-market organizations. Due to the extensive
decentralization of Swedish upper-secondary schools, the colleges can adapt
VET programmes to the requirements of local companies. Like the Norwegian
training agencies, the colleges are employer-driven, but – in contrast to these –
rely on formal cooperation with the vocational schools and public authorities.
The colleges represent a shift in the Swedish VET system from being state-
led towards a collectivist system of skill formation (Olofsson, 2015). Although
research on the results of the colleges is limited, there are indications that
these institutions have contributed considerably to improving the connections
between vocational schools and employers, and to smoothing students’ transi-
tion from VET to working life (Olofsson & Persson Thunqvist, 2018).
Conclusion
The VET systems in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are important elements in
the configuration of institutions that have resulted in a high quality of working
life for people in those countries. Positive interaction effects between VET,
working life and public policies have contributed to producing high levels
of autonomy at work and low levels of insecurity and labour-market duali-
zation. By providing high-quality intermediary skills for young people who
are not opting for higher education, VET is important for the high level of
social equality in these countries. Youth employment rates are high, and youth
unemployment rates are low in the three countries examined. They can be
seen as representatives of a universal transition regime due to the common
qualities of their welfare states and their shared policies for social inclusion and
support for young people. However, the opportunities for young people to
gain access to working life differ between the three countries.
All three VET systems are highly standardized, which improves the match-
ing of qualifications with jobs and the portability of VET qualifications to and
within the labour market. In the Norwegian and Danish apprenticeship systems,
the specificity of qualifications is high, which improves the students’ transition
to employment. Sweden has most consistently implemented the Nordic model
of education, with the state prioritizing equal access for all to education, in the
spirit of democratic citizenship. This is in conflict with entrusting the training of
students in upper secondary education to private employers. In all three coun-
tries, the extent of work-based training in VET has been reduced since the 1970s.
The Swedish VET system developed into a state-led and mainly school-based
system, which made students’ transition to working life difficult and prolonged.
In the Norwegian and Danish apprenticeship systems, students’ transition to
working life is quite smooth, because it takes place as an integral part of vocational
education. However, not all students gain access to apprenticeships.
Examination of the health-care sector has demonstrated that the establishment

of new VET programmes for health-care workers has contributed to improving
the quality of and respect for subordinate female work. In Norway and Sweden,
however, it is difficult for health-care students to gain access to full-time, per-
manent employment due to employers’ continued preference for older workers.
The Norwegian case shows the limited effects of the state’s educational initia-
tives if employers and other labour-market organizations (in this case, nurses) do
not support the upgrading of the subordinate occupational group.
Examination of the construction sector has shown how the liberalization
of the European labour market threatens the quality of skilled construction
work. This is especially the case in Norway, where the influx of migrant labour
has been very high. Following the increasing employment of cheap labour
from the newer EU member states, the organization of work has changed
in a Taylorist direction, and the autonomy of the formerly strong occupa-
tional groups is being eroded. This has initiated a vicious circle of degradation,
where employers’ engagement in apprenticeship training is decreasing while
the shortage of skilled labour is increasing. The comparison of the construction
and health-care industries demonstrates considerable differences between these
sectors regarding the links between VET and working life. Therefore, national
‘regimes’ of VET and working life can include considerable internal diversity.
Since the late 1990s, work-based training has been strengthened in VET
programmes. This has included the establishment of new intermediary insti-
tutions that deal with some of the risks and gaps in young people’s transition
from VET to working life. The responsibility for these intermediary institu-
tions lies with the public school system (in Denmark), employers (in Norway)
or collaborative organizations (in Sweden). These intermediary institutions
have the common aims of supporting students’ transition from VET to work-
ing life and of matching the demand for and supply of training placements.
These new institutions are interesting because they improve the Nordic transi-
tion systems in relation to three weaknesses. First, they shift responsibility for
obtaining an apprenticeship from the individual student to the intermediary
institution. In Norway and Sweden, these institutions have engaged employ-
ers in providing high-quality training placements for the students. Second,
the Swedish and Norwegian institutions in particular supervise and support
the quality of workplace training. Third, in Norway and Denmark, the inter-
mediary institutions coordinate the students’ multiple training placements in
different companies and provide supplementary school-based training to com-
pensate for the increasing specialization of the companies. Last, these initiatives
can contribute to raise the esteem of VET and the enrolment of young people
in such programmes.
These institutions help close a gap in the current Nordic transition systems
by extending support to students in their transition from VET to working life.
The organization and focus of the new intermediary institutions differ, but all
represent collective and long-term interests in securing highly skilled workers
for the future. The Norwegian and Swedish institutions are especially remark-
able, because they have developed in a period of neo-liberal deregulation and
weakening of collectivist institutions in the labour market.
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Chapter 9
Bargaining for continuing

education
A Norwegian case of ‘lifelong
learning unionism’
Anders Underthun and Ida Drange
Introduction
The principle of universal access to higher education has a strong position in
the Nordic countries (Ahola et al., 2014) and is often combined with the prin-
ciple of lifelong learning, understood as how adults continue to seek skill and
education upgrading throughout their careers. Rubenson (2006) emphasizes
that the Nordic countries combine these two elements, since they demonstrate
high participation in lifelong learning and a lower degree of inequality in access
to lifelong learning than in many other countries. This implies that adults can
quite easily upgrade skills and qualifications throughout their careers. Figures
for Norwegian adult learning indicate that much learning occurs after individu-
als have entered working life (Aspøy & Tønder, 2012; Bjørkeng, 2013). At
the same time, Statistics Norway shows in its latest review of the ‘Learning
Monitor’ that fewer adults participated in formal education in 2016 than in 2008
(Zachrisen & Bjugstad, 2016), which echoes Rubenson’s (2006) concern about
weakening institutions for lifelong learning in the Nordic countries.
A key objective of lifelong learning is to improve the worker’s position in
the labour market by strengthening the employability needed in a more mobile
and flexible labour market. For the individual, employability is about the pros-
pect of gaining and maintaining stable employment, for instance by getting a
new job if the current employment relationship ceases, or making it easier to
reach higher career goals (Drange et al., 2018). The literature also highlights
that higher employability can make it easier to cope in a more uncertain job
market because of increased confidence in finding a different job (Wittekind
et al., 2010; Berglund et al., 2014). Employability may be a more appropriate
goal for the individual than the more traditional goal of keeping the current
job (job security). In one way, this entails that the responsibility of maintain-
ing labour market involvement is more individualized. However, the shift
towards employability also has a collective dimension, and trade unions across
the world have become more involved in policy developments and bargain-
ing measures that seek to improve members’ access to skill upgrading (Jason
& Mark, 1998; Winterton, 2006). The idea of empowering union members
Bargaining for continuing education 179
through education and skill upgrading is further included in a broader dis-

cussion in the field of industrial relations on union revitalization and union
strategies in the 21st century (Frege & Kelly, 2003).
In this chapter, we ask how continuing education (CE) can be part of a new
bargaining agenda for trade unions in a less stable labour market. More spe-
cifically, we explore how lifelong learning can become an important item on
bargaining agendas as well as a feature of general union policy and strategy.
We first discuss the more general prospects of ‘lifelong learning unionism’ in
Norway by looking at the emergence and aftermath of the Norwegian ‘com-
petence reform’ (see i.e. Payne, 2006) in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We
then present a case study of the lifelong learning strategy of the Norwegian
Engineers and Managers Association (Forbundet for Ledelse og Teknikk [FLT]).
Members of this trade union are mainly technical staff and mid-management
in competitive industries, many of whom have undergone significant restruc-
turing due to the decline in oil prices since 2015 (Underthun et al., 2017). In
this way, the case study describe workers who tend to rely on continuous skill
enhancement to secure employability.
FLT is arguably a leader in ‘lifelong learning unionism’ in a Nordic con-
text and has managed to secure a collective agreement with the Norwegian
Confederation of Enterprise (NHO), where NOK 1.10 per hour is allocated
to a fund for CE. The union has also established its own education and train-
ing company (Addisco) in order to facilitate CE for its members and to develop
appropriate courses in close cooperation with education providers in Norway
and Sweden. The empirical part of the chapter is based on interviews with lead-
ing FLT union officials and members. We also conducted interviews with the
Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisasjonen [LO]), the NHO
and members of parliament in 2016–2017. Survey data from two member sur-
veys in the FLT conducted in 2012 (Bergene et al., 2013) and 2016 (Underthun
et al., 2017) supplement the interview data.
In the following sections, we review perspectives on the revitalization of
trade union strategies and why employability has become a more important
feature of current labour market dynamics. We then continue with a discus-
sion on the possibilities and limitations of lifelong learning unionism in the
Nordic countries.
Lifelong learning and the new agenda for

employability
The basic definition of employability addresses the individual’s ability to
maintain a stable relationship with the labour market. This definition can
be taken further to include upward and basic employability (Drange et al.,
2018) and internal and external employability (Sanders & de Grip, 2004;
De Cuyper et al., 2012). There is thus a difference between keeping one’s job
180 Anders Underthun and Ida Drange
(basic employability) and getting a better job (upward employability). Similarly,

the prospect of a new job in the same firm (internal employability) is differ-
ent from the individual’s prospects for employment elsewhere in the labour
market (external employability).
According to human capital theory (Becker, 1994), education makes
workers more attractive. Education is thus an investment to reduce the risk
of unemployment or to increase wage bills. In this perspective, self-assessed
employability will increase with higher education levels. However, Becker
argues that employees and employers have different motivations for enhanc-
ing the (formal) skills of employees. For employers, it is not rational to invest
in general skill enhancement that makes the employee attractive to other
employers. Therefore, employers will mainly cover the cost of education and
training that increase productivity in their own business and which have low
transfer value to other employers. The cost of general education and train-
ing that primarily benefits the individual must therefore typically be borne by
the worker (Becker, 1994, p. 34). This difference is also evident in bargain-
ing outcomes. For example, according to the Basic Agreement between the
LO and the NHO (NHO & LO, 2014), employers in Norway are obliged to
provide employees with the training required to carry out their current job.
Postgraduate and CE programmes that are primarily in the interests of the indi-
vidual, for example in order to strengthen external employability, are not the
responsibility of employers. This difference is crucial in a labour market where
mobility is a major imperative to improving the skills and formal qualifications
needed for changing jobs.
Lifelong learning as union revitalization

Union membership levels in Europe have been on the decline since the 1980s
(Waddington, 2015). This is also true of the Nordic countries, although union-
ization rates have fallen less than in many other European countries (Jensen,
2017). Another positive note for Norway is that there seems to be considerable
potential for organizing more members, particularly among young workers
(Steen et al., 2017).
The literature on union strategies and union revitalization focuses on the
variety of strategies that unions can employ to counter decline and the ways
in which they can gain or regain strength in a changing economic and polit-
ical landscape (Frege & Kelly, 2003). There are differences in the strategic
directions of unions. A typical distinction is that made between the organizing
model and the servicing model of unionism (Heery et al., 2000). The organ-
izing model is a model that emphasizes the importance of building a union
movement, both through internal organizing and empowerment of existing
members, and through highly active organizing drives to recruit new members
(Getman, 2010). This model is often associated with social movement unionism, a
type of unionism that extends beyond typical priorities, such as wages, pensions
and working conditions, to broader social engagement. The servicing model,

on the other hand, is a union strategy that aims to satisfy the needs of members,
for instance through resolving workplace conflicts or securing different kinds
of benefits. Tufts (2009) argues that it is important to look beyond the organ-
izing vs. servicing model dichotomy when analysing union strategies. Rather,
unions change the composition of priorities with changing economic and
political landscapes. For instance, Tufts argues that union responses to labour
market changes in the hospitality sector in North America can be seen as a
form of ‘Schumpeterian’ unionism, a term that hints at the profound organiza-
tional shifts associated with the fall of Fordism and the emergence of alternative
and more flexible work structures.
In an introduction to a special issue on union revitalization in the European
Journal of Industrial Relations from 2003, Frege and Kelly (2003) identify six
concrete strategies or responses that unions typically employ in revitalization
efforts, although with the important proviso that these strategies will vary con-
siderably with contextual differences (Clegg, 1975). First, organizing is about
the acquisition of new or retention of existing members. As Frege and Kelly
note, the bargaining power of a union will always be related to the number
of members. Second, they point out that organizational restructuring as inter-
nal reorganization or mergers with other unions may be an important way
to regain strength or keep up with labour market changes. Third, Frege and
Kelly point to coalition building. This strategy can be a part of social movement
unionism as discussed earlier, but the type of coalition depends on the type of
leverage or the branding as a societal actor desired by the union (cf. Hyman,
1997). Fourth, Frege and Kelly argue that partnerships with employers is a strategy
for finding compromise in industrial relations. Strategies related to coordi-
nated wage formation and negotiated compromises in the Nordic countries
(cf. Chapters 1 and 2) are an example of a strong focus on collaboration and
negotiation that perhaps goes beyond the notion of partnership. However, a
common goal for social partnerships or social collaborations as a union strategy
is to improve collective agreements. Frege and Kelly also note that this strategy
relates to attempts to erode negative images of union militancy. Fifth, political
action as a union strategy may result in more preferable legislation or policy
developments that directly or indirectly may benefit union members. Finally,
Frege and Kelly point to international links for dealing with transnational corpo-
rations, or for increasing the effectiveness of political lobbying at various levels,
such as the EU level.
How then are skill upgrading and CE related to union revitalization? UK
scholars have paid some attention to lifelong learning. Payne (2001) suggests
that the issue of learning has become an emerging item on union agendas as part
of a reflexive union modernization that acknowledges the need to rethink pri-
orities in a changing labour market. Findlay and Warhurst (2011) argue that this
learning agenda has become a new tool in the union toolkit for multiple union
strategies; both the organizing model and the servicing model of unionism may
incorporate a learning agenda. However, these authors assert that the learning
agenda is more associated with a mutual gains perspective (with employers) and
is not an oppositional kind of unionism. Moreover, Rainbird and Stuart (2011)
point out that the learning agenda in the UK has not been a union initiative
as such, but rather a response to state initiatives for promoting skill upgrading.
In the same vein, Rainbird and Stuart assert that other formal collective agree-
ments related to lifelong learning remain uncommon in the UK.
The Norwegian competence reform and trade union

initiatives for lifelong learning
Following the economic downturn in the late 1980s and early 1990s, trade
unions and employers in Norway had to find a middle ground in wage settle-
ments, and it was during this period that skill and education enhancement came
to the fore in policy debates in Norway as one of the elements in what has
become known as the ‘solidarity alternative’ (Hågensen, 2005). Stuart and Teige
(2010) argue that the LO had a key political role in promoting lifelong learn-
ing in the mid-1990s. At the confederation level, the strategy of political action
and lobbying (Frege & Kelly, 2003) for lifelong learning was thus emerging.
Following a suggestion by the LO, a public committee was set up in 1996–1997
to work towards a joint action plan for skill enhancement in the workplace, the
so-called ‘Buer Committee’. An important recommendation from the green
paper (KUD, 1997) prepared by the committee was that work experience would
count as prior learning for admission to higher education. Furthermore, the
committee recommended a statutory right to educational leave for employees
interested in taking CE courses. In line with the LO’s action plan, the commit-
tee also recommended that the Norwegian Educational Loan Fund should begin
to offer loans and grants to adult workers in CE. This was soon implemented,
and the white paper entitled Competence Reform was published in 1998 as a fur-
ther development of the lifelong learning agenda (KUD, 1998).
Hagen and Skule (2008) argue that the competence reform had impor-
tant effects in the Norwegian work and educational systems. The reform
strengthened adult education through statutory rights to primary and second-
ary education, a statutory right to leave from work for education and more
flexibility for adult education from the Norwegian Educational Loan Fund.
Moreover, the so-called Competence Development Programme has led to a
number of new training opportunities instigated by the state (Døving et al.,
2006). However, lifelong learning as a union strategy also extended to partner-
ships with employer organizations, even in the years before the competence
reform. A major bargaining breakthrough was that employers agreed to take
responsibility for funding CE and training through the Basic Agreement,
Section 18–3 (NHO & LO, 2014) as part of the negotiations in 1994 (Stuart
& Teige, 2010). This remains an item in the Basic Agreement between the
LO and the NHO. However, the employers’ responsibility for CE remains
limited to courses that are ‘in accordance with company needs’ (NHO &
LO, 2014, Section 18–3) and not necessarily CE that is in the broader inter-
est of the employee. In an employability perspective, the Basic Agreement
is thus oriented towards internal employability by securing skill enhancement
that decreases the risk of redundancy for employees. It also stipulates that the
employer has the power to choose who will receive CE and the type of CE
required. In this way, Section 18–3 of the Basic Agreement does not express
an explicit need for concrete union initiatives for CE.
In the mid-1990s, there were also examples of education as a reason for
industrial action. In 1996, the Electrician and IT workers union went on strike
for 56 days to achieve better rights to any training, to be paid for by employers
(Hagen & Skule, 2008). However, the strike was unsuccessful, as the employ-
ers refused to accept the premise that the individual worker could choose the
type of training/CE (Stuart & Teige, 2010). The employers rather insisted
that the training/CE had to meet the concrete needs of the employer. Teige
and Stuart point out that the strike showed how difficult it would be to get
employers to fund CE. The strike also illustrates the dilemmas of CE as a way
of securing external employability. At the same time, the strike showed the
potential for lifelong learning unionism within the LO.
A crucial bottleneck for lifelong learning as part of a union agenda in the
late 1990s was the issue of co-funding of CE that would grant more power to
the employee (Payne, 2006). Who would pay for CE, and was there a place for
funding mechanisms in concrete bargaining deals where both employers and
employees would have to concede other priorities? As part of the competence
reform in the late 1990s, the Government recommended shared funding solu-
tions between the social partners, the state and the individual (Payne, 2006).
Even though the LO was positive to the idea of putting lifelong learning on
bargaining agendas, the former leader of LO, Yngve Hågensen (2005), has
described the disputes between sectoral unions on this issue. Stuart and Teige
(2010) also claim that the greatest challenge for the competence reform was the
trickling down of the idea of lifelong learning as a union strategy to the sectoral
level. For example, the Norwegian Chemical Workers’ Association and the
Norwegian Iron and Metal Workers Union did not want to prioritize funding
mechanisms for CE at the expense of the wage struggle. Other unions, such
as the Electricians and IT Workers’ Union, the Norwegian Graphic Workers’
Federation and the FLT were more sympathetic to the idea of making CE a top
priority in bargaining. Given the discrepancies between its federations, the LO
had to give priority to wage struggle and demands for a fifth holiday week in
their negotiations with the NHO in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Hågensen,
2005). After many years of wage moderation, the majority of federations in the
LO were against the idea that education would be set against wages.
Partly as a response to the disputes between sectoral unions, the framework
negotiations between the LO and the NHO placed more emphasis on work-
related learning than formal education in the period following the competence
reform. The negotiations continued to emphasize skill enhancement that was

instrumental in maintaining or improving internal employability, ensuring that
members kept skill levels up to date as required by their employers. Payne
(2006) argues that it was easy for the social partners to reach a consensus on
work-related skills, while funding for formal education was more demand-
ing. Although there were internal disputes within the LO on the matter of
CE funding, there was a more general negative attitude in the NHO. Payne
(2006) states that the NHO refused to pay for CE that did not directly meet the
immediate needs of the employers, and employers were also sceptical of grant-
ing time off to pursue CE that might make their employees attractive to other
employers. According to Bowman (2005), the combination of this opposition
from the employers’ side and the split position within the LO eliminated much
of the potential of the competence reform as a platform for lifelong learning as
a dominating union strategy.
Improving the access to CE remains modest as a strategy at the LO level, and
we would not label the LO’s strategies as a case of lifelong learning unionism.
The LO nevertheless supports CE initiatives from members through modest
scholarships from the LO Education Fund,1 but LO officials admit that the
confederation is in a development phase of revitalization:
We [LO] have not completed our profle when it comes to continuing

education . . . we are in the process of discovering and realizing that com-
petence enhancement should be accessible to all [members].2
It is also important to remember that the LO as a confederation mainly oper-

ates through political action, coalition building and international links (Frege
& Kelly, 2003), while it is more up to the sectoral federations to decide on spe-
cifc organizing strategies, servicing strategies and concrete bargaining through
partnerships and struggles with the employers’ side:
[i]t’s difcult for the LO to dictate what the federations should prior-
itize . . . giving priority to CE in collective agreements is interesting . . . but
ultimately it’s about priorities . . . it’s about diferent ways to ensure
income and employment.3
However, some federations within the LO system have given high priority to
CE. In the next section, we argue that the FLT can be seen as an example of
lifelong learning unionism.
The CE fund of the FLT and NHO: lifelong learning

unionism for real?
The FLT was founded in 1951. As part of the LO, the association emerged to
organize mid-management and technical staff in their struggle for professional
rights. Previous to this, these workers had been organized outside the LO, as
the idea of organizing management was controversial in a union perspective.
At the same time, it was important for managers in intermediate positions to
fight for their rights as workers, and they therefore found it appropriate to be
part of the LO. However, Wilhelmsen (2011, p. 13) argues that education
became an important organizational principle for the FLT from the 1970s
onwards, as higher qualifications often implied a transfer from a different
union in the workplace to the FLT. At the same time, vertical agreements
made it difficult for the FLT to organize some of the highly educated groups
of workers, including engineers.
However, it was not only organizing principles that made education an
important policy area for the FLT. The members often found themselves in an
‘educational dilemma’ because they did not necessarily have the formal qualifi-
cations considered sufficient to fill the role of a foreman or mid-level manager.
For example, a typical career step would be from skilled operator to foreman,
which involved work that required higher organizational or managerial skills.
It is therefore not surprising that the FLT has been one of the federations in the
LO which has emphasized the need for adult learning (Wilhelmsen, 2011). In
addition to promoting social mobility among members, the federation has also
been a proponent of strong social partnerships and strong workplace interac-
tion and co-determination between employers and employees in a way that
reflects the ‘Nordic’ model of work organization (Gustavsen, 2007).
Wilhelmsen (2011) writes that the former FLT leader, Magnus Midtbø,
was almost alone in pursuing CE while other federations chose different union
priorities. As part of the difficult 1992 negotiations, Midtbø managed to secure
a deal with the NHO where NOK 0.30 per hour was allocated to a fund for
CE. Wilhelmsen (2011, p. 69) refers to the conclusion from the negotiations:
‘The parties agree that the future of the companies will depend on maintenance
and renewal of employee skills’. It is also stated that: ‘the fund implies that an
amount per hour will go to an education fund meant to be available for FLT
members that are covered by this agreement’. In the negotiations, the FLT
was granted responsibility to administer the fund, despite the fact that it was
co-funded by the concessions made by both the employer and the employee
side. The lawyer who represented the NHO at the time4 points out that the
FLT was given this role because the scheme was controversial within the NHO
system.
The FLT education fund has been renewed as an item in the collective
agreement between the FLT and the NHO in bargaining rounds for 25 years
and amounted to NOK 1.10 per hour for each FLT member in 2016 (NHO
et al., 2016). This amounts to NOK 2,145 per year per member and a total
of about NOK 20 million per year. Grants from the fund can be as large as
NOK 50,0005 per year, and members can receive grants several times. In fact,
the FLT encourages members to apply several times for different courses that
they can combine as diplomas or university degrees. By 2017, close to 7,600
grants from the FLT/NHO CE fund had been awarded. In 2016, 499 out of
775 applicants received grants.6 FLT officials state that most members have
received a grant as long as the applications have been in accordance with
the guidelines. A typical reason for rejection is that a member applies for a
type of course that the employer has to cover because of Section 18–3 of the
Basic Agreement between the LO and the NHO. As such, the FLT/NHO
CE Fund is more important for external employability as the aim of the fund
is to improve general qualifications. According to the statutes,7 the aims of
the FLT/NHO CE fund include:
[t]o help to eliminate inequalities and promote gender equality so that

education can take place regardless of geographical conditions, age, gender,
economic or social situation.
Unlike a situation where the employer chooses the person that will receive
support for CE, the FLT/NHO CE fund supports education according to the
preferences of the members. Although access to the fund is limited to members
with a collective agreement at their workplace, support can also be granted to
those who have lost their job/collective agreement within the last two years.
The scheme remains unique in Norway and the Nordic countries in general
(Olberg et al., 2017). It is also unique in international terms, as co-funding
of substantial CE grants has not been a typical feature of the learning agenda
in industrial relations (Winterton, 2006; Stuart, 2007). The only parallel in
Norway is the Norwegian Organization of Managers and Executives (Lederne),
a union that negotiated the same bargaining deal with the NHO as the FLT did
in 1992 (Wilhelmsen, 2011).8
Addisco: organizational restructuring and building a

servicing strategy
Within a few years of the establishment of the FLT/NHO CE fund in 1992,
the fund grew in popularity, and it became clear that the FLT had to embark
upon organizational restructuring (Frege & Kelly, 2003), as the funding mech-
anism itself did not suffice as a broader strategy of lifelong learning (Underthun
et al., 2017). In 1999, the FLT established Addisco as an education company
owned by the union.
Addisco was established to develop and offer education services to meet
members’ needs. The organizational restructuring was part of building a
stronger servicing strategy for lifelong learning within the FLT. The company
is currently offering and arranging courses for FLT members9 through for-
mal cooperation with higher education institutions such as Bergen University
College, the University of Bergen and Stockholm University. Addisco also has
the role of the formal administrator of the FLT/NHO CE fund. This means that
Addisco not only provides services to members who choose courses through
Addisco but also to those who prefer to enrol in courses outside the Addisco
system. Addisco currently owns the education in collaboration with higher
education institutions, as well as the ‘AddiscoLearning’ platform. Addisco’s
principles are very much in line with the overall statutes of the CE fund, and it
places a particular emphasis on the importance of formal qualifications through
obtaining higher education credits. Moreover, as part of its servicing strategy,
Addisco helps FLT members with all the administrative chores of combining
CE with full-time jobs. Teaching is largely based on intensive weekends, and
Addisco takes care of all travel arrangements, university enrolment and read-
ing lists. Addisco also promotes collaboration between students. Wilhelmsen
(2011) argues that an important premise for establishing Addisco was that this
would build a stronger ‘knowledge’ brand, which would be important in both
a political sense and as an organizing strategy. We agree with this and would
add that the establishment of Addisco as an organizational extension of the FLT
represents a revitalizing step towards lifelong learning unionism.
Lifelong learning as an organizing strategy

As an organizing strategy, the focus on lifelong learning in the FLT seems to
have been successful. Bergene et al. (2013) argue that the FLT/NHO CE fund
is an important explanation for the growth of the federation in recent decades.
In a union revitalization perspective, it is particularly interesting to see how
important the focus on lifelong learning has been to younger members of the
FLT (see Figure 9.1). Whereas older members are more concerned about tra-
ditional union values such as solidarity and family traditions of joining a union,
the younger members seem to have reflected upon the importance of access to
CE opportunities.
One of the FLT members we interviewed was particularly interested in
formal qualifications and external employability as effects of CE:
I discovered the educational opportunities [in the FLT/Addisco] and I

see the way society is changing . . . you get clear evidence that you need
to have education if you are going to change jobs. They look at your
papers . . . so I’m taking these courses to strengthen my competitiveness
in the future.
(Quote from Underthun et al., 2017)
In a union revitalization perspective (Findlay & Warhurst, 2011), the lifelong

learning strategy of the FLT/Addisco leans more towards a servicing strat-
egy than an organizing strategy,10 but in interviews with members and staf
of the FLT, we also had the clear impression that the union wanted to build
a movement based on the idea of social mobility, employability and lifelong
learning. As such, the member who receives a CE grant is not only a student
of CE but also carries the idea of lifelong learning as collective empowerment.
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
20–24 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 50–59 60–64 65–69
Insurance Solidarity Education Family tradition
Figure 9.1 The most important reasons for joining the FLT union (Bergene et al.,
2013) (N=3250)11
The strategy of conceding wages for an education fund clearly also requires a
constant legitimization strategy, and the building of a lifelong learning move-
ment has obviously been an important means of legitimizing the wage concession
within the FLT and the LO. The FLT has also managed to retain the CE fund
in the collective agreement with the NHO despite a lack of enthusiasm from
the NHO for a broader co-funding scheme for CE (Underthun et al., 2017).
But what about the efects on social mobility and employability? Based on a
survey of FLT members, Underthun et al. (2017) show that those who take CE
courses generally score higher on upward employability and external employ-
ability. In other words, members who have completed CE courses think it
is easier to fnd work elsewhere, at least in a similar kind of job. Although
important in the internal legitimization of the lifelong learning union strategy,
this fnding also explains some of the scepticism from employers. To them,
CE represents a risk of losing employees, although it could also imply higher
productivity and important skills for the frm (cf. Becker, 1994). Underthun
et al. also fnd that the CE fund and Addisco as a service mechanism for CE
seem to attract workers with lower levels of education compared to those
that have funded CE from other sources. In other words, those with lower
educational backgrounds are more likely to complete CE courses through the
FLT/Addisco than other funding sources and higher education institutions.
Although the efect is moderate, we would argue that it is important in a union
revitalization perspective, as union initiatives can counter patterns of unequal
access to lifelong learning.
Concluding discussion
In this chapter, we have discussed the prospects of a type of union revitaliza-
tion that heralds the importance of lifelong learning as a way of ensuring the
employability of workers in more flexible labour markets. Lifelong learning
can be integrated in union strategies and priorities in different ways (cf. Frege
& Kelly, 2003). As an organizing strategy, lifelong learning unionism can be a
way of building awareness and identities around how CE can empower mem-
bers. Enhancing qualifications is of course a way of formal empowerment, but
the lifelong learning agenda can also be about building a movement based
on the emancipatory power of education. By building this kind of move-
ment, the members of a union also become responsible for carrying the ideals
and principles related to why lifelong learning is important, and the idea of
a movement is also a way of legitimizing lifelong learning as a union prior-
ity. As a servicing strategy, lifelong learning unionism implies a union that
builds robust systems for facilitating education in a way that makes member-
ship attractive to existing and new members. As such, this corresponds to the
organizational restructuring necessary to transform a union to include a more
integrated lifelong learning agenda. Lifelong learning unionism can also be
expressed through promoting education in collective bargaining agreements,
and in this chapter, we have shown that this can be achieved through conces-
sions from both sides of the negotiating table. A somewhat less risky form of
lifelong learning unionism is political action, understood as ways in which trade
unions promote political change to support adult education. It is neverthe-
less an important strategy for initiating change. The Norwegian competence
reform was dependent on this kind of initiative from the LO. Finally, lifelong
learning unionism typically also includes coalition building, both in a political
sense and in the sense of building partnerships with higher education insti-
tutions in order to create new spaces for lifelong learning. International links
include networks with other unions in other contexts that also promote life-
long learning, as well as links to higher education institutions abroad.
Although lifelong learning unionism may include all these different forms
of union strategy, they do not necessarily exist at the same time. The strategies
can also vary from simply being responsive, for instance by responding to legal
changes at the national level (cf. Winterton, 2006), or proactive, as exemplified
by the FLT’s initiative to include the funding of CE in the collective agree-
ment with the NHO in 1992. In a Nordic perspective, it is also interesting
to see initiatives for lifelong learning as an example of compromise in industrial
relations. The FLT/NHO CE fund was established in the middle of an eco-
nomic crisis with limited prospects for wage increases. The social parties were
willing to make concessions within a bargaining context that was known as
the solidarity alternative (Hågensen, 2005). However, only the FLT and the
Norwegian Organization of Managers and Executives took advantage of the
bargaining that led to the establishment of sizeable funding mechanisms for CE
in collective agreements. The accord was an important spark in transforming
the FLT as a ‘lifelong learning union’, leading to organizational restructuring,

new coalitions and, importantly for a union, more and younger members.
The case study of the FLT also suggests that lifelong learning unionism may
improve the employability of members, thus facilitating job changes and labour
market flexibility.
As a case of lifelong learning as a bargaining item that implies financial
concessions from employers and employees, the FLT/NHO CE fund is not
representative of Norwegian industrial relations in general. The employer
side has been reluctant to engage in negotiations because they argue that the
responsibility for funding CE is already regulated through the Basic Agreement
between the LO and the NHO (NHO & LO, 2014). On the employee side,
it has been challenging to balance lifelong learning with traditional strug-
gles related to wages, pensions and holidays (Payne, 2006). As Payne argues,
there have been clear limits to lifelong learning in industrial relations. At the
same time, political efforts to promote CE have had an important impact on
the Norwegian work and education system (Hagen & Skule, 2008). Adults
now have a statuary right to primary and secondary education. Employees
also have the right to educational leave, and the Norwegian State Educational
Loan Fund has become adapted to adult education. In February 2017, the
Government, the social partners and the voluntary sector launched the new
National Competence Policy Strategy. It is too early to say how strong the
initiative will become or how much the social partners are willing to invest,
but it is clear that lifelong learning has become a major impetus for union
revitalization.
Notes
1 www.lo.no/Om-LO/Artikler-om-LO/LOs-utdanningsfond/.
2 Interview with LO ofcial, 1 February 2016.
3 Interview with LO ofcial, 2 February 2016.
4 Interview with NHO Lawyer, March 2016.
5 Corresponds to about EUR 5,200 per year.
6 Data from the FLT administration, personal communication in January 2017.
7 The guidelines are available at www.ft.no.
8 Like FLT/Addisco, Lederne has also taken initiatives to build coalitions with higher
education institutions, for instance with Oslo Metropolitan University.
9 Addisco also admits non-FLT members to CE courses, but the bulk of the students
enrolled in Addisco courses are FLT members.
10 See https://ft.no/artikler/personal-benefts/ for a description of membership benefts.
11 ‘Education’ is based on the question ‘How important was the access to continuing
education schemes to your decision to join FLT?’
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Chapter 10
Tackling increasing
marginalization
Can support-side approaches
contribute to work inclusion?
Kjetil Frøyland, Angelika Schafft and
Øystein Spjelkavik
Introduction
Labour market participation, self-sufficiency and a small population passively
receiving welfare benefits have long been key policy goals across the Nordic
welfare states. These states are characterized by an active labour market policy
as one major ideology, high levels of employment among women and the
elderly, and a large proportion of people working part-time. Public authori-
ties have had a more active and responsible role than social parties and the
labour market in promoting work inclusion, but formal agreements between
the social parties such as “Inclusive working life”1 in Norway and its Danish
counterpart “The accommodating labour market”2 also commit them to
promoting and increasing work participation. Although the Nordic welfare
states are particularly generous with social security and rights-based benefit
schemes (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, 2017),
increasing levels of motivation and work ethics still prevail. There is a strong
consensus among the social parties that the maintenance of the Nordic model
presupposes a population actively involved in all aspects of societal processes,
not least in working life. Nordic Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP) are
grounded in a belief that work participation reduces poverty and inequality,
increases the welfare level of society as a whole and that everybody who is
capable ought to participate in work and contribute to the value production
of society (Hvinden, 2008; Halvorsen & Hvinden, 2009; Stjernø & Øverbye,
2012). As such, active citizenship through work participation is the norm in
the Nordic countries (Ministry of Labour, 2012).
However, despite the presence of ALMPs, commitments by the social par-
ties and a strong work ethos, the percentage of the working age population
outside the labour market has grown. From 1995 to 2010, the proportion
of the Norwegian working age population who received various forms of
incapacity benefits increased from 13 to 20% (Ministry of Finance, 2010).
Whereas the disability rates among the elderly decreased slightly, there was
a clear increase within the age group 18–24. An increasing number of young
people with mental health issues drop out of school and become marginalized
Tackling increasing marginalization 195
(Anvik & Gustavsen, 2012), and this trend is shared across the other Nordic
countries (Wulf-Andersen et al., 2016). Even though many people with men-
tal illness want to work and unemployment rates have been comparatively
low,3 an increasing number are offered disability benefits (Berge & Falkum,
2013; Kinn et al., 2016). The various Welfare and Employment Services
across the Nordic countries are now facing problems in helping clients with
comprehensive support needs into employment (Spjelkavik et al., 2011a). In
Norway this situation is further backed up by OECD data (2009) showing that
the Norwegian disability employment rate is mediocre compared to OECD
countries and below other Nordic countries. Thus, the Nordic welfare states –
characterized by dialogue, collaboration between the social parties and an
active welfare state – are now facing increased difficulties achieving work par-
ticipation and citizenship for all.
Can the Nordic welfare states perform better? In this chapter we discuss pre-
requisites, conditions and opportunities for improved quality of work inclusion.
We start out with the supply-side oriented model of Vocational Rehabilitation
(VR) that has dominated the Nordic countries, where the idea is to train and
prepare people with reduced work capacity to be job-ready before entering the
labour market. We then focus on demand-side approaches that pay attention
to the role of employers and their needs for compensation and support. We
argue that neither of these approaches have so far been successful. Instead we
point towards a “support-side approach” that seems to be emerging within the
employment and welfare services. This support-side approach is characterized
by public services that more proactively support clients and collaborate closer
with employers. We discuss possible advantages and challenges related to this
approach, as well as its potential to contribute to a more inclusive working life
in the Nordic countries.
Observations and analyses in this chapter are based on data and findings
from various evaluations and research and development projects from the last
decades, exploring approaches to improve work inclusion of vulnerable citizens
(carried out by the public employment and welfare services in Norway and
other Nordic countries). Several findings from these studies were summed up
by a group of researchers and practitioners in 2014, coining the concept “inclu-
sion skills competence” (Frøyland & Spjelkavik, 2014). This concept implies
increased attention to the role of the support system in the use of ordinary
workplaces as a means to achieve work inclusion for the more disadvantaged
and vulnerable jobless citizens.
The challenge of work inclusion

ALMPs aim to transition working-age beneficiaries off passive benefits and into
the labour market. The content of ALMPs differs between countries and in
their target groups (Frøyland et al., 2018); however, they often include groups
with low employment rates such as low-skilled or poorly educated individuals,
196 Kjetil Frøyland et al.
young citizens with significant problems, people with disabilities, disadvan-

taged women or immigrants, or those near retirement age. A common trend
in the more recent international ALMPs is the inclusion of more marginalized
target groups as well (Van Berkel et al., 2017a).
Lessons from supply-side and demand-side approaches

In the Nordic countries, as in many Western countries, the traditional main-
stream strategy for labour market inclusion of people with substantial support
needs has been vocational training in discrete, sheltered facilities (Frøyland
& Spjelkavik, 2014). The basic idea of “train then place” is to increase cli-
ents’ productivity and employability, allowing them to fit in with employers’
anticipated expectations. In practice this is often done by teaching clients “the
rules of working life” and “the importance of being motivated for work”,
trying to raise their self-awareness of how to interact with others, how to
avoid inappropriate behaviour, and to understand employer expectations. In
sum, a common feature of ALMPs and corresponding activation programs is
that they are based on “supply-side fundamentalism” linking joblessness and
marginalization almost exclusively to individual failure and lack of employabil-
ity (Peck & Theodore, 2000; McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005; Bonvin & Galster,
2010; Ingold & Stuart, 2015). As such, supply-side approaches belong to the
“medical model” of VR. Based on the assumption that employers’ preferences
are to hire the most productive workforce available, supply-side approaches
aim at repairing and preparing the individual to become ready for work.
Assessment tests are used to decide each individual’s level of work capacity,
their entitlement to temporary benefits and, as a basis for referral to more or
less compulsory participation in activation and qualification programs, aiming
to improve individual employability.
However, the intended effect of such supply-side-oriented approaches has
been poor (Eichhorst et al., 2008; Ministry of Labour, 2012, p. 6; Hauss,
2014; Martin, 2015). Instead of reducing exclusion, there has been a tendency
towards permanent exclusion, illustrated by a growing number of young
people on disability benefits (NAV, 2017). Activating individuals with supply-
side approaches has had little impact on the overall transition from passivity
to paid jobs.
Due to the inefficiency of merely focusing on the supply side, there has been
an increased focus on employers’ needs as well as their social responsibilities, in
particular, approaches aimed at activating employers by measures such as legal
obligations, incentives and various kinds of service and assistance to employers
(Falkum et al., 2014; Frøyland et al., 2018). In Norway, a tripartite agreement
on Inclusive Working Life (IA) was launched in 2001, and its latest renewal
was in 2014. One of its major objectives is to increase the employment rate of
people with disabilities by supporting and strengthening employers through a
variety of support measures available for companies that sign an IA agreement.
One example of such measures is a personal IA contact officer who “is assigned
at the respective local workplace centre to build a working relationship through
which helpful information can be made available in a timely way to employers”
(OECD, 2009, p. 24). Evaluations of the Norwegian tripartite agreement have
shown that although some companies work actively to reduce sick leave and
exclusion of employees with acquired impairments, there are hardly any activi-
ties aimed at recruitment of people with disabilities (Ose et al., 2009, 2015;
Ingebrigtsen & Moe, 2015).
In Denmark, employment policies and the delivery of ALMPs have been
delegated to public job centres at the municipal level since 2007. Whereas
Norway strengthened the role of the social parties through the Inclusive
Working Life agreement, in Denmark the role of the social parties in the
formulation and administration of employment services was marginalized
through this process (Ingold & Valizade, 2017, p. 532). Still, recent Danish
employment policy reforms have turned towards more employer-oriented
measures rather than qualification and guidance as a part of training courses
for clients. Companies are expected to play a greater role in helping disadvan-
taged people towards employment (Jakobsen et al., 2015, p. 34). This means
that Danish ALMPs as well have added an increasing interest in demand-
side approaches to the dominating supply-side focus. Danish employers are
apparently more likely to participate actively in the delivery of ALMPs than
employers in other countries (Bredgaard & Halkjær, 2016, p. 50). However,
Ingold and Valizade (2017) found that although the literature suggests that
Danish ALMP agencies have the potential to increase employers’ recruitment
of disadvantaged groups, they mainly provide information about jobseek-
ers to companies and about job vacancies to jobseekers instead of acting as
“matchmakers”. The study also found that the effect of ALMPs on recruiting
disadvantaged groups was rather marginal.
Employers’ attitudes and experiences

Studies of employers’ willingness and attitudes to employ jobseekers with dis-
abilities or mental health issues have been carried out in many countries (i.e.
Hand & Tryssenaar, 2006; Waterhouse et al., 2010). These studies reveal that a
number of employers are willing to employ these individuals, but they fear that
they do not have the required level of knowledge, understanding and ability, in
particular regarding vulnerable employees’ social and emotional skills (such as
not being able to handle critique, lack of flexibility and tantrum control, trou-
ble with socializing or lack of motivation). They also fear that these employees
will require a lot of time-consuming attention, that they will have poor work-
ing capacity or be unstable and frequently absent.
Holt et al. (2013) found that approximately one-quarter of Danish employ-
ers believe that the employment of people with mental illness makes colleagues
insecure, is a burden on their employees’ social work environment and is a
financial burden on the employer. Around a third believe that the employment
of people with a mental disorder means poorer quality of work. At the same
time, analyses show that over half of the businesses have some sort of objection
to recruiting persons with mental disorders (Holt et al., 2013, p. 22).
Andreassen (2009) shows that Norwegian employers consider it to be their
responsibility to facilitate employees who acquire a disability while being
employed, but they do so to a much lesser degree when it comes to the
recruitment of new employees. Falkum (2012) found that employers were
afraid of difficulties maintaining production goals because of a possible lack
of capability among disabled employees to manage tasks and remain stable at
work. Employers also had worries about social and emotional issues, and about
costs associated with hiring persons with such challenges. Some employers fear
that hiring an employee with a disability will affect the work environment in
a negative way by placing high demands on colleagues and contributing to
dissatisfaction and stigma (Schafft & Spjelkavik, 2014).
Several studies have shown that companies’ “own positive experiences” and
“needs of their work force” are among the circumstances that lead them to
consider employing (more) people with reduced workability (Unger, 2002;
Lauveng, 2008; Jakobsen et al., 2015). Jakobsen et al. found that businesses
that already had employees with reduced work ability expressed that they
considered hiring persons with reduced work ability more often than other
companies did. A majority of businesses expressed that public financial sup-
port for employing a person with reduced work ability also made a difference.
However, lack of financial support did not explain why some companies failed
to hire people with reduced work capacity. According to Jakobsen et al., the
main reasons given were the insufficiency of required qualifications, the need
for extra adjustments and follow up, or that employers were unsure whether
persons with reduced capacity would perform well. Lauveng (2008) found that
leaders (or managers) that have personal relationships with employees, friends
or relatives with mental illness are more willing to hire persons with such
diagnoses. Employers who have previously employed persons with disabilities
are also less likely to view such engagements as risky (Unger, 2002; Svalund &
Hansen, 2013; Falkum & Solberg, 2015).
Holt et al. (2013) revealed that more than 50% of small Danish private busi-
nesses had never been contacted by a job centre, and many had no knowledge
of applicable support schemes, such as the financing of in-house resources in
terms of a mentor for a person with reduced work ability. They also found a
positive correlation between whether the company had been contacted by a
job centre and whether they had a person employed with public support.
Other research has shown that jobseekers with high support needs are more
likely to find jobs in companies characterized by a culture of inclusion and
diversity, and an atmosphere characterized by recognition and concern (Kirsh,
2000a, 2000b). Gilbride et al. (2003) reported that employers who are open to
hiring people with disabilities are characterized by openness to diversity and
equal treatment of disabled and non-disabled employees, a focus on seeing

the capabilities of an employee instead of their impairments, and the ability
to manage and supervise a diverse workforce. According to Vornholt et al.
(2013), these employers have important roles in the socialization of individu-
als with disabilities since they represent the organizational culture and serve as
models for the employees.
A small number of studies suggest that inclusion of vulnerable persons can
actually contribute to an improvement in the work environment. Hartnett
et al. (2011) claim that employers can benefit from engaging employees with
disabilities via an increased ability to retain quality employees in the company,
an increase in company profitability, workforce diversity and avoidance of costs
associated with hiring and training new employees. These findings also suggest
that work inclusion can be viewed as a learning process for both employer and
employee. Work inclusion can improve the organizational climate and cul-
ture by improving interactions with co-workers, increasing overall company
morale and bettering overall company productivity (Solovieva et al., 2011).
For employers, hiring persons with mental health issues may improve their
leadership role (Ramvi et al., 2013). An inclusive work environment is not
only a prerequisite for the inclusion of vulnerable citizens but can also be a
result of it. Diversity in itself can contribute to more tolerance and wellbeing
throughout the work organization. Experiences with an employee who often
struggles can help the management and colleagues become more capable of
coping with other employees’ problems (Schafft, 2014).
Reading the literature leaves one with the impression that while employ-
ers in general are willing to employ people with disabilities, many of them
have insufficient knowledge of support schemes (Holt et al., 2013; Jakobsen
et al., 2015). Others may have the knowledge, but it has not “translated into
workplace practices and cultures” (Rudstam et al., 2013, p. 44). In Norway as
in Denmark, corporate social responsibility mainly seems to mean prevention
of absence among already employed persons and not inclusion of the jobless
(Andreassen, 2009; Falkum, 2012).
The emergence of support-side approaches

In recent years there has been a growing interest in changing the Norwegian
ALMP towards a more systematic utilization of ordinary workplaces based on
a “place then train” approach instead of pre-vocational training (Ministry of
Labour, 2012; Frøyland & Spjelkavik, 2014). Instead of the widely used place-
ment approaches in activity measures, several have been launched where actors
in the employment and welfare services follow up both clients and employers in
situ (Spjelkavik, 2016; Spjelkavik et al., 2016; Frøyland & Spjelkavik, 2017). In
addition to the supply-side focus, a more systematic demand-side focus seems
to be under implementation. There is growing attention towards developing
a working life that opens up for diversity and better understanding of how
work participation can be a means to avoid marginalization, social inequality

and poverty. There is a greater recognition that meaningful work can improve
opportunities for recovery, social inclusion and citizenship (Antonovsky, 1987;
Bell et al., 1996; Borg et al., 2013).
Overall, this recognition has directed attention towards the need for devel-
oping social identity in work environments through facilitation and social
support, which in turn may increase work participation of people with support
needs. There is growing attention around supporting the actual workplace pro-
cesses in inclusion efforts. These developments are at least partially inspired by
approaches to work inclusion, including various Supported Employment (SE)
programs that hold neither the jobless individuals nor the employers responsi-
ble for the lack of inclusion, but rather emphasize the role and responsibility of
the support services.
Bond et al. (2001) defined SE as an “approach to helping people with
disabilities participate as much as possible in the competitive labour market,
working in jobs they prefer, with the level of professional help they need”
(p. 313). Others have described SE as a “way to help those with disabilities who
are unable to successfully gain or retain employment on their own to enter
the labour force with dignity and inclusion with others in society” (Wehman,
2012, p. 139). SE not only aims for quick placement or job inclusion but also
job retention and achieving full community integration (Riddell et al., 1999).
Different versions of SE have developed, targeting various client groups such
as persons with serious mental challenges, learning disabilities, autism, as well as
other kinds of disabilities. Although often referred to as “the SE method”, SE
also has quite a varied content in the Nordic countries (Spjelkavik et al., 2011b;
Spjelkavik, 2012). Frequently used versions of SE include a five-stage pro-
cess developed by the European Union of Supported Employment (EUSE),
Customized Employment (CE) and Individual Placement and Support (IPS).
A wide range of studies have documented excellent results in job inclusion
approaches based on SE (Burns et al., 2007; Bond et al., 2008; Cimera, 2011,
2012). Research on IPS has in particular produced documentation showing
good effects (Drake et al., 2012; Luciano et al., 2014; Nøkleby et al., 2017).
For example, Bond et al. (2008) found that the employment rate was 61% for
IPS compared to 23% for controls based on an analysis of 11 randomized con-
trolled trials. However, an evaluation of IPS in Norway (Reme et al., 2016)
showed that the national results – as for Europe in general – were not as good
as the results in the United States. The reasons for these differences have not
yet been properly investigated, but elements such as the welfare state model,
laws and regulations, and access to available jobs are all likely to be relevant.
Bonfils et al. (2017) claimed that there is a need for more comparative studies
to find out what kind of impact a welfare state model has on the implementa-
tion of this particular approach.
The “SE method” as such is not our main focus of interest, but some key
characteristics shared by the different versions of SE are relevant. First is the
understanding that work and well-matched labour market participation “is

considered beneficial to health and well-being, and is seen as a route to pos-
sible recovery from mental illness as well as to normalization and equal worth”
(Frøyland et al., 2018, p. 10). Second, work in SE means employment in
the ordinary labour market with “valued roles” and competitive wages, not
in sheltered workshops. The major target group is disadvantaged jobseekers,
including “hard-to-place” vulnerable citizens with more complex challenges
and support needs, whom employers consider risky to employ (Frøyland &
Spjelkavik, 2014). Furthermore, work capacity is viewed as a relational con-
cept shaped and transformed by the united resources and efforts of the person,
their co-workers, employer and support givers as well as the requirements of
the job. In addition, and probably most importantly, SE follows a “place then
train” approach, rapidly addressing workplaces and matching jobseekers to
suitable and ordinary work tasks in line with a “job fit principle”, while at the
same time providing long-term quality support at the workplaces. The support
system is characterized by simultaneous interventions from several possible
agencies such as the employment services, mental health agencies or others,
depending on the challenges and support needs of the individual or the work-
place. The support system targets the individuals, co-workers and employers,
with the aim of facilitating productive and sustainable work relationships.
Some international researchers have advocated for approaches that combine
demand-side and supply-side strategies to operate together in order to inte-
grate the most disadvantaged citizens in work (McQuaid & Lindsay, 2002; Ray
et al., 2009; Goodwin-Smith & Hutchinson, 2014).
The support-side approach adds more comprehensive and fine-grained ideas
about how to facilitate learning and inclusion at the actual workplace to supply-
and demand-side approaches. Whereas supply-side placement practices are
mostly aimed at the individual to be trained, taught and qualified, support-side
approaches hold that employers, HR managers and co-workers also have a
need for learning, and that approaches for inclusion of people with compre-
hensive needs are not sufficient if they do not address the work organization as
a whole (Schafft, 2005).
Utilizing the workplace as a means of learning

As we showed earlier, knowledge about and experience with people with dis-
abilities seems to reduce negative attitudes towards the inclusion of this group.
Co-workers learn what it takes to include a colleague with special needs, as
well as what they do not need to fear. It is therefore vital that employers
and businesses gain experience in managing the physical, psychological and
social problems of their employees in a constructive way, and that they become
familiar with jobseekers who have substantial support needs.
Work experience placements can represent important arenas for training
and learning for the individual and the employer/work organization, as well
as a means for trying out different kinds of work and tasks, and/or for deter-
mining the right workplace for the individual. A tailor-made job can involve
developing work tasks that take into account the individuals’ needs for facilita-
tion and follow-up, and will contribute to mastery, participation and inclusion.
By trying different kinds of work and work environments, even an individual
without any work history can access opportunities to gain valuable work train-
ing, experience and competence that he or she would otherwise not have
gained. One of the strengths of work experience placement is that the job-
seeker is placed within a real work setting in a relationship with colleagues at
a workplace. For some young adults in particular, a placement like this might
be their first encounter with working life (Frøyland, 2016, 2018). Taking in
jobseekers to train in real job settings by working for free for a period of time
represents an opportunity for the employer and jobseeker to get to know each
other. Such relationships can serve as “door openers” that may lead to employ-
ment for jobseekers.
However, a placement in itself does not necessarily lead to employment.
Research shows that even though employers are often positive towards giv-
ing people with mental health or social challenges the opportunity for work
experience practice, they seldom hire them in paid jobs (Schafft & Spjelkavik,
2014; Ekspertgruppen, 2015; Spjelkavik, 2016; Hyggen, 2017). Most employ-
ers cannot facilitate successful learning processes on their own. In order for
placements to be successful and eventually lead to a job for vulnerable, disad-
vantaged or less productive citizens, the support-side approach focuses on the
need for well-functioning and accessible support services to make sure that
placements take the form of “place then train” and not just “place and pray”.
Comprehensive support is essential to avoid experiences of defeat for both client
and workplace.
The employment specialist as a facilitator

An essential feature of SE approaches is the role of employment specialists to
support and assist both the employer and the employee in finding jobs or work
tasks that represent a match between both parties’ interests and skills (EUSE,
2014). They provide professional guidance to the employee and the employer.
A long-term relationship of trust between the employee, the employer and the
employment specialist over a period of time after the job has been established
has been demonstrated as decisive for success (Frøyland & Spjelkavik, 2014).
Wage subsidies and other financial support schemes also play important roles,
but the major reason seems to be the affirmation that the employment specialist
retains a proactive role in the inclusion process, so that responsibility is not left
to employers alone (European Commission, 2011).
A study among a sample of Nordic employers revealed their need to receive
relevant information about the jobseeker, so as to be prepared for any potential
future problems (Spjelkavik et al., 2011a). A majority of them had experienced
that the person they hired was not that useful to the company in terms of
productivity, and that the company needed to spend extra resources on super-
vision and follow-up. Most companies, however, considered the benefits large
enough to keep them employed. The majority of these employers also had
observed that the employees themselves benefitted from being in the company
in terms of wellbeing, quality of life and personal development. The employers
felt that frequent visits to the workplace was an important prerequisite for the
employment specialist in order to be able to provide relevant advice, under-
stand the employee and the company, and to find out what actions could be
taken to solve practical problems.
In a Swedish study, Gustafsson et al. (2013) found that the employment
specialist played three important roles: a broker, a supervisor and a problem
solver. They also found that specialist effort in the follow-up work influenced
an employer’s willingness to cooperate. The approaches that employers per-
ceived as most successful were the creation of security, responsibility for the
workforce being conveyed and the pursuit of trust with employers.
Key concepts in Norwegian ALMP are recruitment assistance to employers
and employment assistance to jobseekers, and traditional ALMP is characterized
by matching jobseekers to available jobs, accompanied by limited follow-up
(Ekspertgruppen, 2015). Such assistance, which we have labelled “promotion
of job opportunities”, is better suited for jobseekers with minor support needs
and is insufficient when the jobseeker needs high levels of social follow-up and
practical adjustments, and/or when it is unclear what the appropriate work
tasks may be or how much the individual can work (Spjelkavik & Thingbø-
Støldal, 2014). Follow-up from this perspective means providing support
and time for the development of coping strategies and job matching in the
workplace. Table 10.1 illustrates the difference between the type of support
traditionally provided by the employment services and the kind of job devel-
opment that appears to be required for persons with substantial support needs
(Spjelkavik et al., 2016).
Job development in this perspective is about developing coping strategies as
well as working conditions so that the tasks are adapted to the individual, rather
Table 10.1 Two types of employment support

Promotion of job opportunities Job development
Obtain recruitment assignments Identify client’s interests and support needs
Identify the best candidate among Find suitable workplace, arena for
jobseekers development
Match and present candidates’ CVs Training, qualifcation at work
for employer
Interview Organize coping and natural supports
Appointment Appointment or education
than the individual being adapted to the tasks. The aim is to allow the individu-
als to develop on their own terms and to adjust the tasks in such a way that the
work relationship meets the needs of both employer and employee. Inclusion
is understood as individual learning and development in a relational process
that takes place in the interactions between employees in the workplace. An
inclusion process in a “place then train” perspective should not be under-
stood in terms of arranging job opportunities or competing for available jobs,
but rather as a development process where interpersonal relationships among
all employees in the workplace are important for the process of inclusion,
not just the relationship between the jobseeker and the employment specialist
(Folkenborg, 2014). The role of the employment specialist is not only to find
the right place for the individual but also to find job openings and recruit-
ment strategies in cooperation with employers. A primary aim is to find ways
of organizing work and tasks in order to secure both individual and structural
diversity. Work tasks may need to be customized to the individual – they may
even need to be individually carved out. The result might be a “non-normal
job” in a “normal work environment”. From this perspective it is insufficient
to look for individual qualifications that match the given job requirements;
instead, more flexible job requirements are necessary that respond to the indi-
vidual prerequisites.
Within the support-side approach the employment specialist is a vital
“matchmaker” in the facilitation of such inclusionary processes, by collaborat-
ing both with the employer and the client while at the same time ensuring other
necessary professional and financial support. However, individualized support
from an external employment specialist in a workplace can be stigmatizing and
as such contribute to social exclusion instead of inclusion (Frøyland, 2016). An
important issue is therefore to develop support in ways that minimize stigma.
The ability of employment specialists to contribute to the facilitation of natural
supports – meaning support activated among co-workers at the workplace –
can be vital (Murphy et al., 2005; Drake et al., 2012; Corbière et al., 2014;
Frøyland & Kvåle, 2014; Klethagen & Spjelkavik, 2018).
Employment and welfare services as “matchmakers”?

Van Berkel et al. (2017b) recommend more research on ALMP agencies’
“matchmaker” roles in order to counteract organizational factors that impede
the hiring of disadvantaged jobseekers. However, such support-side approaches
put heavy burdens on the shoulders of employment specialists. To what extent
can the Employment and Welfare Services themselves carry out this role for
jobseekers with comprehensive needs?
The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service (NAV) has overall national
responsibility for the organization of ALMP.4 Traditionally, much of the prac-
tical follow-up of clients with higher support needs has been purchased from
external service providers. While the aim of the reform of the Norwegian Labour
and Welfare Administration (2006–2010) was to merge the Social Security

Service and Public Employment Service to a joint state and municipality agency
(Andreassen & Aars, 2015), the reform actually reinforced this division of labour
within the principal–agent model of New Public Management (Ministry of
Labour, 2012). However, we do find examples within NAV that assign the
core “matchmaker” role to NAV itself. One project (2012–2016) in particular
has demonstrated that NAV offices can perform follow-up services themselves
instead of purchasing them from external vocational service providers.
The project was carried out at five local NAV offices. Instead of using
external providers, the NAV offices were tasked with following up clients
themselves, using the same resources and guidelines as those utilized by exter-
nal service providers. The evaluation (Spjelkavik et al., 2016) concluded that
the supervisors at the NAV offices quickly discovered that many of the cli-
ents had greater than anticipated support needs. They faced serious challenges
related to the follow-up of clients in cooperation with employers. Gradually
the participating NAV offices developed a more rapid placement approach,
with more proactive follow-up in the workplace and increased cooperation
with employers. The overall effect of the project was a 39% increase in transi-
tion to work compared to external service providers. The evaluation linked
this effect to organizational and competence-related factors. The project was
organized as specialized teams within the NAV offices who had thus devel-
oped better knowledge and skills in practical and operational work inclusion
endeavours. The supervisors’ approach to follow-up became more adapted to
the individual client’s needs and interests in order to find the workplace that
best suited the client. In addition, the time the supervisors spent on follow-up
at the workplace and in cooperation with employers increased significantly
during the project period.
Although this was not the initial intention, the project developed as an
implementation of the employment specialist model of SE. An expert func-
tion was established at the NAV offices for work inclusion of clients with
comprehensive needs that required close cooperation with employers. Instead
of understanding work inclusion as a pre-vocational “matchmaker” challenge,
the project became an example where the “street-level bureaucrats” (Lipsky,
2010) became employment specialists that collaborated with employers to
create safe venues for their clients’ personal progression in the workplaces,
and provided support to develop jobs in accordance to the individual client’s
needs. Thus, the public employment and welfare services obtained employ-
ment specialists that facilitated follow-up of both clients and employers in ways
that seemed to strengthen the possibilities for mastering and coping at work
(Spjelkavik et al., 2016).
This approach places less weight on the consultation of clients in offices
and instead emphasizes the active role of support-givers by providing outreach
services, transport services and coaching at work, as well as assistance with
adjustments and organizing of work tasks through proactive collaboration and
support for employers. After the project, the annual state budgets for similar
follow-up approaches to be performed at the NAV offices have been increased.
These recent “insourcing” experiences may indicate the development of a new
follow-up approach in the NAV offices and a change of perspective within the
public Welfare and Labour administration. In Denmark various agencies are
responsible for delivering ALMPs and “modifying companies’ HRM policies
and practice, in order to facilitate the labour market inclusion of vulnerable
groups” (Van Berkel et al., 2017b, p. 507). The Norwegian experiences have
demonstrated that this facilitating role, as well as the responsibility and perfor-
mance of work inclusion measures for even the most vulnerable citizens, could
very well (and perhaps preferably) be a routine task undertaken by the public
employment and welfare services.
Inclusion skills competence

Within support-side approaches, the task of supporting clients with extensive
needs so that they can participate in regular work requires a particular com-
petence. This competence is primarily comprised of social, health-related or
educational knowledge about a client’s support needs and relevant guidance
methods for utilizing an ordinary workplace to develop work participation.
“Inclusion skills competence” in practice means applying knowledge about
a given individual client, supporting this particular client in finding suitable
work openings at the workplaces, as well as cooperating with and supporting
employers. Performing inclusion skills competence means exploring employ-
ment opportunities in the local community, i.e. identifying which industries
and companies might fit the client’s requirements and vocational interests, as
well as identifying which workplaces are able to provide work tasks and oppor-
tunities for job matching and job development. Inclusion skills competence
requires knowledge about an employer’s expectations and requirements as well
as the individual’s support needs in an employment situation. As many vulner-
able clients are in need of support from different actors within their support
systems (i.e. psychologists, social workers or special teachers), coordination of
the involvement of relevant support agencies is also an important aspect of
inclusion skills competence (Frøyland & Spjelkavik, 2014; Spjelkavik, 2016).
In sum, inclusion skills competence contributes to the establishment of work
relationships and provides the support that maintains them.
Inclusion skills competence marks a shift in thinking about and organiz-
ing work inclusion efforts: from sheltered preparation prior to entering the
labour market, to approaches that facilitate mastery and personal progression
at work sites through practical learning in collaboration with an employer
and work organization. Inclusion skills competence requires that the multi-
faceted competence necessary for user-oriented assistance (already found in
several professions in the health and social field) be actively used within the
workplace. As such, inclusion skills competence highlights the local context
and the progression of work relationships within an organization, as well as

the support system surrounding the individual and their workplace. Inclusion
skills competence challenges both supply-side and demand-side approaches by
stressing the importance of a support-based and capability-enhancing focus on
both client and employer.
Practical solutions related to work inclusion and job retention should be
found at the workplace, in the work organization and in particular in the
ability of the support services to assist the client and the employer in devel-
oping a sustainable work relationship. Figure 10.1 illustrates the role of the
support system.
Sufficient job matching, job development and employment are the results of
an inclusion process. Inclusion skills competence means creating a joint project
between the employer, the employee and support staff. This project might
include activities such as assigning a job specialist to the task and clarifying the
responsibilities of the job specialist, jobseeker and employer. These activities
and responsibilities may be summed up in an overall inclusion plan describ-
ing the purpose and contents of the work tasks, necessary adaptation, training,
duration and plan for follow-up.
The tasks of the support system related to the individual are illustrated by the
left arrow in Figure 10.1. Examples of relevant activities are mapping the inter-
ests of the jobseeker, personalized help to deal with social, mental or physical
challenges, career guidance, user involvement and individualized follow-up.
The right arrow illustrates support directed towards employers. Examples of
relevant activities are mapping the employer’s opportunities and prerequisites,
mapping the workplace by learning about the working environment and sur-
roundings, current work tasks, and also investigating whether the workplace
SUPPORT SYSTEM
FOLLOW-UP
CLIENT WORK RELATION EMPLOYER
Figure 10.1 The role of the support system

has the psychosocial requirements needed to meet the individual’s needs for
adaptation and facilitation.
Support givers need to be available and able to provide information about
schemes, as grants are often offered to reduce perceived risks among employers
as well as individual jobseekers. They need to follow the development of the
working relationship closely and be ready to act when needed, or make sure
that others do. These may include actors located outside the workplace that
can affect the work ability.
The crucial element is illustrated in Figure 10.1 by the arrow in the middle:
“Follow-up”. This kind of follow-up is what distinguishes inclusion skills compe-
tence from other forms of work-oriented rehabilitation in ordinary workplaces.
This means making an effort to establish and strengthen a work relationship in
situations where the individual or job candidate is not “the perfect employee”.
Performing inclusion skills competence means facilitating learning through expe-
riences for employers, employees and jobseekers. This means exploring needs
and opportunities for facilitation, relevant support schemes, employment con-
ditions, job carving or creation in order to match work tasks to the particular
individual and to identify and support natural supporters at the workplace. For
some individuals long-term support is needed. Such follow-up can involve
insight or disclosure of a disability or other conditions that may affect employ-
ability. It can mean advising employers and colleagues as to how they should deal
with the employee in case of problems and/or how to talk about and discuss dif-
ficult issues, as well as how to create social support, tolerance and understanding.
Towards a more inclusive work-life?

In this chapter, we have described the emergence of the support-side approach
to work inclusion. It is an approach where demand-side and supply-side strat-
egies operate together to integrate the most disadvantaged populations into
employment.
The support-side approach is characterized by services that proactively sup-
port and carry out knowledge-based follow-up of both clients and employers.
The support-side approach therefore requires a combination of skills and
knowledge from different professions, from evidence-based methods for
work inclusion, knowledge about psychosocial work environment issues
and inclusion management. Successful work inclusion for vulnerable citizens
presupposes dialogue and cooperation between employee, employer and a
proactive support system. Our major message in this chapter is:
1 Despite the fact that many marginalized jobseekers are in need of upgrad-
ing and qualifcation, supply-side approaches have not had a sufciently
positive efect on work inclusion in the Nordic countries. Some have
found jobs, but these are primarily individuals with minor support needs,
and the long-term efect has been poor.
2 Even though some companies have performed well in work inclusion,

demand-side approaches have so far not signifcantly improved the efects
on work inclusion for vulnerable citizens in the Nordic countries.
3 Support-side approaches draw knowledge from both supply-side and
demand-side orientations, acknowledging the need for training and qualifca-
tion but suggesting that these interventions take place within the workplace,
proactively supported by public employment and welfare services.
• From supply-side approaches, the support-side approach brings along
the need for upgrading and qualifcation. In the integrated model of
the support-side approach, the efect is improved by moving these
eforts from sheltered or pre-vocational arenas to the workplace.
• From the demand-side approaches, the support-side approach high-
lights the need for employer support, including human and fnancial
support. In the integrated model of the support-side approach, the
normative demand for an employer’s social responsibility is understood
as a responsibility fulflled through the practices of job development for
marginalized and vulnerable individuals.
The support-side approach is an integrated and cooperative model to pro-

mote work inclusion, in the sense that the supply-side efforts take place at
workplaces and in a close interaction with employers and the support system.
As such, the support-side approach has much in common with the Nordic
model in terms of promoting dialogue, the collaboration of social parties,
and a strong and actively interventionist welfare state. The best-documented
support-side oriented practices are found in “place then train” approaches
guided by employment specialists. For some reason, such approaches have
barely been recognized in the supply-side and demand-side debate.
Established structures for cooperation and dialogue between the social par-
ties on the national level, such as the Norwegian “Inclusive working life” or
the Danish “Accommodating labour market” can play vital roles by highlight-
ing work inclusion of vulnerable groups. However, such agreements have so
far not been sufficient to promote the required cooperation between employ-
ees, their union representatives, employers and governmental support agencies
at the company level.
We believe that implementation of the support-side approach in ALMPs
and in the social parties’ recognition of what is needed is a prerequisite for
increased work participation among hard-to-place and vulnerable citizens. This
most probably means a form of institutionalization of “Inclusive Working Life”
that promotes employment specialists in the public employment and welfare
services, and, further, that views work as a means to recovery, social inclusion
and quality of life (not as an obligation), and sees the workplace as an arena for
development of flexible forms of labour market attachment.
Whether the established tradition for dialogue and cooperation among
the social parties in the Nordic countries represents drivers or barriers to the
implementation of support-side approaches, as well as sufficient collaboration

between the social parties on the company level, is yet to be seen. So far, such
collaborative initiatives and formal agreements have favoured (or protected)
those persons already employed, over vulnerable, jobless individuals. There
are also other challenges associated with support-side approaches. We do not
know whether the public employment and welfare services will manage to
implement “place then train” approaches in any sustainable way. There is a risk
that work inclusion based on “place then train” will be reduced to implemen-
tation of a set of evidence-based methods, “quick fix solutions” for motivated,
“job ready” individuals, instead of job development, progression and retention
for hard-to-place citizens with social, mental health and learning difficulties.
We believe that a prerequisite for support-side approaches should be that prac-
titioners in relevant professions are actively involved in vulnerable citizens’
work inclusion processes.
Notes
1 Intensjonsavtalen om et mer inkluderende arbeidsliv (IA).
2 Det rummelige arbeidsmarked (DRAM).
3 The unemployment rate in Norway in 2015 was 3% according to NAV (2015).
4 LOV 2006-06-16 nr 20: Lov om arbeids- og velferdsforvaltningen.
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Part IV
Nordic approaches to
New Public Management
Professions in transition
Introduction
Annette Kamp, Agnete Meldgaard Hansen and
Christin Thea Wathne
This section focuses on working life in the public sector and tells the story of
the dramatic transformations that have taken place since the early 1980s.
The public sector in Norway and Denmark comprises a relatively large
part of the total labour market. In both countries, around 30% of the labour
force work in the public sector. Concomitant with the spread of neoliberal
ideas, this sector has been subject to wide-reaching reforms inspired by New
Public Management (NPM). As in most other Western countries, reforms have
aimed at rationalization, marketization and retrenchment of the public sector.
However, in the Nordic countries this development has been shaped in par-
ticular ways, influenced by the participation of organized labour, resulting in
what we call a negotiated modernization of the public sector. The public sector
has been and still is the most unionized sector in both Norway and Denmark.
Public sector workers in frontline jobs make up an important and large part
of this sector in both numbers and salary expenses. Furthermore, they are also
the groups most affected by NPM-inspired developments. These groups have
experienced dramatic changes in the course of the prolonged modernization
of the public sector; changes that aim at transforming their work and identi-
ties profoundly. NPM reforms focusing on marketization and standardization
of public services have been criticized for leading to a loss of autonomy and
discretion, and a higher workload and work intensification for public sector
workers. In this respect, the Nordic countries resemble most other Western
countries subject to NPM reforms. However, as part of this negotiated mod-
ernization, many public sector frontline workers have simultaneously acquired
higher levels of formal education and have become what in the Nordic context
are termed ‘welfare professionals’ (see elaboration of this concept in the follow-
ing chapters). This development reflects the influence of trade union strategies
of professionalization and strengthening of the professional status of groups in
frontline jobs. In consequence, when addressing NPM and implications for
218 Annette Kamp et al.
working life in a Nordic context, processes of de-professionalization and

professionalization are both involved.
Education, health and social care are major areas where welfare professions
have been established and consolidated. However, the complex dynamics of
negotiated modernization are also seen in e.g. the field of law enforcement.
Teachers, kindergarten teachers, health care assistants, nurses, elderly care work-
ers, social workers and police officers are thus among the large groups of public
sector frontline workers for whom this project of professionalization plays
an important role and whose working lives are at the same time profoundly
transformed by NPM and later governance reforms. Welfare professionals are
thus deeply entangled in the transformation of the welfare state, its goals and
development. Firstly, they are part of the transformation, as their professional
training and socialization form an integral part of current welfare state govern-
ance programmes, and, secondly, as well-organized, highly unionized actors,
they pursue professional, ethical and political trajectories for the development of
the welfare state. The three chapters in this section shed light on the complexi-
ties of this development from three different but complementary angles.
Chapter 11: Nordic New Public Management: the case of Denmark. By Annette Kamp
and Agnete Meldgaard Hansen.
Each Nordic country has its own distinct ‘reform profile’, despite many similari-
ties between them in the implementation of NPM. This chapter illuminates how
NPM ideas entered the Danish welfare state through several waves of moderniza-
tion and how they have influenced working life for welfare professionals. NPM
reforms were, on the one hand, shaped in particular ways in Denmark, reflecting
the influence of the Nordic approach. On the other hand, the Nordic approach,
particularly industrial relations and the way they are played out at company level,
was conversely also impacted by the introduction of NPM. Features like stand-
ardization, fragmentation and consumerism have affected working conditions;
they have considerably changed meaning and identity at work and also oppor-
tunities for co-determination and consultation. However, these processes of
creation and consolidation of groups of welfare professionals have simultaneously
formed the basis of both local and national resistance, negotiation and transla-
tion of NPM reforms in relation to professional logics and ethics. The chapter
concludes by considering the newer neoliberal trends, often dubbed New Public
Governance (NPG), that have had a great impact on the public sector since the
early 2000s. Under mantras such as co-production, citizen-centred services/care
and empowerment of users, clients or patients, these reforms aim at reconfiguring
the public sector in ways that support a redistribution of tasks and responsibilities
between professionals and users. Currently we thus observe new challenges in
welfare professionals’ working lives that may imply new stress factors, but also
new possibilities for boosting professionalism and meaningful work.
Chapter 12: Welfare professionals in transformation: the case of elderly care. By Agnete
Meldgaard Hansen and Annette Kamp.
Nordic approaches to New Public Management 219
Elderly care is one of the largest and most costly areas of the Danish public
sector and is the field where NPM has been most systematically implemented.
The chapter illuminates how both shifts in the view of elderly people and
their needs towards discourses of self-sufficiency and active ageing, as well as
NPM and later NPG-inspired reforms play an important role in transforming
working life. These shifts and reforms have influenced the development of
core tasks, autonomy, care relations and professional identity in elderly care
work profoundly. On the one hand, this development can be described as a
movement away from holistic care ideals towards a narrower focus on provi-
sion of marketized, standardized care services, and towards reduced autonomy
and discretion in work. On the other hand, Danish elderly care workers have
also experienced a strengthening of professional and workplace communi-
ties, which supports collective action and care workers’ exercise of responsible
autonomy in everyday care interactions. Recent developments in the sector
focusing on active ageing, rehabilitation and user involvement introduce new
core tasks and represent new possibilities to develop the exercise of autonomy
and professionalism in the sector.
Chapter 13: Welfare professionals in transformation: the case of police officers in Norway.
By Christin Thea Wathne.
Similarly to Chapter 12 on elderly care, this chapter shows how the work-
ing lives of police officers have been transformed under the influence of both
NPM-inspired reforms and broad shifts in the view of their core tasks and role
in society. The chapter illuminates how institutional logics of police work in
Norway are under transformation, moving from a humanist tradition focused
on help and prevention of crime (community policing), towards a more mili-
tarist tradition focused on control and elimination of threats. This militarist
tradition has proved to resonate well with NPM reforms, and in this complex
dynamic, police work is transformed. Norwegian police officers have thus
experienced an increased focus on efficiency and resource use, changes in the
character of their interaction with the public, and centralization and increased
distance to the public. Further changes include outsourcing of ‘softer’ police
tasks to private security firms, stronger control and prioritization of tasks,
standardization of frontline work and a shift in the professional knowledge base
towards measurability and evidence-based approaches. As a result, the core
tasks of the police have narrowed, and the space for professional autonomy
and discretion has been reduced with the movement away from community
policing based on situational assessments and professional discretion.
These latter two chapters make clear that NPM is not the only central influ-
ence on the working lives of welfare professionals. Both police officers and
elderly care workers are affected by broader societal shifts in understandings of
the object and focus of their work. We see changes in the understandings of
crime and proper law enforcement, and of ageing and good care for elderly people.
Attention to such shifts in broader societal discourses, and their entanglement
220 Annette Kamp et al.
with NPM and other governance reforms, is crucial when seeking to understand
the transformation of welfare professionals’ working lives.
Furthermore, the NPM hallmark of marketization has been influential for
both welfare professions, and the dissemination of a logic of numbers and
resource containment has had a considerable effect on working conditions.
However, there are significant differences in both the timing and effects of
these developments for the two professions. Where frontline elderly care work
has been subject to extensive and pervasive standardization of tasks and work
processes since the 1990s, frontline police work has only recently appeared
to be moving in this direction. So far they seem to have maintained higher
levels of professional autonomy and discretion in the execution of their daily
tasks. Regarding outsourcing of tasks, police officers have experienced a loss of
‘softer’ tasks to private providers, underlining their movement towards a more
controlling role and lowering the frequency of interaction with the public. In
elderly care, mainly practical tasks have been outsourced to private provid-
ers, and public sector elderly care workers have largely retained the social and
health care tasks that are most central to their professional identity and role
perception. Attention to the timing, extent and character of marketization and
standardization efforts thus appears crucial when assessing the effects of NPM
on the working lives and identities of welfare professionals.
Moreover, both groups have experienced a transformation of their rela-
tionship with clients and the public. In both cases, we find a paradox with an
emphasis on increased client/citizen-centredness in services, while profession-
als are also supposed to withdraw and have less contact with clients/the public.
However, the character of this withdrawal from clients/the public differs and
has different roots. Where elderly care workers are to withdraw from the lives
of elderly clients to facilitate the clients’ empowerment and increased self-
sufficiency, the distancing of police work from the public seems to be more
the result of an increasingly centralized organization of work and the shift from
community policing towards a more militarist model. The paradox of simul-
taneous citizen-centredness and professional withdrawal may thus have quite
different expressions in practice.
Against this background, the following three chapters may be read as
attempts to open a window into the complex dynamics and transformations of
working life and professionalism taking place in the Nordic welfare states in the
wake of decades of NPM reforms.
Chapter 11
Nordic New Public Management

The case of Denmark
Annette Kamp and Agnete Meldgaard Hansen
Introduction
The establishment of universal welfare states is often seen as one of the most
outstanding features of the Nordic societies. The existence of large and highly
developed welfare states plays a key role in sustaining other important Nordic
labour market characteristics such as gender equality and flexicurity. A large
care sector providing care for children, the elderly and others in need has paved
the way for a very high degree of labour market participation for both women
and men. In the same vein, the security part of the flexicurity model implies
the work of a large body of institutions and professional social workers. In this
chapter, we focus our attention on the welfare state as a large employment sec-
tor with specific characteristics and implications for employees’ working life.
We focus on the Danish public sector and the transformations of work and
working conditions occasioned by the diverse NPM-inspired reforms intro-
duced since the early 1980s. The reforms seen in the Danish public sector are
in many cases similar to developments seen in the other Nordic countries,
although variations and differences of course also appear (see e.g. Foss Hansen,
2011 for a comparative analysis). The insights presented can thus to a great
extent be considered relevant to the other Nordic countries, but national vari-
ations and their specific implications for working life in the public sector are
important to take into account.
Infused with neo-classical economic ideas of marketization, NPM (Hood,
1991) paved the way for new forms of management and governance in both
the private and public sector, eventually spreading to most of the Western
world. In Denmark, such NPM reforms have been discussed under the head-
ing of ‘public sector modernization’ since 1983 (Danish Ministry of Finance,
1983). This chapter illuminates how these ideas entered the Danish welfare
state through several waves of modernization, and how they have influenced
working life in this sector.
Importantly, NPM reforms have been shaped in particular ways in the
Danish context, reflecting the influence of the Nordic labour market model and
the labour market parties. While NPM is often associated with trends towards
222 Annette Kamp and Agnete Meldgaard Hansen
de-professionalization (Dybbroe, 2008; Dalsgaard, 2013) and a challenge to

public sector industrial relations (Pedersen, 1998), the Danish development
has been characterized as a ‘negotiated modernization’ (Pedersen, 1998; Hjort,
2001). This negotiated modernization has not resulted in a dismantling of
industrial relations, and public sector employees are still highly unionized.
Furthermore, contrary to expectations of de-professionalization, it has actually
promoted the rise and consolidation of a number of new ‘welfare professions’,
meaning increasingly professionalized frontline workers in different areas of the
welfare state (see later for a further explanation of the use of this concept in
the Danish context). This is not to say that NPM reforms have not made their
mark on public sector workplaces. Features like standardization, fragmentation
and consumerism have considerably affected and changed the working condi-
tions and working lives of public sector employees, and also opportunities for
co-determination and consultation, which are important features of the Nordic
model, as described in Part I of this volume. We argue that NPM reforms have
indeed had consequences for working life in the public sector, but that these
consequences are shaped by the particular Danish/Nordic context.
This chapter is thus based on the understanding that the Danish welfare
state, and the welfare professionals working within it, mutually shape each
other. In the course of continuous public sector reforms, these welfare profes-
sionals have experienced dramatic changes aiming to transform their work and
identities profoundly. However, they are also deeply involved in the transfor-
mation of the welfare state, its goals and development. Firstly, they are part of
the transformation, as their professional expertise, training and socialization
form an integral part of welfare state governance (Johnson, 1995). Secondly, as
well-organized and highly unionized actors, they pursue specific professional,
ethical and political trajectories for the development of the welfare state.
Against this background, this chapter explores the following research ques-
tion: How has NPM been adopted in the Danish public sector, and what have
been the main impacts on the working life of welfare professionals?
Drawing on existing research, we will show how the period of NPM
reforms since the early 1980s have, on the one hand, challenged and trans-
formed working life in the public sector in terms of numerous standardization
initiatives, introduced as a means of increasing managerial control over work
performance, productivity, output and results. On the other hand, we will
also describe instances of self-management, resistance and active individual
and collective attempts by public sector professionals to shape their work in
meaningful ways. These discussions revolve around the key themes of stand-
ardization, marketization, autonomy and trust.
The chapter is organized as follows. We first give an overview of the Danish
public sector as a labour market. Then we describe how NPM developed in the
Danish context and discuss the associated changes in the governance, manage-
ment and organization of the welfare state. Thereafter, we present key research
insights on how the reforms have impacted working life for groups of welfare
Nordic New Public Management 223
professionals, and how these groups have collectively and individually resisted
and negotiated them. We end the chapter with a concluding discussion.
The public sector as a labour market in Denmark

As a background to our further discussions, this section provides a brief overview
of the Danish public sector as a labour market. At the end of 2017, 824,923 people
were employed in the Danish public sector, compared to 1,837,755 in the private
sector (Statistics Denmark, 2018b). Public sector workers thus comprise approxi-
mately 30% of the workforce; most of these (about 58%) are employed by one
of Denmark’s 98 local authorities, mainly in education and in health, social and
care services. Most local authority employees hold so-called ‘professional bach-
elor’s degrees’ (e.g. teachers, kindergarten teachers, nurses and social workers) or
have a vocational education (e.g. in clerical or social and health-care work) (Local
Government Denmark, 2016). However, the number of employees with a five-
year academic degree has risen notably since 2010 (Christensen et al., 2017). The
five Danish regions employ around 17% of public sector workers, mainly in hospi-
tals and other secondary health-care services. About 24% are employed by the state
e.g. in public administration and higher education (Statistics Denmark, 2018a).
The Danish labour market is highly gender-segregated, implying an une-
ven distribution of men and women in many sectors and occupations. About
70% of public sector workers are women, compared to 38% of private sector
employees (Statistics Denmark, 2016). Public sector workers in Denmark are
among the most well-organized in the world, with 80% of workers organized
in trade unions and a 100% collective bargaining coverage (Høgedahl, 2017).
Like many other welfare states, the Danish welfare state went through a
period of expansion from the 1950s onwards. However, since the 1980s there
has been continuous political attention to limiting public sector growth and
thereby also the number of public sector employees. A recent analysis shows
that the number of public sector employees did in fact rise from the 1980s to
around 2010 but has been stagnant since then. Furthermore, the number of
public sector employees per citizen has decreased by 6.5% since 2010 and is
now at its lowest since 1986 (Andersen, 2018).
Negotiated modernization: a soft Nordic

variant of NPM
This chapter will show how NPM is translated in a Danish context, leading to
what is often called a soft variant of NPM, in opposition to the hard variants
that we see in e.g. the UK and New Zealand (Hjort, 2001; Dahl & Rasmussen,
2012). This section thus addresses the first part of our research question regard-
ing the particular adoption of NPM in the Danish public sector.
Although market-based management of the public sector has been dis-
cussed in Denmark since the early 1980s, there has not been a straightforward
development or a form of ‘master plan’ (Bovbjerg, 2011). Rather, it has been

a question of taking over an international agenda in the form of a neoliberal
vision of a transition from previous public and state governance towards a
more market-based and competition-oriented governance model. This means
that although the reform initiatives have been externally presented as compre-
hensive reform programmes, they appear to be more of a loose collection of
reform ideas (Christensen & Laegreid, 2007).
The labour market parties and NPM

As indicated in the introduction to this chapter, NPM in Denmark has been
characterized as a negotiated modernization. One element of this is that, in
accordance with Danish labour market traditions, public sector unions have
sought and obtained influence on the development and implementation of
public sector reforms. This feature of Danish modernization efforts contradicts
common assumptions that NPM reforms would almost automatically lead to
an erosion of industrial relations and collective bargaining traditions in the
public sector (Pedersen, 1998). According to Hjort, the public sector collective
bargaining system at both central and local levels has:
[s]lowly become geared to playing a crucial role in the continued modern-

ization. Coupled with an ever stronger decentralization of the collective
bargaining system, the parties have been obliged not only to increase fex-
ibility in wage determination but also to pursue ‘qualitative development
goals’: efciency and reorganization, competence and quality develop-
ment, staf training and organizational changes.
(Hjort, 2001, p. 36)
In line with this, the NPM reforms in Denmark have been met with a profes-
sionalization strategy from many unions in the social, educational and health
sectors. Many of the occupations involved are not professions in a tradi-
tional understanding of the concept, which assumes a long education and
a monopoly in a well-defned area of practice (see e.g. Abbott, 2001), but
the workers involved are what the Danes call ‘welfare professionals’. The
concept of ‘welfare professionals’ in Denmark covers the large groups of
professionals, with varying educational levels, who work in frontline welfare
state services, implying that their work involves interactions with users (cli-
ents, patients, pupils, citizens, consumers) in e.g. education, social and health
care, social work, prisons, police work and others (Hjort, 2004; Järvinen &
Mik-Meyer, 2012).
The professionalization strategies of these groups in relation to public sector
reforms can be seen as attempts to expand their knowledge base and legitimacy
in a period of change. For example, in the 1980s in the social and health sector,
where many workers had few or no formal qualifications, one- and three-year
courses were established. Workers in this field now gained formal qualifica-
tions in elementary nursing and gerontology, and could, if they wished, build
on these qualifications to study for a full nursing degree (Dahl, 2000, 2005).
The level of education for this type of work is comparably high, as most other
European countries require no or very little vocational training to work in the
sector (Genet et al., 2012).
Furthermore, the trade unions have entered into agreements on systematic
and strategic competence development with the aim of ensuring flexibility
through the softening of professional boundaries and creation of new job pro-
files, in return for more professional and personal development by employees
(Hjort, 2004). Employees thus have access to continuing education, which is
influenced by local management and trade union representatives.
The expanded knowledge base and increasingly formalized education of
these groups brings them closer to the image of traditional professions. However,
these developments have not resulted in actual monopolies of practice. Some
groups (e.g. social and health-care assistants and nurses) obtain certifications
and authorizations that secure their right to monopolize the practice of cer-
tain tasks. But generally, hiring policies and priorities, and divisions of labour
between professional groups, are negotiated locally, and this can be a bone of
contention between local management and employees as well as between pro-
fessional groups. For example, professional social workers increasingly compete
with non-social workers for jobs in social services (Fagbladet 3F, 2016), and the
roles and divisions of labour between teachers and social educators in primary
schools have since a 2013 school reform been the subject of extensive discus-
sion and struggle (Kampmann, 2014).
The Danish version of negotiated modernization is therefore a moderni-
zation that involves local adaptations, where the labour market parties have
sought and gained influence, especially in relation to the education and com-
petence development of their members. The development-oriented version of
human resource management (HRM) that is typical of the management aspect
of NPM (see later) must therefore also be seen as a result of this dialogue and
negotiation, which have continued from the 1980s until today.
Phases in the shaping of NPM

The development of NPM in Denmark started in the 1980s with marketiza-
tion as its catchword (Greve & Ejersbo, 2014). It was based on criticism of the
public sector of the 1960s, which was a hierarchical and bureaucratic system
with direct top-down control (Bovbjerg, 2011).
The early NPM reforms (starting with the 1983 programme for public sec-
tor modernization) were motivated by an increasing demand for control of
public budgets. Target and performance management was introduced; here,
managers were to focus on policy goals and budgets, leaving implementation
to administrative bodies (Bovbjerg, 2011; Greve & Ejersbo, 2014).
Furthermore, ‘free’ agencies were established in the ministries to create

independence between politicians and those involved in implementation. This
thinking was supported by the use of an increasing number of contracts as man-
agement tools, both interdepartmental contracts and individual performance
contracts for public sector managers (Greve & Ejersbo, 2005). The contract
approach also reflected a political ambition to ‘rein in’ the professions as groups
which, based on their own interests, were thought to create public sector
growth, and a comprehensive standardization process was thus introduced to
enable this form of governance.
Later on in the development of NPM (from around 2001), market thinking
was expanded to include users of public services by providing them with ‘free
choice’ through ‘quasi-market mechanisms’, i.e. the establishment of market-
like relationships between different institutions. Large sections of the public
sector were transformed into state-owned companies that competed for public
favour in the established ‘free choice’ market, based on the idea that users as
customers should be able to choose between different institutions and use the
one whose service suited their needs (Christensen & Laegreid, 2016).
At the same time, the free choice approach also implied the idea that com-
petition between institutions would promote quality (Ahrenkiel et al., 2013).
For example, a free choice arrangement in elderly care and the introduction of
accrual accounting in 2007 have enabled calculation of all the costs of a particular
public service in this area, in order to establish competition between public and
private service producers (Bovbjerg, 2011; Kamp & Ryberg, 2016). This public
facilitation of a private market for services represents a significant step away from
the traditional Nordic welfare state model, where the state is the supplier of uni-
versal welfare services. Another example of this development is the establishment
of autonomous and outcome-funded institutions, where financing is increasingly
determined by their (measurable) performance in terms of e.g. the number of
examinations or operations (Greve, 2008). The basic thinking has been to pro-
mote productivity through the establishment of a financial incentive structure.
The 2000s also heralded a development that focused on actual privatization
of parts of the public sector by outsourcing welfare services to private com-
panies. During this period, more extensive debate and criticism of NPM also
gained momentum. The focus of the debate has been on the re-bureaucratization,
fragmentation and standardization involved in the reforms (see e.g. Melander,
2008). A new ‘Taylorization’ of work, referring to the dull and meaningless
work of Taylorism, has become a focal point of both academic and political
discussions. We will return to these discussions later when we consider the
implications of the NPM reforms for work in the public sector.
NPM and human resources

Alongside these new forms of governance, new forms of management, referred
to as HRM, have also been introduced from the ‘market’. This orientation
towards particular forms of management must be understood as an integral part

of NPM (Hood, 1991), but deserves a separate mention, partly because such
ideas of leadership are formulated in distinctive ways in the Nordic context.
The message in these management approaches is that employees should
be motivated by other than merely financial incentives. Where the market-
oriented model requires the establishment of clear incentive structures with
relatively ‘tough’ systems of reward and punishment, HRM theory operates
with a wider range of instruments aiming to motivate employees with ‘softer’
forms of management such as support for employees’ involvement, responsibility
development potential. This is seen, for example, in value-based management,
appreciative management and in work to create collaborative cultures. Culture
and values, rather than rules and control, are the management tools. Training
and development projects, including experiments with team-based working
methods, also play an important role (Legge, 2005).
This focus on human resources may be seen as a contrast and reaction to
the previous bureaucratic emphasis on rules and hierarchical control. In the
Danish context, a soft, development-oriented HRM approach (Legge, 2005)
has been practised. Where a tough human capital-oriented HRM in liberal
economies such as the UK’s has aimed to weaken trade unions and industrial
relations-oriented organization (Godard & Delaney, 2000), in Denmark we see
an approach grounded in industrial relations (Mathiesen & Hvenegaard, 1999;
Navrbjerg, 1999).
However, it must be mentioned that although this management approach
focuses on ‘soft’ forms of governance through employee involvement, it
also breaks with the idea that the professions have a monopoly on deciding
what is good treatment, service, education, etc. Professionals’ independent
judgement, based on their common set of knowledge, norms and values, has
formed the very basis for managing complex issues in the public sector (Hjort,
2004). With new forms of management and a focus on leadership, we find
that knowledge, norms and values are defined to a greater extent from above,
which can put pressure on meaning, professionalism and identity at work.
Finally, the increasing focus on leadership must be seen in connection with
an interest in strategic management. This may mean that aspects of planning,
assessment and evaluation are transferred upwards to those responsible for
strategic management.
New neoliberal initiatives since the late 2000s

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, there have been widespread cuts in the
Danish public sector. All public institutions must save 2% per annum. The edu-
cation sector was initially excluded, but the requirement for cuts has applied
to all sectors since 2015. As mentioned earlier, the number of public sector
employees per citizen has decreased by 6.5% since 2010 and is now at its lowest
level since 1986 (Andersen, 2018).
In the search for efficiency and rationalization, new ideas have gained
a foothold. New Public Governance (NPG) is a collective term for these
new trends; it involves a focus on creating new forms of collaboration and
‘co-production’ (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2013). Public–private partnerships
are an important element in this development. These are primarily based on
understandings of network regulation (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2000; Rhodes,
2007), rather than market-based competition. Another key element is user
involvement, which implies that the self-reliant, responsible user is placed
in the centre and is encouraged to perform parts of the work traditionally
performed by professionals (Vrangbaek, 2015). At the same time, efforts are
being directed towards enabling users to take responsibility for aspects of pre-
vention, care and treatment. In this way, we see a redistribution of tasks and
responsibilities, and changes in the roles of users and professionals and in the
relationship between them (Holen, 2011; Barnes & Cotterell, 2012).
However, we cannot say that the basic NPM-inspired way of organizing
and managing the public sector is disappearing. Researchers in public govern-
ance view the tendency towards new public governance as overlaying and
co-existing with NPM rather than replacing it (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2013).
Limited success with wide-ranging consequences

Greve and Ejersbo (2014) argue that some of the most important results
of the marketization ambitions of the NPM reforms have been achieved
through privatization. Since 1988, when the first steps were taken to privatize
Copenhagen Airport, there have been several privatizations of former state-
owned companies, and a number of state-owned limited companies were
also formed for subsequent privatization. Telecommunications, postal ser-
vices, infrastructure and the energy sector are examples of this development.
Privatization and marketization in the form of outsourcing in the major areas
of welfare service (which is the focus of this chapter), such as the educational,
social and health-care sectors, have so far had quite a limited impact. This may
be partly due to great efforts by the trade union movement and some political
parties to halt this tendency.
In one of the largest areas in economic and personnel terms, elderly care, the
success of marketization has been limited, despite intense efforts to create more
providers and free choice. From 2004 to 2012, the proportion of seniors using
private care providers increased from 1.5% to 6%. Yet for practical aspects of
this work, primarily cleaning, the percentage increased from 10% to 47% in the
same period (Bertelsen & Rostgaard, 2013). However, repeated bankruptcies
among private providers and constant problems in meeting contractual obliga-
tions indicate that the marketization and privatization strategy is not without
its problems, even in a narrow economic perspective, and often requires unex-
pected additional work in the public sector as a backup when market solutions
fail (see e.g. Ritzau, 2017; FOA, 2018).
In spite of this, efforts towards marketization and the establishment of quasi-

markets using contract management in the public sector have led to a pervasive
‘counting regime’, extensive standardization and a focus on documentation.
This form of micro-management from above, in combination with the new
HRM-inspired forms of management described earlier, has changed the work
of welfare professionals significantly. With this in mind, we now turn to the
second part of our research question to consider the impact of NPM reforms
on work in the public sector.
Working life and NPM

In this section, we will address the second part of our research question and
consider some of the main discussions that have taken place in both research
and practice regarding the implications of NPM for the working life of welfare
professionals. It is important to note that modernization of the public sector
is manifested in quite different ways in different fields (Bovbjerg, 2011). It is
therefore difficult, if not impossible, to provide a general picture of the changes
involved and their implications for the work of public employees. This section
therefore presents important themes of working life research and pertinent
studies that exemplify issues related to the themes. The issues are all linked in
different ways to the comprehensive standardization and marketization efforts
of the NPM reforms.
This presentation focuses on the welfare professions, not on e.g. employ-
ees in government administration. We include a number of quantitative and
qualitative studies of the work of welfare professionals under NPM. The qual-
itative studies have been chosen to illustrate key dynamics in developments in
working life under NPM in some of the major sectors of welfare work: elderly
care, child care, health, education and social work. The quantitative studies
provide a more general view of working conditions and working environment
as perceived by public employees and members of the trade union federa-
tion FTF, which represents most welfare professions in Denmark. Against
this background, we attempt to show how modernization has changed and
challenged welfare work and become a burden for the professionals involved.
We will also describe resistance and active attempts to shape the work both
individually and collectively.
How standardization and marketization change and

challenge working life
Many of the recent public sector reforms use standardization as their most
important tool for controlling productivity, quality and economy (Foss
Hansen, 2011). The establishment of entities that ‘sell to’ and ‘buy from’ each
other requires standardization of services to enable the services exchanged to
be counted and priced. This also applies to contract management i.e. central
financial management of the entities involved through performance-based

contracting and outsourcing of services to private suppliers. Here too, the
services must be quantifiable and comparable. Similarly, quality management
implies standardization, since its goal is to offer a ‘uniform service level’ which
is determined by the quality standards that local authorities have to prepare
on an annual basis.
Elderly care is one of the areas most pervasively subject to NPM-inspired
reforms. Elderly care organizations have been criticized for implementing neo-
Taylorist forms of work organization in the transition to marketized care. These
forms of organization limit care worker autonomy by standardizing both tasks
and time (Szebehely, 2006; Liebst and Monrad, 2008). A review of Nordic
research (Szebehely, 2005) into elderly care was published in which one of the
sections was concerned with employee working conditions (Trydegård, 2005),
providing an overview of early Nordic research on the consequences of NPM.
It shows that work under NPM is meaningful but also mentally and physically
challenging. The pressure on professionals of having insufficient time to do the
job in relation to their care orientation is a major problem, and all the more so
when the work is based on market-oriented principles. Employees feel inad-
equate and frustrated because they cannot provide the help needed. This has
been shown to be a significant stress factor in this work. Trydegård concludes
her review as follows:
Good quality in care work is a prerequisite for a good working environ-

ment and vice versa. This is my most enduring impression after taking part
in 10 years of Nordic research on working conditions in elderly care in the
Nordic countries.
(Trydegård, 2005, p. 190)
A number of other areas of welfare work have revealed how the contrast
between the professional logics and the NPM logic creates tension in the work-
place. In social work, the neoliberal approach has meant that social policy has
become increasingly subordinate to employment policy. It becomes a tool for
bringing people into work, known as a transition from ‘welfare to workfare’
in the literature, combined with a ‘work frst’ logic. The social work-based
and resource-building perspectives that were previously the focus of the social
work profession have given way to a unilateral policy of getting clients into
(any) work as soon as possible (Torfng, 2004; Villadsen, 2007).
Furthermore, regulatory management and standardization have restricted
professionals’ scope for social work-based assessments. The move towards
the work-first logic and an increasing burden of documentation has pres-
surized social workers. Researchers such as Caswell and Larsen (2015) have
pointed out how the new forms of management and the work-first ori-
entation that have been introduced since the late 2000s have significantly
changed social work and led to an increasing sense of de-professionalization
among social workers, as their professional autonomy and judgement have

become marginalized.
Standardization basically means the creation of uniformity in a particular
field. There are terminological standards that aim to provide exhaustive language
to describe a field; such language creates a universe that allows for comparison
and coordination across entities and institutions, but it also implies that certain
aspects of work are described and evaluated, while other aspects are unquan-
tifiable and ignored, and therefore disappear out of sight and consciousness
(Timmermans & Epstein, 2010). When something is systematically monitored,
something else is systematically overlooked.
This phenomenon whereby some aspects of professional work become vis-
ible and others invisible can be observed in day care for young children. Here
NPM has manifested itself in new requirements for pedagogical professional-
ism in terms of children’s learning and formulating precise goals and plans for
activities. What we see is thus not standardization of the execution of the work,
but a predominance of certain methods and a particular terminology. Several
Danish qualitative studies have analysed the implications of the new require-
ments for professionalism in the wake of NPM. Ahrenkiel et al. (2013), using
studies of the early childhood education sector as their basis, point out how
new forms of governance, combined with an increased focus on learning rather
than care, have an effect on the content and meaningfulness of the work and on
professional identity. One of the main points of their review is that an increased
focus on control, documentation and evaluation, and increasing expectations
from the public (parents), have negative consequences for important aspects of
professionalism because professionalism in this sector is characterized by what
Ahrenkiel et al. call ‘unnoticed professionalism’. This kind of professionalism is
practical and largely based on routines and ‘obvious’ tasks. The result is greater
time pressure, because professionals find that there must still be time for the
‘unnoticed’ work.
NPM in the health sector, in terms of standardization of knowledge and
performance measurements, has had a substantial impact. Together with a
greater focus on quality management, it has generally supported the increased
medicalization of the field. Health-care professions themselves contribute to
this, as the establishment of professional standards forms part of the continu-
ous development of their professional knowledge base (Timmermans & Berg,
2003). This has important consequences for welfare professions such as nursing,
where the knowledge base is heterogeneous, containing both humanistic and
medical elements (Allen, 2014). Many studies have focused on the work and
professional identity of nurses. For example, Ernst (2016), in an ethnographic
study of work in a Danish emergency ward, shows how it is informed by
two contradictory approaches to nursing: a humanistic and pluralist approach
and an evidence-based medical approach. However, she also points out how
the evidence-based approach wins the battle with the care approach. She
emphasizes how evidence-based work creates new career opportunities and
is embraced by some nurses with enthusiasm; while for other nurses, the new
situation creates tension and stress.
In the same vein, a recent study (Kamp & Dybbroe, 2016) illustrates how
the burden of documentation takes more and more time away from work
with patients, resulting in time pressure and work intensification. For several
years, psychiatric care has been subject to considerable rationalization, based
on performance measurements and standardization of methods in the form of
standardized treatment packages. Kamp and Dybbroe (2016), in their ethno-
graphic study of diagnosis and treatment in an outpatient department, show
how this development supports the medicalization of the field. Professionals
with a humanistic orientation, such as nurses, teachers, psychologists and social
workers, find their professional identity under pressure and interprofessional
cooperation is threatened with fragmentation (Kamp & Dybbroe, 2016).
As mentioned in our previous section, standardization does not stand
alone as a means of governance. Rather, standardization co-exists with stra-
tegic management based on principles of soft HRM, like trust, motivation
and responsibilization. This phenomenon has until now received very little
attention in Danish research. A few case studies in elderly care could however
add some important points. Kamp and Ryberg (2016) point out how strategic
management has acquired a prominent status in debates on the future of elderly
care. A quote from a debate report written in cooperation between the labour
market parties Local Government Denmark and FOA may illustrate this:
Leaders should be able to manage trustful and inclusive processes, to pro-

mote employees’ well-being and feeling of involvement and responsibility.
At the same time, we need leaders who can manage change and create
meaning, motivation and security in everyday working life, where change
and new demands are the norm.
(Local Government Denmark & FOA, 2012, p. 3)
Kamp and Ryberg show how this increased emphasis on management may
imply that professionals must negotiate diferent rationales of governance e.g.
when increased control and documentation practices co-exist with employee
involvement processes. This may widen the scope for autonomy but often in
contradictory ways. A study (Rasmussen, 2012) on middle managers in elderly
care underlines how these contradictory management rationales also impact
this group. She illustrates how middle managers may follow diferent strategies
in order to meet contradictory demands, but also how they often experience
stressful working conditions.
A representative survey among Danish employees, the APL-III survey from
2015 (Caraker et al., 2015), suggests that the experiences described here cannot
be seen as isolated cases confined to individual qualitative studies or particular
fields of work. The survey reveals that 75% of public sector employees find that
more documentation requirements have been introduced into their work and
that 79% experience an increased workload without any increase in the number
of staff in their workplace. Some 57% of FTF members state that their work
causes mental stress and that they often have to work under severe time pressure.
In addition, 60% of public employees want more influence on the organization
of their daily work. A 2018 study of the working environment as reported by
over 9,000 FTF members similarly concluded: ‘FTF members have a heavy
workload. 36% have a heavy or very heavy workload, and 22% have a high &
very high pace of work. This is significantly higher than among wage earners in
general’ (Anker & Grundtvig, 2018, p. 9). Furthermore, 22% of FTF members
reported being always or often stressed, and only 49% (as compared to 63% of
wage earners in general) found that their opportunity to deliver quality in work
was high or very high (Anker & Grundtvig, 2018).
These studies and examples from different kinds of welfare work point to
a number of challenges for welfare professions related to the increased stand-
ardization and market orientation of their work. With the NPM reforms,
new management logics, expressed differently in different areas, gain a
foothold in the work and often put pressure on welfare professionals’ care
orientation, ethics and professional logics. In addition, the research indi-
cates widespread experiences of work stress and intensification, greater time
pressure, increased documentation and control, decreased autonomy, and
invisibility and devaluation of certain aspects of professional work.
Resistance, trust and responsible autonomy

The problems raised by the studies discussed here clearly demonstrate trends
seen not only in the Nordic countries but also internationally. However, we
would argue that the distinctive Danish tendency to professionalize welfare
work has also played and still plays a part. Many of the above-mentioned wel-
fare professions have, as previously described, in parallel and partly in interaction
with NPM, been subject to a professionalization trend. This implies that these
groups subscribe to certain common professional ideals and ethics, and act col-
lectively in debates and struggles concerning developments in the public sector.
Further, many studies point out how professionals actively attempt to maintain
professional ideals in the public sector, and despite marketization, fragmenta-
tion and cuts, make an effort to create a coherent and well-functioning sector.
One example of welfare professionals’ collective resistance to the conse-
quences of NPM is the series of strikes that arose in the context of public sector
collective bargaining in 2008. Large numbers of employees in care, health and
education went on strike. Important slogans for the unions were ‘time for
care’ and ‘more warm hands’, which referred to the fact that documentation
took time and attention from meaningful work in contact with patients, cli-
ents and citizens. Several researchers have pointed out how these strikes were
not only oriented towards the ongoing wage negotiations but were also part
of a greater social struggle for the quality of the work of these professions and
for recognition of their work and professional skills over and above the NPM
reforms (Dahl, 2010; Gleerup, 2010). Dahl (2010), in a study in the health and
social care sector, points out that welfare professionals’ experience of stand-
ardization and devaluation of their work under NPM is particularly frustrating
and taken as a clear lack of respect, because the government at the same time
was supporting professionalization of the field (cf. negotiated modernization).
In Dahl’s words, the state is Janus-faced in simultaneously supporting the
professionalization and de-professionalization of work.
When the Danish government later implemented the so-called ‘trust reform’
(Danish Government et al., 2013), it was also a reaction to the many protests
that, then and later, arose from professionals and unions due to the difficulty
of using their professional skills and judgement, and the sense of distrust and
bureaucracy created by this regime. Former experts on ministerial governance
also warned about the new proliferation of bureaucracy that took time away
from actual work with clients (Gjørup & Hjortdal, 2007). The trust reform fol-
lowed the Nordic labour market model in being based on a tripartite agreement
between the (then centre-left) government and public employers and employ-
ees. It had the official title: ‘Principles for Collaboration on Modernization
between the Parties in the Public Sector’. The text of the agreement empha-
sized concepts such as dialogue, openness, meaningful work and professional
scope for action, and stated: ‘Leadership and governance should be based on
trust and responsibility’ (Danish Government et al., 2013), thus meeting much
of the criticism that welfare professionals and their organizations had raised over
the years. At the same time, however, key NPM principles regarding goal and
performance management and documentation were also maintained, and the
agreement was accompanied by a goal to improve efficiency in the public sec-
tor by 2020 and cut costs by EUR1.6 billion (DKK12 billion) (Møller, 2013).
The trust reform has subsequently had little influence, except in some local and
regional projects (see e.g. Middelboe, 2016), and the right-wing government
that came to power in 2015 has not picked up the threads. Recent research has
also shown that the changes resulting from NPM are quite stable (Torfing &
Triantafillou, 2013; Greve & Ejersbo, 2014). Thus, the trust reform does not
appear to have fundamentally addressed the criticism of the consequences of
NPM for the work of welfare professionals.
The critiques of working conditions in the public sector have also led to
action in the field of working environment interventions. The psychosocial
working environment in the public sector has become an object of concern
and joint action among the labour market parties. For example, in 2007
a tripartite agreement between the government, local authorities and the
central trade union federations instituted obligatory job satisfaction measure-
ments every third year in all public sector workplaces (Danish Government
et al., 2007). Furthermore, collective agreements in the public sector have in
recent years included funding of different forms of expert support for coop-
erative projects between employers and employees in local workplaces to
improve the psychosocial working environment (see e.g. Local Government

Denmark and The Danish Association of Local Government Employees
Organisations, 2015).
One thing is nationwide resistance and collective interventions from welfare
professionals and their organizations, but quite another is welfare professionals’
active attempts to transform and translate governance measures into profession-
ally meaningful practice in everyday work. A key example of such processes
of local transformation can be found in the education sector. There have been
a variety of primary school reforms. Standardized tests and standardized plans
for pupils were among the NPM-inspired measures introduced into Danish
schools in the 2000s. Studies of how such requirements have been transformed
into practice by teachers (Limborg et al., 2012) show how the pupil plans to a
very great extent have been translated and adapted to enable them to be seen
as a useful and constructive tool to support teaching.
Numerous studies of elderly care also demonstrate the breadth of this
phenomenon. Firstly, the everyday practice of home care work is regularly
reorganized to enable adaptation of care to the changing needs of individual
clients and to reach the large number of clients. Everyday practice differs sig-
nificantly from the highly scheduled, standardized services that form the basis
for the work plan (Kamp et al., 2013). Tufte (2013) also shows how time is
subject to negotiation and reorganization. She demonstrates how professionals
expand and redistribute their time to allow for the necessary quality time in the
many everyday situations to be dealt with. As mentioned earlier, standardiza-
tion implies that certain aspects of work become invisible or even illegitimate.
This is very clearly seen in the standardization of home care. However, several
studies (Kamp, 2012; Kirchhoff and Karlsson, 2013) show that what the latter
authors call ‘secret services’ are provided. Social aspects of the work that are
no longer considered as part of home care are nevertheless performed, and
these help to maintain the social relationships that are necessary in everyday
care work.
A further example of welfare professionals’ active adaptation of NPM-
inspired requirements in their everyday work can be found in nursing. Despite
many years of attempts to increase coordination between public institutions,
the NPM reforms have led to an extensive fragmentation of the public sector
(Greve & Ejersbo, 2014), which welfare professionals must attempt to deal
with in order to perform meaningful work. In a recent study of community
nurses’ use of a telemedicine system for wound treatment, Kamp and Hansen
(2019) show how, contrary to the cost-saving intention of the system, nurses
use it to enhance treatment quality by gaining increased access for their patients
to specialized health care and resources elsewhere in the health-care system.
Similarly, they innovatively use the system to ensure better coordination and
progress for their patients, which Allen (2014) calls ‘trajectory mobilization’,
thus linking different parts of the health-care system and compensating for the
fragmentation.
In light of this, we can refer to a form of responsible autonomy, an expres-

sion with a long history in working life studies and the Nordic socio-technical
tradition (Trist & Bamforth, 1951; Friedman, 1977; Hvid, 2014). This is a kind
of autonomy that welfare professionals adopt to help them perform their work
in a meaningful way in practice. In this way, they can, at least to some extent,
maintain a sense of professional pride. As new institutionalism-inspired stud-
ies show, in many areas involving different and competing logics we find that
professionals translate and edit these logics to fit specific contexts in everyday
practice (Blomgren & Waks, 2015). However, many of the above-mentioned
studies of welfare professionals’ work indicate that this is not without repercus-
sions; it often involves significant emotional work and can also lead to what
may be called ‘moral stress’ i.e. stress due to limited possibilities to perform
work perceived as professional and ethical (Sørensen, 2015).
In this chapter, we have shown how NPM has been adopted in the Danish
public sector and the main impacts it has on working life for welfare profession-
als. The Danish case can be considered similar to the other Nordic countries,
but attention must of course be given to national variations in reform history
and adaptation when considering the consequences of NPM for working life
in the public sector.
Drawing on existing research, we have shown how NPM reforms in
Denmark have taken shape as a negotiated modernization of the public sector
in which welfare professions and their organizations have played an active role.
The public sector collective bargaining system has undergone changes, includ-
ing becoming more decentralized and allowing for more flexibility in wage
determination. But industrial relations and collective bargaining traditions have
not been eroded with NPM as expected by some scholars (Pedersen, 1998).
Furthermore, many unions in the health, social and educational sectors have
pursued professionalization strategies in relation to NPM reforms, emphasizing
education and competence development of their members in correspondence
with the HRM dimension of NPM.
The Nordic tradition of social dialogue and negotiation with the labour
market parties has thus had an influence on the adaptation of NPM reforms in
Denmark. However, this does not mean that NPM reforms have not had sig-
nificant impacts on the working lives of welfare professionals. Standardization
and marketization efforts have transformed their work and put pressure on
welfare professionals’ care orientations, ethics and professional logics. In rela-
tion to this, the cited research shows widespread experiences of work stress and
intensification, greater time pressure, increased documentation and control,
decreased autonomy, and invisibility and devaluation of certain aspects of pro-
fessional work. Similar experiences are reported in the international literature
on the working life of welfare professionals under NPM, though of course
with different national and context-specific characteristics (see e.g. Cooke,

2006; Evetts, 2009; Leicht et al., 2009; Gale, 2012; Bolton & Wibberley, 2014;
Cohen et al., 2018). These international similarities in impacts on working life
indicate that the Nordic model does not represent an unchallenged safeguard
against neoliberal governance and management trends, and their consequences
for working life in the public sector.
However, the professionalization of welfare work is an important trait of
developments in Denmark that are not seen to the same extent in many other
Western countries influenced by NPM. We have argued that this professionali-
zation plays a role in shaping the impacts of NPM on working life, as the public
sector is consequently populated by well-organized groups of workers who
subscribe to certain common professional ideals, ethics and logics. Welfare pro-
fessionals work to adapt and translate NPM reform initiatives in accordance with
these in their daily work, and despite marketization, fragmentation and cuts,
make an effort to create a coherent and well-functioning sector. Furthermore,
they intervene collectively in debates and struggles concerning the development
of public sector work. Public criticism, protests and industrial action by welfare
professionals have thus started protracted and widespread debates on the quality
of services and work and the working environment in the sector, and on rec-
ognition and trust of welfare professionals. While these debates have resulted in
some initiatives to improve the psychosocial work environment in public sector
workplaces, they have so far not materialized in significant changes or actual
breaks with NPM principles of governance in the public sector.
As was briefly touched upon earlier, the NPG trend that currently co-exists
with NPM principles of governance presents new and interesting changes to
the work of welfare professionals. The increasing prevalence of the concepts
of user involvement and empowerment challenges traditional roles and rela-
tionships between welfare professionals and clients. Only a few studies of the
implications of this trend for professionals’ working lives have so far been con-
ducted (Järvinen, 2012; Matthiessen and Rostgaard, 2016; Hansen and Kamp,
2018; Kamp and Holen, 2018). These studies point towards new challenges
related to the emotional labour of welfare work and to how NPG trends may
be perceived as both a challenge and a boost for professionalism and the expe-
rience of meaning in work (see also Chapter 12 in this volume). These and
other new governance trends call for further research on the development of
working life for welfare professionals in the Nordic countries.
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Chapter 12
Welfare professionals in
transformation
The case of elderly care
Agnete Meldgaard Hansen and Annette Kamp
Introduction
With marketization and consumerism as its main principles, New Public
Management (NPM) is often described as an approach that implies an attack
on professionals’ position in society (Freidson, 2001; see e.g. Dahl, 2005b) and
a process towards de-professionalization (Dybbroe, 2008; Dalsgaard, 2013).
Professions are generally characterized by their specific and demarcated knowl-
edge domain, their wide autonomy in performance of their professional tasks
and their adherence to a common code of professional ethics (Abbott, 1988).
In principle, NPM implies that professions are confronted with market-based
or utilitarian ethics, and aims at centralizing knowledge so that it rests with
management, for example through standardization and contracting. In that
respect, this development somewhat resembles Taylorist principles of work
organization aiming to secure management control.
Indeed, mistrust of professionals and their altruism was one of the core
arguments for NPM. With reference to new institutional economics and
principal-agent theory, bringing governance back to the ‘principals’ by intro-
ducing means of controlling the professionals has been central (Hood, 1991).
Therefore, although other arguments e.g. ensuring citizens’ rights to equal
services were also stressed, NPM was strongly associated with taming profes-
sionals’ autonomy and identity (Dahl & Rasmussen, 2012).
A key question here is to what extent this aim has actually been accom-
plished. First, the negotiated character of these changes must be taken into
account. As we have shown in Chapter 11, recent studies show that, at least in
a Nordic context, different forms of new professionalization are taking place
which transform professional identities and autonomy, as well as roles and rela-
tionships between professionals and citizens/clients (Hansen, 2015; Wathne,
2015; Hansen & Kamp, 2018). Second, NPM must, as explained in the previ-
ous chapter, be seen as a miscellany of different forms of governance rather than
a monolith where the forms will vary between different empirical fields. Other
discourses than that of marketization may play an important role in shaping the
understanding of professionalism in specific fields e.g. discourses on old age and
244 Agnete Meldgaard Hansen and Annette Kamp
ageing in elderly care, on childhood and pedagogy in daycare work, and on the
criminal subject and crime in police work. Thus, we see public sector profes-
sionalism not simply as under threat from NPM but as something achieved
through historical processes and struggles, as well as under continuous transfor-
mation, and sometimes challenge, in close connection with developments in
public sector governance and policy ideals. In some ways, NPM has contributed
to weakening professionalization, but in other ways, NPM has actually been a
vehicle of professionalization for some groups, such as elderly care workers and
kindergarten teachers (Dahl, 2005c; Hjort, 2005).
Against this background, we would argue that there may be great differences
in the way modernization and NPM have affected work in different sectors.
Thus, when answering questions as to how NPM and other forms of public
governance affect working life, we have to be sensitive to the specific contexts.
The focus for this chapter is elderly care. This is an area that has been
emblematic for the development of NPM in the Danish public sector. As this
is one of the largest and most costly parts of the public sector, it was the field
where NPM-inspired reforms were most intensely and systematically imple-
mented. Moreover, the reforms have had a significant impact on working
conditions in elderly care, with the result that this field has played a prominent
role in critical debates on NPM (Kamp & Hvid, 2012a).
In terms of its characteristics, elderly care is also a sector which is very ‘Nordic’:
it is based on universalistic principles regarding the coverage of its services, and
in fact it covers a quite large percentage of elderly Danish people. Further, care
workers in this sector have since the 1990s been professionalized, with their
own vocational education qualifications. However, they are, as explained in
Chapter 11, not professionals in a classical sense; they are welfare professionals,
frontline workers in welfare state services, whose work involves interactions
with users (Hjort, 2004; Järvinen & Mik-Meyer, 2012). They are thus examples
of the professionalization that has accompanied the introduction of NPM. At
the same time, contemporary conceptions of ageing and the implied discourses
of active ageing (Katz, 2000; Walker, 2009) play an important role in changing
care work and professionalism in this field. This development has also had a
great impact on the way new forms of governance, in terms of citizen-centred
care and co-production, are designed.
The aim of this chapter is to explore the transformation of professionals’
working life that has resulted from the introduction of NPM and newer forms
of public governance, often dubbed New Public Governance (NPG), in a
specific field: Danish elderly care. More specifically, we ask how professional
autonomy, meaning and identity at work have been transformed during the period of
modernization since the early 1980s.
In order to illuminate this development, our starting point is our over ten
years of research in this field. We also include contributions from other Danish
and Nordic researchers belonging to the rich tradition of Nordic care research
(see e.g. Dahl & Eriksen, 2005; Szebehely, 2005). This chapter thus takes the
The case of elderly care 245
form of a compilation of different contributions, primarily qualitative studies

and often involving extensive fieldwork.
First, we give an overview of the context, i.e. elderly care in Denmark, and
describe the main features of NPM and NPG reforms since the early 1980s.
We then present our analysis of developments in work and professionalism
under three headings: transformation of the core task, autonomy under pressure and
new care relationships and professional identities. Finally, in the discussion and con-
clusion section, we discuss the implications of these developments for working
life in elderly care and their possible future directions.
The context: elderly care and elderly care

workers in Denmark
Elderly care work in Denmark is characterized by a quite significant over-
representation of female workers; about 92% of the workers in elderly care
services are women (KRL, 2017). The elderly care profession has gendered
roots as ‘women’s work’ as it is related to traditionally femininely connoted
reproductive work in the home (e.g. cooking, cleaning, and physical as well as
psychological care for family members). The profession originates in so-called
‘housewife substitution’ programmes instituted in the 1940s by the welfare
state, aiming to aid frail elderly clients and others with necessary housework
(Dahl, 2000; Petersen, 2008).
The Danish elderly care sector expanded quite significantly over the lat-
ter half of the 20th century. The field of homecare services in particular was
expanded. This expansion was due to welfare state de-institutionalization
policies, emphasizing that clients should remain ‘as long as possible in their
own homes’ to avoid the more expensive care services provided in nursing
homes. This was welcomed by many clients, who preferred the more indi-
vidualized and flexible care provided in their own homes (Petersen, 2008;
Dahl & Rasmussen, 2012). The expansion of the sector continues to this day.
While austerity in general has been at the top of the political agenda since
2008, healthcare policies in Denmark pursue a general strategy of decen-
tralization. More and more healthcare tasks and responsibilities are pushed
downwards in the healthcare system from expensive, specialized hospitals to
the primary healthcare sector and to patients’/clients’ homes. This increases
both the amount and complexity of tasks in homecare (LGDK et al., 2017).
This development implies a large, stable labour market for public sector
homecare. Danish local authorities employ about 78,000 people in homecare
(KRL, 2017).
Elderly care work was originally considered unskilled work appropriate
for housewives working part-time and thus requiring no formal education
(Wærness, 1984; Dahl, 2000; Petersen, 2008). Today, however, educational lev-
els of elderly care workers providing healthcare services are higher in Denmark
than in most other European countries (Genet et al., 2012). In Denmark, the
majority of elderly care workers have a vocational qualification as ‘social and

healthcare helpers’ or ‘social and healthcare assistants’; these courses take two
years and two months, and three years and ten months, respectively.
NPM in elderly care

Elderly care, being one of the most costly areas of public service, is the field
where NPM-inspired reforms have been most intensely and systematically
implemented, and the reforms have had a significant impact on Danish elderly
care work. The most important change was the implementation of the so-
called purchaser–provider model, which was enforced by legislation in 2001
but was already being used in the 1990s (Eskelinen et al., 2006). This model,
inspired by the NPM principle of marketization, entails a split between the
purchaser and provider of care, where the purchaser (the local authority)
orders specific care services from either public or private care providers. The
purchaser–provider model requires care tasks to be explicitly defined, described
and priced, in order to be exchangeable on the created care market. It thus
involves a standardization of care tasks. With these reforms, care tasks are trans-
formed into standardized care services that can be given a price and a fixed time,
and be exchanged on a market. In this way, elderly care has been reorganized
according to rationales of increased marketization, economic efficiency and
standardization (Vabø, 2005; Szebehely, 2006; Kamp & Hvid, 2012b; Kamp
et al., 2013), and the recipients of care have been reframed as consumers choos-
ing between services (Højlund, 2006; Rostgaard, 2011). NPM principles for
public sector care work continue to have significant influence despite wide-
spread criticism (see Chapter 11 and later in this chapter). This widespread
criticism has led to some ‘softening’ of the model and to elements of flexibility
being implemented (see e.g. La Cour & Højlund, 2001), but the model contin-
ues to be the basic organizing principle of elderly care provision in Denmark.
NPG and citizen-centred care

However, the NPM story is not the only one to be told, and in later years
these reforms were supplemented with a wave of reforms focusing on active
ageing and self-sufficiency in care for elderly clients (Hansen, 2015, 2016a).
A fairly new development in the Danish elderly care field (starting in the late
2000s), is a ‘re-birth’ of a help-for-self-help and activation agenda, related
to broader policy developments focusing on promotion of ‘active’, ‘healthy’
and ‘successful’ ageing (Katz, 2000; Minkler & Fadem, 2002; Walker, 2009).
This focus on enabling client self-care has existed as a professional principle
in the sector for many years but has been seen by many elderly care workers
as difficult to realize within the standardized time and task regime of NPM
(Swane, 2003). In the current resurfacing of these aims in elderly care, a
move to link them with the field of rehabilitation has taken place. A wave
of so-called ‘everyday rehabilitation’ programmes has been implemented in

Danish public sector elderly care services (Månsson, 2007; Kjellberg et al.,
2013; Christensen et al., 2015). The central need for elderly clients articu-
lated in relation to these programmes is a need for freedom, self-sufficiency
and independence from (publicly provided) help. Furthermore, telecare and
a number of other new technologies have recently been introduced in care
work as means of accomplishing better and more efficient care (Hansen &
Grosen, 2019; Kamp & Hansen, 2019). These technologies are generally part
of the movement towards empowerment and responsibilization of the cli-
ent. Thus, changing relations and identities of clients and professionals are
on the agenda. In the following section, we will discuss the impact of these
diverse reforms and reorganizations on the core task, autonomy and profes-
sional identities of elderly care workers.
Transformation of the core task: from housework

and social contact to rehabilitation and activation
The core task in elderly care work i.e. the provision of care in clients’ homes
or apartments in elderly care centres, is not as simple to define as it may first
appear. The tasks of elderly care workers have changed over time and have
been under continuous negotiation in relation to changing ideals of care and
governance in Denmark. While NPM leads to redefinition and fragmenta-
tion of tasks, new articulations of the elderly as active and resourceful people
have also played a role. Further, the continuous effort to professionalize and
‘defeminize’ the work is important. Like other care professionals, care workers
in elderly care struggle for recognition of their work as based on qualifications,
not just something that anyone (any woman) can do (Skeggs, 2005).
Following Hanne Marlene Dahl’s work on homecare (Dahl, 2000), elderly
care work must be understood in relation to how the needs of care recipients
are articulated. With this understanding, care recipients’ needs are not consid-
ered objective and easily identifiable entities but as politically contested and
negotiated in the context of welfare state policies and practices (see also Fraser,
1989). How needs are articulated will affect how the tasks and the identity of
the care worker are defined.
In the early days of Danish elderly care services, the main tasks performed
were housework (Lewinther, 1997), though as Dahl (2000) shows, tasks such
as providing ‘understanding’ and ‘social contact’ were also part of the work.
Dahl observes a historical development away from negative articulations of the
care needs of fragile elderly people that characterized the early days of elderly
care provision, towards more positive and pleasant articulations (from the late
1960s onwards), such as ‘creating wellbeing’, ‘creating growth’ and ‘enabling
life-realization’ (Dahl, 2005a). In line with this development, elderly care work
in Denmark has since the 1980s been influenced by an ideal of activation
and ‘help-for-self-help’, where the task of the elderly care worker, rather than
performing tasks for clients, instead is to enable them to care for themselves
(Swane, 2003).
Another important development in the articulation of care needs and care
tasks is that the social, cognitive and emotional aspects of care work, such as
the relief of loneliness and the provision of social contact to elderly clients,
have disappeared from politico-administrative discourses on publicly provided
elderly care. These tasks are instead seen as belonging to ‘civil society’ or ‘the
community’ (Dahl, 2005a). These tasks and needs were written out of official
documents on elderly care as early as the 1960s, which must also be seen as
part of an effort towards professionalization, emphasizing unique qualifications
and distancing from care dispositions that are assumed to be a basic human (or
female) quality (Dahl, 2000). However, the question of whether or not social
contact should be a central task and aspect of elderly care work is still highly
contested in the Danish elderly care field (Kamp, 2012; Hansen, 2015). The
tasks of elderly care work and the needs to be met have thus changed and been
delimited over time.
The delimitation of tasks was formalized and extended with NPM and the
implementation of the purchaser–provider model in elderly care. This devel-
opment for example implied a separation of ‘practical tasks’ and ‘care tasks’, a
separation that paved the way for marketization of the practical part of the job,
such as shopping, cleaning, cooking, etc. where nearly 50% is now provided
by private firms (Kamp, 2013). But it also implied a fragmentation of work into
small tasks that could be distributed in different ways to optimize work organi-
zation and efficiency (Szebehely, 1995). In this way, classic ideals of holistic
care became increasingly difficult to practise (Dybbroe, 2008).
However, the new paradigm of rehabilitation has changed the field and was
initially received with enthusiasm by care workers (Rostgaard & Matthiessen,
2016). Physical training and motivation for self-development and independ-
ence from help are central aspects of these programmes and have thus become
new tasks for elderly care workers. Basically, they are now tasked with train-
ing clients, physically and mentally, to take care of themselves. In most local
authorities, rehabilitation takes place in close cooperation with a physiotherapist
or occupational therapist, who establishes an action plan, stating the aims of
the clients and the milestones to be achieved. The division of labour between
therapists and care workers may be subject to negotiation; however, the care
workers often remain with the task to execute the plan (Flensborg Jensen,
2017). This implies that new pedagogical and motivational tasks are becoming
part of care work (Hansen & Kamp, 2018)
This development is accompanied by an increasing use of new technologies
(in the Danish context labelled ‘welfare technologies’), which are to enhance
the client’s independence from help. However, welfare technologies also imply
other tasks, often termed articulation and inclusion work (Star & Strauss, 1999;
Oudshoorn, 2008). Care workers are involved in developing the use of the
technologies, determining which clients are eligible to use them and making
them work in practice by adjusting them to the individual client (see e.g. IDA
& LGDK, 2008; Nickelsen, 2013; Kamp & Ballegaard, 2018; Hansen and
Grosen, 2019).
To sum up, the ideals of care, the professional orientation and the tasks of
elderly care have changed dramatically over time. Exclusion of tasks has con-
stricted the field, whereas the fragmentation of tasks introduced by NPM has
narrowed the scope for holistic care. The turn towards rehabilitation seems to
have brought some new areas for development. However, it is important to note
that the ideals and practices involved do not simply replace each other. What we
find in this field is a complex co-existence of different ideals and practices, which
are often hierarchized, as illustrated by e.g. Kamp (2012) and Hansen (2015).
Professional autonomy under pressure and

development
Accounts of the early days (from the 1940s to the 1980s) of elderly care pro-
vision describe a flexible day-to-day adjustment and negotiation of care tasks
between care workers and care recipients (Pedersen & Andersen, 2016). This
flexibility reflected a view that ‘care needs are complex and shifting and should
be responded to in a flexible manner’ (Vabø, 2009, p. 350). The concrete tasks
of care work were thus negotiated in the day-to-day care encounter and not
originally subject to much external regulation. However, homecare workers in
particular worked alone, and development in work through discussions with
colleagues or training was almost non-existent (Pedersen & Andersen, 2016).
This situation changed with the increasing concern for growing welfare
state budgets that gained ground from the 1970s onwards. The implementation
of NPM profoundly changed the opportunities for autonomy and discretion.
As described earlier, a split between provider and purchaser was established.
Consequently, the assessment of the needs of the elderly was no longer part
of care workers’ work; care workers were simply to execute the tasks allotted
to each user by the specialized department of care assessors. In addition, the
intricate regime of management now introduced meant a standardization of
tasks. The execution of tasks was then recorded by care workers using a small
personal computer, the palm pilot, which enabled management to aggregate
information electronically. Ideally, this would allow management to control
and monitor the care work accomplished by care workers in every home
(Scales, 2013; Kamp & Ryberg, 2016). Obviously, this regime resulted in
intensive control and narrowed the scope for discretion in elderly care work.
Empirical studies have pointed out how this has resulted in a lack of discre-
tion and recognition for care workers. Christiansen (2002), who conducted an
extensive survey among care workers on the consequences of NPM, points out
how NPM implied a lack of influence at work, lack of information and lack
of possibilities for development and innovation. Moreover, a large majority of
the respondents experienced greater workload and time pressure. Qualitative
interviews that were also part of this study showed how the new temporal
order tended to fragment work; this hampered the establishment of trustful
relationships with elderly people, which are crucial for the meaning of the
work and for creating a good workflow in practice. This development led to
an overall experience of deskilling among care workers (Dybbroe, 2008) and
a crisis of recognition, which surfaced most clearly in the large strike by care
workers in 2008 (Dahl, 2009; Gleerup, 2010).
This development has often been called neo-Taylorism, and following this line
of thought, an instrumentalist approach to work might have been expected to
ensue. However, several studies point out that this is far from the case. They show
how care workers develop different strategies in order to maintain a quality of
care that lives up to their own ethical standards, implying that extra work is done,
standards are creatively reinterpreted or work is informally reorganized, in order
to take the shifting needs of elderly people into account (Liebst & Monrad, 2008;
Dahl, 2009; Tufte, 2013). In this way, we see that care workers exercise what is
often termed responsible autonomy (Friedman, 1977), implying that autonomy in
work does not perish but lives on. It should be noted that responsible autonomy
is a collective phenomenon, and while NPM caused fragmentation and stand-
ardization of tasks, large public workplaces with communities of well-organized
professionals were retained in Denmark, allowing for the development of such
strategies. This is in stark contrast to more individualized working conditions
existing in e.g. the UK (Hayes & Moore, 2017). The practice of responsible
autonomy is, however, not without costs. For example, Liebst and Monrad
(2008) highlight the emotional strain involved, while others such as Tufte (2013)
reveal the self-intensification at play. These tendencies are echoed in Norwegian
research into elderly care (Rasmussen, 2004; Kirchhoff & Karlsson, 2013).
New trends in elderly care focusing on active ageing and self-sufficiency
may, however, pave the way for a revitalization of autonomy (Kamp, 2013;
Hansen, 2015). As mentioned in the section above, new tasks like physical
training and motivation for self-development have been introduced. This does
not mean that the standardization and time scheduling of work introduced as
part of NPM have been abandoned. However, making rehabilitation happen
implies adjusting activities to the individual person. In the study by Hansen and
Kamp (2018) care workers describe how rehabilitative care implies that they
have become more observant, analytical and able to see the physical and men-
tal potentials of clients to develop and participate in care and practical tasks, as
illustrated by the following quote:
I think you see a bigger picture. Before, you would come and clean –
fne . . . Now, you see other possibilities and think: . . . ‘you [the client]
could maybe take the duster?’ In that way – get people involved, right?
Where I might have been more inclined to do more things before, with-
out questioning.
(Laura, home trainer; Hansen & Kamp, 2018)
In this way, care workers’ knowledge of elderly clients’ lifestyle, problems,

resources and potentialities come into play, encouraging the development
of creative ways of training. Hence, rehabilitative elderly care is generally
viewed by care workers as upgrading their work (Hansen, 2015; Rostgaard &
Matthiessen, 2016).
To sum up, the detrimental effects of NPM on autonomy and discretion
seem well-documented. The division between assessment and execution
severely restricted care workers’ use of their knowledge and qualifications.
However, at the same time, new forms of organization that resulted from
NPM have encouraged the establishment of elderly care workers as a profes-
sional and workplace community, which acts as a resource for different forms
of responsible autonomy or organizational misbehaviour, implying that (some)
autonomy was maintained. New trends in elderly care also encourage the use
of broader assessments of clients’ resources and life situation.
New care relationships and professional identities

The personal relationships and attachments established between care work-
ers and care recipients have been the subject of much of the literature on
elderly care work in the Nordic countries (Wærness, 1984; Szebehely, 1995;
Lewinther, 1997; Astvik, 2003; Christensen, 2005). Intimately related to the
constitution of care relationships is also the question of professional identi-
ties for care workers. Care relationships and the professional identities of care
workers have been and are the target of both NPM and more recent reform
efforts. These have at their core a transformation of the identities and relation-
ships of care workers and care recipients.
Authors emphasizing empathy, reciprocity, personal knowledge, continuity
and attachment as vital elements in good care relationships have argued that
these elements have become more difficult to achieve after the NPM reforms
and their fragmentation of time and space described earlier (Wærness, 1984;
Lewinther, 1997; Liebst & Monrad, 2008; Wrede et al., 2008). Other authors,
like Dahl (2017), go one step further, questioning whether continuity and
attachment actually exist today. She suggests that we should rather talk about
accidental ‘meetings between known and unknown’, resulting from the com-
plex organization, the many actors involved and the discontinuity of care.
In addition, efforts to achieve professionalization have affected the develop-
ment of relationships and identities. These efforts entail a ‘defeminization’ of
elderly care work. Care workers are encouraged to distance themselves from
traditional female ‘caring dispositions’ and experience-based approaches to care
work, and instead adhere to formal, specialized knowledge and methods in
order to become reflexive, ‘real professionals’ and increase their status (Dahl,
2005c; Fejes, 2012; Hansen & Kamp, 2018).
Another significant development for care relationships and identities has
been the NPM-inspired articulation of clients as consumers and care workers as
providers of care services. Clients are positioned as rational market actors in charge
of their own care provision, with the power to choose between the services on
offer by different providers, and thus as empowered to exit a care relationship if
it is not satisfactory (Eskelinen et al., 2006; Rostgaard, 2006). However, studies
have shown that clients are reluctant to become the envisioned freely choosing
care consumer, giving continuity in the care relationship higher priority than
the free choice of care provider (Rostgaard, 2011). As a counterpart to this (not
fully realized) care customer, care workers are positioned as providers of stand-
ardized services and given a low degree of professional discretion and influence
on services. On the one hand, as Eskelinen et al. (2006) have pointed out, this
development stands in stark contrast to attempts to professionalize elderly care
work, creating a contradictory position for care workers. On the other hand,
as described earlier, the standardization and marketization of tasks involved an
outsourcing of many of the practical care tasks, such as cooking, shopping and
cleaning. These tasks are often devalued and not considered central to profes-
sional identity in the elderly care profession, and care workers thus do not
tend to see their outsourcing as a threat to their professionalism (Kamp, 2012).
Standardization and marketization thus not only offer a challenge to professional
autonomy but also an opportunity to strengthen professional identity as tasks
that are considered non-professional are toned down.
Later developments have introduced other articulations of the care relation-
ship, adding to its complexity and to the complexity of care worker and client
identities. With the described activation and rehabilitation efforts that have
become widespread in the Danish elderly care sector, the care relationship is by
some care workers described as becoming more equal and cooperative, allow-
ing them to exit the service role articulated in marketized care relationships. As
a care worker in a study of homecare rehabilitation efforts commented:
It becomes less like ‘masters and servants’, you see? . . . Previously, you
rushed in and did all kinds of things . . . and now it’s just become more
equal, I think. So we help each other out, or: ‘so you can do that, and
then I’ll do this’.
(Rita, social and healthcare assistant, Hansen, 2015)
With rehabilitation and activation eforts, clients are given a more active role
and are encouraged and trained to perform as many care tasks as possible them-
selves. Care workers disassociate themselves from the image of ‘the maid’ and
take on an identity as coaches, sometimes helping out, but primarily motivating
and training clients to care for themselves (Hansen, 2015; Hansen & Kamp,
2018). The care relationship in this manner becomes a joint project to achieve
goals of self-sufciency and independence from help for clients.
However, the care relationship as a ‘joint project’ between equal partners
seems to be an ideal not always attainable in practice. The care worker’s pro-
fessional identity as a motivating coach and partner is dependent on the client
assuming an identity as a person in training for independence. In cases where

clients for different reasons do not cooperate with the project of rehabilitation,
the care relationship and care worker identities can become paternalistic and
responsibilizing; activity and independence are then not merely encouraged but
demanded of clients and seen as a duty (Mendes, 2013; Hansen, 2016a, 2016b).
Another aspect of the new rehabilitative care relationship is an element of
withdrawal and distance on the part of the care worker. The goal of rehabilita-
tion and activation is ‘to set clients free’ from the need for publicly provided
elderly care, and thus care relationships are seen as needing to be phased out
or reduced as much as possible so that public sector intervention in the private
sphere of the client is minimized. Dahl (2005a) has described this develop-
ment as a different form of welfare state retrenchment from the retrenchment
efforts associated with NPM. This withdrawal from the client’s private sphere
is realized in a number of ways. In the study of rehabilitation efforts men-
tioned earlier, care workers started to work ‘with their hands behind their
backs’ i.e. they withdrew physically from the care relationship, leaving clients
to do practical and physical tasks themselves and gradually phasing out the care
relationship (Hansen, 2016a).
Furthermore, welfare technologies are in many situations used to support
care worker withdrawal. For example, telecare technologies are employed to
provide so-called ‘virtual homecare’, where homecare visits take place through
video conversations. Clients may for example no longer receive a physical
visit to help them take their medicine, but instead receive a video call from a
care worker. Care worker presence in the client’s home is thus minimized in
accordance with the ideal of setting clients free (Kamp & Ballegaard, 2016).
Other technologies support the withdrawal of the care worker intervention
from clients’ intimate bodily sphere. For example, automatic wash-and-dry
toilets are employed to enable disabled and elderly clients to handle post-toilet
hygiene without the help of a care worker, thus avoiding the transgression of
normal boundaries of bodily autonomy (Hansen & Grosen, 2019).
To sum up, competing images of the care worker as an empathic carer, a
service worker, a reflexive knowledgeable professional, a distanced and moti-
vating coach, an equal partner, a paternalistic professional, and a flexible and
responsive monitor of needs exist alongside each other. Developments in the
elderly care sector have led to a landscape of multiple and sometimes contradic-
tory identities for care workers, who interact with clients in multifaceted and
complex care relationships.
This chapter has focused on the specific field of elderly care in order to provide
a nuanced picture of how NPM and later reforms have influenced the working
lives of welfare professionals. We argue that NPM, at least in a Nordic version,
does not simply lead to de-professionalization and loss of autonomy.
Danish elderly care has actually been subject to quite classical NPM reforms
(Hood, 1991), creating internal markets through contractualization and lead-
ing to standardization and fragmentation of work. However, it has remained
a largely public area of employment, employing well-organized welfare
professionals.
As we point out, much research in the area does indeed show how NPM
has implied fragmentation of tasks, loss of autonomy, recognition and profes-
sionalism, which are the effects usually associated with NPM reforms. But as
we also show, this is not the whole story. Various tasks have been included in
and excluded from elderly care over a long period of time, reflecting shifting
discourses that frame the conception of the needs of elderly people, but no
doubt also in intimate interaction with reforms aiming at rationalization and
retrenchment in the sector. Also involved are the continuous efforts to enhance
professionalization.
At the same time, although autonomy has been attacked by reforms, we
point out how the large and well-organized communities of workers in elderly
care have also been a site for resistance, misbehaviour and responsible auton-
omy, implying that although work has formally been standardized, it is seldom
carried out by the book. Many studies included in our chapter underline how
standardized work routines often fall short when addressing the shifting needs
and tasks in work with frail elderly people. We also demonstrate how new
conceptions of ageing and elderly people have paved the way for other forms
of care based on principles of rehabilitation. These forms of care offer more
autonomy and have formed a basis for a renewal of professionalism. That is also
true of the influx of new so-called welfare technologies that aim to sustain the
process of rehabilitation. New tasks and new possibilities for increasing discre-
tion in care work seem to be the result, and these possibilities are embraced by
welfare professionals.
We can thus observe how the process of professionalization is ongoing.
There are times where autonomy is weakened and the core tasks shift over
time, but there are also times when the profession can be reshaped and trans-
formed. This may be seen as characteristic of this type of profession. As a form
of historically achieved institutionalization, elderly care functions as a site for
shaping and influencing the different types of reforms introduced, thus reflect-
ing Nordic negotiated modernization.
However, welfare professions are not as strong and independent insti-
tutions as classical professions. Rather, they resemble occupations and are
much more dependent on and interconnected with the state with its shift-
ing demands on the profession and the policy trends that evolve. So they
must as institutions be more flexible in adapting and renegotiating knowledge
domains and professional identities (Jørgensen, 2009).
As we have underlined, professional identities are not simply shifted over
the course of time; different orientations co-exist in the field which may lead
to tensions and conflicts among professionals. Here, the plural and shifting role
of the client poses a major challenge. Care relations are traditionally conceived
as central to professional identity, but developments in the field of elderly care
in many ways challenge the classical conception of care relations based on
empathy and continuous contact. While NPM introduced marketized relations
in the form of consumerism, NPG encourages the self-reliant and empowered
partner. Researchers in the field agree that these policy goals are not easily
accomplished, as all clients do not necessarily take on the new roles. However,
we show how this development implies that welfare professionals must negotiate
possibly contradictory relations.
In our introduction to this chapter, we raised the broader question of
how public sector modernization in the Nordic countries has evolved and its
implications for welfare professions. Taking elderly care as a case, we would
argue that Nordic NPM may provide possibilities to retain autonomy and
professionalism, but we also show that it may not be without costs in terms
of struggles, emotional strain and self-intensification. New reforms aiming at
changing roles and relations between professionals and clients may, however,
more radically change the scene and possibly provide new opportunities for
building autonomy and professionalism.
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Chapter 13
Welfare professionals in
transformation
The case of police officers in Norway
Christin Thea Wathne
Introduction
The Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security and the National Police
Directorate constitute the central leadership of the Norwegian Police Service
(Politi- og lensmannsetaten), which is one of the oldest government agencies
in Norway. The police districts are divided into police station districts and rural
police station districts. Each police district is led by a chief of police, who is
responsible for all police services, the budget and the results. The Norwegian
Police Service currently has approximately 13,000 employees. When women
were given the equal right to enter the police force in 1958, the police force
had a masculine air about it, and the police corps consisted almost entirely of
men. Today, 46% of all employees in the police force are women, while 31%
of those trained as police officers are women. In total, 32% of the managerial
positions are held by women (Politiet, 2018a).
The Norwegian Police has been a national police force since 1937. In addi-
tion to performing the usual police tasks in rural areas, the Norwegian rural chief
of police has had a number of public and civil tasks that have helped give the
police a civil image (Støkken, 1981, p. 36). Although the government estab-
lished and ran a three-month police academy in 1919, there were no formal
educational requirements for being employed as a police officer in Norway
until far into the 1950s. Before 1920, any training in upholding public order
was largely carried out in the day-to-day police work. After the war, a two-
year educational programme was established at the Norwegian Police Academy,
and from 1992 it was changed to a three-year degree-level programme. This
development contrasts sharply with that in Denmark, where the police are still
to this day trained in a two-year police academy for its national police, called
Politiskolen (Politiskolen, 2018). Since 2004, the Norwegian police educa-
tion programme has been accredited as a Bachelor’s degree (Hove, 2012).
Today, the Norwegian Police University College offers two Master’s pro-
grammes (The Norwegian Police University College, 2018). In other words,
the Norwegian Police University College safeguards the professional standards
of the Norwegian police by developing and communicating the knowledge,
The case of police officers in Norway 261
skills and attitudes that the police need to have in order to ensure security,
law and order. Knowledge from the legal courses and investigation classes
have held a dominant position in the training programme all the way up to
the present day. It was only from the 1980s onwards that the focus on broad,
knowledge-based maintenance of public order and a service directed at the pub-
lic was formally included in the programme. With the university college project
(Høgskoleprosjektet), this became even more prevalent (Hove, 2012). In the
1990s, the idea was that this study programme would qualify the candidates for
a broader police role, which is expressed in the emphasis on prevention and the
social sciences. The programme was now geared at the generalist and would
provide a broad qualification for operative police work, investigation and pre-
ventative work, alongside certain administrative tasks (Hove, 2012). In sum, it
can be said that this modern police has been more public, more specialized and
more professional than the pre-modern police forces were (Bayley, 1985).
The Norwegian police’s ideological roots in the

Scandinavian welfare model
There are several similarities between the structural conditions for police work
in Denmark and Norway. In both countries, the police have their ideological
roots in the Scandinavian welfare model, where the public sector is responsible
for ensuring that all citizens have access to basic financial, social and cultural
goods and services: “In order to secure a reasonable standard of living for all
individuals independent of family background, welfare payments and public
services are relatively generous. This model is oriented toward the objective
of securing equality” (Høigård, 2011, p. 273). The function of the police in
maintaining public order has remained a core function for the past 350 years,
even though parts of the content of this function have changed in line with the
development of society (Ellefsen & Larsson, 2014, p. 30). While the way prob-
lems are solved depends on the degree to which the various situations demand
help or control, the emphasis on control and help also depends on how the
police employee reads the situation and shapes his or her own role. The norms
for how to define various situations may depend on the individual, or they
may develop differently at different police units. However, the norms for how
to understand and define society and various situations are also influenced by
various institutional logics. By institutional logics we mean: “the socially con-
structed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, including
assumptions, values, and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations pro-
vide meaning to their daily activity, organize time and reproduce their lives
and experiences” (Thornton & Ocasios, 2008, here in Thornton et al., 2013,
p. 2). In general, it can be said that the dominant institutional logics in the
police are to various degrees geared at controlling citizens rather than serving
them (Ministry of Justice and Public Security, 2009). Different institutional
262 Christin Thea Wathne
logics are reflected in two different police traditions, which can roughly be
divided into two historical lines: a tradition of restraint and a militaristic tradi-
tion (NOU, 2017, p. 28). The tradition of restraint is characterized by the view
that the police shall be restrained in their use of force, be focused on regulation
by law and aim to avoid shooting or killing people. In this tradition, political
and practical discretion in the day-to-day police work are both emphasized,
and it is to this tradition that the Norwegian police belongs. By contrast, the
militaristic tradition is characterized by secrecy, hierarchic lines of command,
risk management and military solutions that involve weapons and uncompro-
mising tactics. The goal is to eliminate threats, and there is little emphasis on
practical discretion in the day-to-day work. This tradition has its roots in the
continental parts of Europe and other parts of the world (NOU, 2017, p. 28).
With its strong emphasis on efficiency and quantifiable results, the instrumental
logic of the NPM reforms can be seen to have helped to change the societal
view of crime and what the police’s tasks are and how to solve them. In this
way, the reforms have also opened up a possibility for the Norwegian police
tradition to move in a more militaristic direction.
To create a clearer context for this line of thinking, we shall look at soci-
ety’s understanding of the core tasks of the police from a perspective of
historical reform.
The core tasks of the police in a historical

reform perspective
Historically, the core tasks of the police have been defined in the tension
between control tasks and help/preventive tasks. As mentioned earlier, the
definition of core tasks is related to the institutional logics that have character-
ized the social mandate of the police at any given time. After World War II,
police tasks were about control and fighting crime. Both at the police academy
of the day and in professional practice there was more emphasis on control
than on assistance and help to the public. Using physical force to solve tasks
was regarded as a more expedient tool than communication. The focus on
problems with law and order and crime reduction in the 1950s and up until the
1970s leads us to describe the police organization in this period as “the force
and control model” (Wathne, 2016). In the 1960s and 1970s, the police force
gradually changed in a more humanistic direction, in line with the general
development of public institutions in Norway at the time.
The work methods of the police were characterized more by communi-
cation, and the agency moved towards a “community policing model”. The
community policing model was introduced in Norway in 1978–79 (Holmberg,
2005, p. 207), framed in ten basic principles for the police (Ministry of Justice
and the Police, 1981) and entailed decentralization of police work where the
police increasingly emphasized prevention and greater public safety (Balvig &
Holmberg, 2004, p. 11). The model reached its zenith in the 1980s, when
police professionalism meant a more self-regulated police that was less affected
by bureaucratic management structures (Sklansky, 2014). The humanistic logic
of the community policing model states that police should be generalists and act
in cooperation with the public (Ministry of Justice and the Police, 1981, p. 35).
The fact that it was only in the 1990s that police education started to emphasize
prevention and social sciences demonstrates how slowly the police education
adapted to this model. The humanistic professional logic was in line with official
police documents about how the police should work. However, during the
1990s this humanistic professional logic was challenged by the tougher tone of
justice policy and the stronger orientation towards the situation of victims rather
than towards the marginalized groups in the streets (Ministry of Justice and
Public Security, 2009, p. 249). At the same time, a number of NPM-inspired
reforms in Europe caused a movement away from the traditional Weberian
bureaucratic model in the public sector (Meyer et al., 2014).
The reforms were rooted in a criticism that the welfare state project had
turned local authorities into unresponsive bureaucratic organizations (Hansen,
2013, p. 120). One consequence of this criticism is that confidence in the
professions has been weakened and that the professions have become more
vulnerable to market, profitability and bureaucracy management (Freidson,
2001, here in Døving et al., 2015, p. 33). The professions have also reduced
the use of discretion in their work (Døving et al., 2015).
Since the turn of the millennium, we find clear signs in society at large of a
pendulum movement away from decentralized management towards central-
ized management with an emphasis on management by objectives (Røvik,
2009). Since it is difficult to quantify the effects of broad, preventive police
work, the idea that humanistic good intentions were sufficient for guiding
allocation of police resources was headed for a fall in Norway as well (Larsson,
2012). The traditional broad prevention methods lost their legitimacy in favour
of more targeted and quantifiable approaches (Hough, 2010; Reiner, 2013).
The changes must be seen in light of the introduction of management by
objectives and results as a general principle for organizing tasks in the govern-
ment since 1991. The focus on reporting goal achievement implied that the
concept of “responsibility” changed its meaning from being about controlling
the power of the police over citizens and protecting their legal rights to being
accountable for how the police spend their resources1 (Walker, 2005). Whereas
community policing emerged as society in general became more humanistic,
NPM logic also came through the door along with NPM reforms and man-
agement by objectives. This may be one of the reasons that several police
studies show that policy culture mobilizes resistance to organizational changes
inspired by NPM reforms (Finstad, 2000; Holgersson, 2005; Gundhus, 2006;
Andersson & Tengblad, 2009).
NPM reforms have a clear ideological-political dimension where the logic
of economism, its concepts and approaches dominate (Røvik, 2009, p. 34).
Traces of how NPM trickled into the police can be found in the rhetoric
of police management; whereas the police in the 1990s discovered crimes and
solved them, today they “produce” cases. These changes must be seen in light
of how language can reinforce logics that rub off on cultural values and the way
employees think (Ferraro et al., 2005, p. 20). Founded on a view of knowl-
edge that is based on tracking effects using statistics as a tool, this management
by objectives promotes an evidence-oriented understanding of knowledge-
based police work, which has an effect on the police profession as a whole.
Although neither “evidence” nor “what works” (which are key terms of the
evidence movement) play any role in NPM (Johansson et al., 2015, p. 71),
both NPM and the evidence movement are connected to the same institu-
tional logic. In this context, the opportunity of the police employees to choose
what tasks to perform and how to perform them is diminished. In other words,
the profession-based freedom to exercise discretion is changing. In practice,
the introduction of management by objectives meant a new structural instru-
ment for political and administrative leadership (Christensen & Lægreid, 2006,
p. 155). In line with new ideals about how organizations should be put together,
the NPM reforms can also be seen to contribute to changing management roles
in the direction of business managers (Røvik, 2009, p. 161). I will come back
to this issue at the end of my chapter dealing with change in social identity.
The legitimacy of the NPM principles is based on the fact that these methods
work well in the private sector, that they are supported by economic research
(Ferraro et al., 2005) and that the evidence wave is being driven by the pub-
lic sector (Skaftnesmo, 2012, p. 351). The strong support for management by
objectives in public administration can be seen in the context of the stricter
requirements for professional practice set by governments in Western countries
and that the professions respond by providing documentation of “what works”
(Ekeland, 2012). However, this evidence-based tradition can also be driven by
the professions themselves and may affect the organization in various ways. For
instance, part of the motivation for the Danish police federations to fight for a gen-
eral qualification for police training was that the federations were not politically
recognized and did not have a right to be consulted or represented (Christensen,
2012, p. 99). One reason that everyone wants to be part of the evidence wave
may be linked to the fact that the evidence-oriented understanding of knowl-
edge reigns supreme in the knowledge hierarchy (Lumsden & Goode, 2016). It
is then easy to forget that evidence-based knowledge work is also shaped by the
data obtained and how these are understood, and that even empirical bases must
be established and assessed with contextual insight (Skaftnesmo, 2012, p. 350).
Reformative changes from the turn of the

millennium
It was only at the turn of the millennium that the NPM reforms really started
to make an impact in the police. In line with the strong emphasis in the NPM
reforms on resource utilization and effects, the reasoning behind Police Reform
2000 (Politidirektoratet, 2006) was that new criminal policy challenges and the
increasing public demand for public service provision required an organiza-
tional shift to make more effective use of the available resources (Report No 22
to the Storting, 2000–2001). This reform involved centralization, whereby the
number of police districts was reduced from 54 to 27 in 2002. The final evalu-
ation of Police Reform 2000 showed a positive effect with regard to fighting
serious crime; however, it also revealed that one of the main challenges of the
police service going forward was to be accessible and oriented towards the
general public (Sæveraas & Alexandersen, 2006).
The police reform adopted in 2015, the so-called “Community Policing
Reform” (Nærpolitireformen), can be seen as a continuation of Police Reform
2000. The main objective of this most recent reform was to build a commu-
nity police that is operative, visible and accessible, and that has the capacity
and expertise to prevent, investigate and prosecute crimes as well as ensure the
safety of residents. The reasoning for this is that the police are under significant
pressure to change, and that organized crime is challenging the Norwegian
policing model and setting new requirements for what constitutes a good
police service (NOU, 2013, p. 9).
Here we see how society’s view of crime affects the structure of the police
organization as well as its focus and methodology. In line with the emphasis on
serious crime, the police’s core tasks are redefined as tasks which directly help
to prevent and fight crime and preserve the safety and security of citizens, and
in which the police is the only agency with the authority and means to carry
out these tasks. This means that the core tasks of the police are narrowed to
concern events and tasks in which the police has the right and duty to exercise
power. In other words, the pendulum is swinging from assistive tasks towards
controlling tasks. Considering that the police have traditionally spent most of
their time on events not related to crime, and that cases in which the police
on patrol only take action at the scene are found to make up over 80% of cases
(Finstad, 2000, p. 170), this redefinition represents a clear shift. An important
difference is that while the key element of the original community policing
model was proximity between the police and the public before anything hap-
pened, the key element of this ongoing community policing reform is that new
technology and mobility are giving us a police force that is present when we
need it i.e. after something has happened.
The Community Policing Reform also implies a relatively strong centraliza-
tion with a reduction in the number of police districts, police stations and rural
police station districts, and thus falls in line with how the Scandinavian nations
are reforming their police forces into more centralized units. The purpose of
this centralization was also to reduce the size of management and achieve good
management and leadership of the police (NOU, 2013, pp. 9, 30). Here we
see a reflection of the control-oriented NPM reform element borrowed from
various types of recent institutional economic theory in which one seeks to
“make the manager manage” (Christensen et al., 2012, p. 216).
Reform elements from management theory modelled on the private sector

in which decentralization and delegation are important have not been used
as much in Norway. Based on the chosen reform measures, it is a paradox
that the reform is actually named the “Community Policing Reform”. The
reform builds on an analysis of the police in which the phrase “community
policing” is not even mentioned and which argues substantially against this
model of policing (NOU, 2013, p. 9). Thus, we see that the concept of com-
munity policing is given a new content, something that can contribute to a
reconstruction of reality – the physical world, social relations, social identities
(Fairclough, 1992, p. 87). In an evaluation of the reform, it emerges that the
entire concept of community policing seems to have gained a bad name and
that several of the police employees interviewed joke that the reform should
instead be called “the ‘remote’ policing reform” (Bakli et al., 2017, pp. 45, 47).
The evaluation finds that the concept is not descriptive of the content of the
reform and that both external actors and the police itself see what is happening
as a centralization process.
In the following section, we shall move away from the core tasks of the
police in a perspective of historical reform and examine their core tasks at an
operational level.
Transformations of core tasks

The police is one of the professions with the broadest mandate in society
(Larsson et al., 2014). The role of the Norwegian police is outlined in the
Norwegian Police Act and the police instructions regulating the behaviour of
those given police authority (Ministry of Justice and the Police, 2007, ch. 1,
section 1–1; Botheim et al., 2013, p. 5). The overall objective of the police
is “through preventive and helping activities contribute to society’s overall
effort to promote and consolidate the citizens’ security under the law, safety
and welfare in general” (The Norwegian Police Act, 1995, ch. 1, section 1).
In line with the Police Act and policing instructions, important police tasks
include maintenance of public order as well as assistance in connection with
criminal offences or difficult situations of a non-criminal nature. The specific
core tasks of the police have traditionally consisted of a variety of both assistive
and control tasks, such as “catching thieves”, helping the victims of and inves-
tigating burglary, maintaining public order in the streets by patrolling on foot,
on horseback or in cars etc. As mentioned, the police have traditionally spent
most of their time on events not relating to crime. Finstad exemplifies this
as calling an ambulance or locksmith, removing prostitution clients, helping
drunk people asleep in a gateway, checking up on people who attract police
attention, de-licensing cars with unpaid road tax and insurance etc. (Finstad,
2000, pp. 170–171). Police work has a strong element of individual discretion
in the way it is carried out and involves both emotional and relational aspects
in that the way in which the police handle their situations is part of what they
deliver (Hochschild, 1983). This has also been part of the Norwegian welfare
state’s services in a broader perspective.
In Britain, a combination of NPM reforms and emphasis on law and order
have omitted certain aspects of policing, and the emphasis on quantifiable
police tasks has been at the expense of work on minor public order issues
(Hough, 2010, pp. 71, 75). Additionally, the police’s handling of terrorism
and terrorist threats have changed their firearms policy and practice (Finstad,
2015, p. 241) and can collectively be understood to have formed the basis for
a development in a more militaristic direction.
Like the Norwegian police, the British police have belonged to the tradition
of restraint marked by limited use of power and by cooperation with the public
(Finstad, 2015). Finstad believes that “the great cooperation project” between
the police and the public (including the criminal public) can be explained by
noting that the public in various ways recognize the presence and actions of
the police (Finstad, 2000, p. 178). This cooperation is founded on the com-
munity policing logic in which the entire population shall regard the police
as “theirs”, regardless of political divisions in society. Unlike encounters with
other bureaucratic organizations, the first encounter that members of the public
have with the police is often verbal and in person (Støkken, 1981). However,
redefining the core tasks in the direction of focusing on serious crime and ter-
rorism, centralizing the police and new technological solutions imply that the
police’s professional practice may not necessarily be taken for granted in the
future. In the following section, we will examine how resource prioritization
and outsourcing of certain tasks have laid the foundation for narrowing the
core tasks of the police.
Emphasis on finances and changes in public contact

Research shows that the emphasis on demands for efficiency and resource uti-
lization in the NPM-inspired reforms has created certain challenges for the
link between professional management and financial management (Tranøy &
Østerud 2009, p. 17; Christensen et al., 2012, p. 215). In line with this, the
general experience of police employees is that financial conditions take prec-
edence over fulfilling their tasks in the optimal way according to professional
standards, and this perception is most widespread among employees engaged
in tasks related to maintaining public order (Wathne, 2015). The fact that it is
generally the managers who to the greatest extent see the financial conditions
as taking precedence must be seen in the context of the fact that it is these very
managers who are held accountable for the financial results in this performance
management system. These findings must be seen in light of the fact that the
police in recent years have taken on numerous new and more complex tasks, as
well as a greater number of cases. This has contributed to the current situation
of less visible police despite increased funding. Fewer visible police employees,
combined with population growth, may have led to the increased workload
for uniformed police when it comes to responding to the more direct enquiries
from the public. A majority of the police employees feel that a lack of resources
causes them to not be able to carry out their work tasks in the way they would
like to, and nearly as many managers (90%) as non-managers (87%) are of this
opinion (Wathne, 2015). It is the uniformed police (92%) who experienced hav-
ing inadequate resources to fulfil their tasks in the way they would like to the
greatest degree – 80% of these have a reduced feeling of mastery due to lack of
resources. This must be seen in light of the fact that it is the police specialists who
have benefitted most from the increased budgets in terms of number of full-time
equivalents (FTEs) (Gjørv, 2012, p. 312; Botheim et al., 2013, p. 11). In other
words, an increased prioritization of the more specialized police force, which
is not as directly visible to the public, has been occurring over time. However,
the traditional distribution in which the uniformed police are largely out on the
streets while the investigators work inside an office is undergoing rapid change.
Today, investigators also work “outdoors”, and uniformed police carry out
investigations as the first police patrol on site. This new way of organizing the
work must be seen in the context of the development of new concepts such as
“police work at site” (politiarbeid på stedet, PAS). In PAS, the patrol that responds
to an event takes the first investigative steps at the scene. By taking photographs
with their phones and recording interrogations, they secure documentation and
evidence far more quickly (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2018). Such hybrid
police tasks are emerging as a result of reforms and affect the degree and manner
of each police employee’s contact with the public.
Outsourcing of softer police tasks changes the image

of the police
De-prioritizing of front-line assistive tasks is a developmental feature exempli-
fying that the process of redefining the core tasks of the police in the direction
of serious crime started long before it was explicitly stated in strategic docu-
ments. Another factor pulling in the same direction is that many of the “softer”
police tasks have been outsourced to private companies, primarily to security
guards. The police themselves say they must cooperate with this sector in order
to meet public demand for increased security (National Police Directorate,
2012, p. 52). In 2018, the National Police Directorate and the Confederation
of Norwegian Enterprize (NHO) signed an agreement that the police and the
security industry would cooperate more closely to prevent crime and maintain
public order (Politiet, 2018b). This cooperation involves everything from day-
to-day sharing of information to joint drills, crisis and public security work.
This agreement makes Norway the first European country to formalize this
type of cooperation (Norwegian Federation of Service Industries and Retail
Trade, 2018). Today, private businesses have taken on the role of maintain-
ing order at shopping centres, subways and other “semi-public” spaces. It is
also common to meet a security guard at the reception desk when arriving for
a meeting with a police employee at the police districts, and in this way the
public face of the police is somewhat altered. This development can be seen as
a market-inspired NPM measure borrowed from the private sector, in which
parts of business operations are outsourced (Allvin et al., 2006). This measure
has become increasingly common following a more liberalistic working life
and labour market, and has also spread from the private to the public sector.
Furthermore, civilian employees are now responsible for a large part of the
police’s interaction with the public. The police also purchase a number of
other private services that may not be easy to distinguish from ordinary police
work, for instance offices, custody facilities and prisoner transport services
(Larsson & Gundhus, 2007, p. 23). Not only do these changes narrow the role
of the police towards control tasks but they may also contribute to making the
role of the police less clear in the eyes of the general public. This development
may further accelerate through measures incorporated in the ongoing police
reform in which the police will cooperate even more with other parties, at
the same time as the needs of more users will be met through digital services
to the public such as online police reports etc. The idea is to facilitate “back-
stage” the experience of a better police service among the public, though
this does not always involve more face-to-face encounters with the public
(Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2018).
In the following section we shall examine how the centralization measures
of the NPM reforms, along with new technological solutions, form the basis of
a stronger management of patrols and less freedom of action for general work
with the public.
Stronger management through prioritization

of tasks
The tightening of the police employees’ freedom of action and discretion
concerning which tasks to carry out is grounded in familiar NPM rhetoric,
which is all about better utilitization of resources and increased capacity. In this
context, the role of central operations is key. In an overall sense, the central
operation’s task is to manage the operative units and the ongoing, prioritized
operations in the district, as well as to prioritize in accordance with the allot-
ted resources and priority directives (Hellesø-Knutsen, 2003). Even though
it is ultimately the individual police officer who is responsible for how an
assignment is carried out, it is the operator or operational manager who makes
the final decision in the event of any disagreement on how to carry out tasks.
The operators implement measures, lead and support the execution of assign-
ments and communicate with police patrols via the police radio and telephone
(Hellesø-Knutsen, 2003, pp. 9–10). The regulation of central operations can
thus be said to intervene in the large scope for individual discretion that police
officers normally have within the framework of laws, rules, instructions, pro-
cedures and priorities. In the ongoing police reform, central operations have
received a more prominent role in controlling resources, and the centralization

has given them a greater geographic area to manage. A qualitative study shows
that when police patrols are to a greater extent controlled from central opera-
tions rather than deciding for themselves what to do, many police employees
report having to decline public-initiated tasks which they previously would
have carried out (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2018). This may well be tasks
that do not involve serious crime but which nonetheless are valuable services to
the public. The police’s assignments from the public have in part consisted of
norms for good practice and have constituted a police role which can be linked
to the traditional community policing logic. In major cities and in some police
districts, enquiries from the public go directly to central operations, which
must then prioritize where to direct efforts. In this way, central operations
carry out a relatively large part of the rejections of requests from the public.
A study carried out in 2013 shows that while 62% of all police employees expe-
rienced having to reject members of the public asking for help every week or
more frequently, even though they would have liked to help, the equivalent
figure for employees in central operations was 71% (Wathne, 2015).
Because the role of central operations to prioritize gives it partial control
of the police service’s freedom of action, this prioritization may function as a
source of both stress and coping for the patrols on duty. When asked to what
degree they found it difficult that decisions on what to do were to be made at
central operations, slightly more than 40% replied that they found it difficult
to a great or to some extent, while 10% did not find it difficult at all. There
were no statistically significant differences in age when it came to the perceived
difficulty of having decisions made by the central operations (Wathne, 2015).
Some may find the transfer of responsibility to the central operations to be
negative, because parts of the control and freedom of action are in fact taken
away from the police employees who are actually in the situation and given to
a unit that is largely protected against visual scrutiny etc. In addition, the task
of central operations is to prioritize according to allotted resources and priority
directives, but this may also lead to the central operations implementing solu-
tions that are effective in terms of resource considerations but which may run
counter to considerations for proper and considerate policing (Dahl & Myhrer,
2009, p. 24). On the other hand, the central operations’ decision concerning
what is to be done as a situation unfolds may be seen by some police employees
as positive guidance, and for some perhaps a relief, as part of the responsibility
for finding a solution to potentially tricky situations is largely removed from
the individual police officer. However, while this reduction of control is taking
place, the police officers who are actually present in the situation experience
the same demands for action from the public with whom they also interact face
to face and from whom they receive immediate reactions.
Studies have shown that inner motivation, or the motivation to help others,
can change to become a source of frustration if the work situation does not make
it possible to help (Andersen & Pedersen, 2014, p. 68). A study of the police
shows that having to say no to members of the public felt more difficult than
experiencing threats and violence: while 58% found having to say no to people
who asked for help difficult, 53% found experiencing violence equally difficult
(Wathne, 2015). More employees in the rural police service than other police
employees reported finding it difficult to say no to members of the public; this
indicates that the relational proximity here may make it more difficult to reject
requests for help even if they are not in line with the overall priorities. In the same
way, the public in more rural areas are also seen by the police more as individuals
rather than one large mass. The public’s demand to understand or reverse a rejec-
tion from the police may require time and patience from the police employee.
Standardization of front-line work

Freidson believes that due to NPM reforms, many professions have been put
under financial pressure to reduce costs by running the risk of standardizing
and minimizing the services they provide as well as the quality of those services
(Freidson, 2004). In the police, we see that although the police reforms have
contributed to strengthening control of the police’s prioritization of tasks, a
stronger standardized control of how the police is to carry out its tasks has not
been implemented to the same extent. For example, a study of the Norwegian
police from 2013 shows that front-line police employees experience a rela-
tively low degree of standardization in their work (Wathne, 2015). The reason
for this may be that it has been difficult to standardize front-line work due
to the high degree of individual discretionary judgement they use in carry-
ing out their work tasks (Lipsky, 1980; Freidson, 2004). However, it looks
as though the wave of digitalization that is upon us is helping to penetrate
the wall that the strong degree of discretion involved in the work has built
around the autonomy of the professions. A study of the 2018 police reform
shows that the technological measures of the reform are helping to provide new
ways of carrying out the tasks, which in part involves standardizing front-line
work as well (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2019). For example, the police’s
freedom of action is standardized to a greater degree through so-called action
cards that describe procedures and give guidelines for action. The design of
the ICT systems helps to standardize what information the police employee
is to collect and what information the managers and employees shall receive,
and in what form. Furthermore, the nature of the reform involves more police
work being done behind the scenes through artificial intelligence, either from
a police patrol with a tablet or mobile phone or inside an office. New meth-
ods for obtaining information shall be in line with “The Police’s Intelligence
Doctrine”, which is intended to contribute to developing intelligence as a key
element in knowledge-based management. The reform thus challenges the
established front-line work tools, which have traditionally had a strong element
of individual discretionary judgement and in which relationships and relational
work have been central (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2018).
The arguments presented in favour of standardized policing methods and

work processes are that having a better knowledge base will enable the police
to carry out their tasks more efficiently and that standardizing how to carry
out the tasks will also make it easier to measure results and make comparisons
(NOU 2013:9, 2013, p. 44). This enthusiasm for standardization must be seen
in relation to the fact that comparing results to the targets set is an important
purpose of the NPM reforms’ management by objectives. Further manage-
ment by objectives in policing is clearly stated in the ideals and operationalizing
of effect targets in the ongoing community policing reform (Gundhus et al.,
forthcoming, 2018). Another purpose is to compare the results of the units
to other units’ results to find out which is best run. Use of benchmarking is
dependent on quantifiable data (indicators) which provide information on the
results for each unit (SSØ, 2010, p. 31). The arguments for a stronger stand-
ardization of police work are also about securing uniform police services to the
public no matter where they live in the country. Standardization of police cars
and new IT are intended to help to manage resources more efficiently where
needed. The idea is that when all employees have access to the same informa-
tion through various IT solutions, this will help to make police employees
more easily replaceable, so that they can be allocated where they are needed,
much like pieces in a game. In this way, a mobile police corps can be created
which will utilize its resources and be present where they are needed (Gundhus
et al., forthcoming, 2018).
Centralization distances the police from the public

A consequence of the centralization measures in the NPM reforms in which
rural police offices and police districts are closed down and the police is gath-
ered in larger units, is that police employees must cover a larger geographic
area. Previously, police employees were integrated in their local commu-
nity through work and housing, and thus built relationships with the locals.
In larger cities, the police employees had more delineated geographic areas
to serve. Here, the police employees have carefully built up trust over time
between the police and the youth gangs in the local areas. With centraliza-
tion, going on assignments to unfamiliar areas in practice means that police
employees are stripped of one of their most important tools in community
policing logic, namely their relationships with and knowledge of their public.
When reorganization removes the police from the public by breaking up close
relationships, a number of police employees feel distanced from the public
they serve (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2018). While close contact with
the public gives a contextual and “thicker” knowledge base, the information
obtained behind the scenes gives a more purposive knowledge base on which
to act. The purposive knowledge base has legitimacy in an NPM logic because
it can show more easily how resources can be linked to quantifiable results.
At a more general level, centralization is pulling the police in the direction
of a more urban style of policing whereby stronger methods need to be used

when approaching groups, because they do not know the involved parties and
lack contextual information and knowledge of the groups (Gundhus et al.,
forthcoming, 2018). By redefining issues related to local youth gangs that
need to be helped onto a different track to be about eliminating organized
crime (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2019), the NPM logic can be seen to
pull the Norwegian police in a more militaristic direction. From a discursive
perspective, such a shifting of traditions involves redefining the challenges
that society and the police face and the way in which these challenges are
conceptualized. This development means that the entire Norwegian policing
tradition is undergoing a change and may eventually lead to the Norwegian
police also being permanently armed. It is also immediately easy to see how
this military-like logic fits with the NPM logic at play in the Norwegian
police: strong emphasis on hierarchy, rules and procedures, risk management
and little focus on discretionary practice. By contrast, there is a fundamental
and principal discrepancy between the humanistic professional logic of the
police and the NPM logic, because the humanistic logic assumes that the per-
formance of police tasks also requires professional discretion and contextual
judgements. This affects how structural and organizational changes may influ-
ence the development of individual and collective constructions of meaning
and brings us to the significance of the knowledge base.
A changing knowledge base

In an overall sense, stronger control and new methods for police work shall
contribute to a more objective and scientific knowledge base and ensure that the
police work in a knowledge-based way (Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2018).
In this context, the Police’s Intelligence Doctrine (Politiets etterretningsdok-
trine), which is heavily inspired by the Armed Forces’ intelligence doctrine
(Gundhus et al., forthcoming, 2019), is central. The intelligence doctrine is
intended to give the police service, and managers in particular, decision-making
support in the form of sound knowledge on problems and dangers which
threaten the values they are to protect and thus help them to carry out their
tasks. Intelligence is focused on decision-making bases concerning individuals,
groups or phenomena which create or may create crime, as well as undesirable
or extraordinary occurrences (National Police Directorate, 2014). The target
group for the doctrine is all police employees. The doctrine and the new polic-
ing methods have a profound effect on the police’s knowledge base as well as
the police role. Digitalization and standardization enable the logic behind the
strategic evidence-based knowledge base, which is firmly based in the NPM
logic, to move from the police service’s corporate governance by objectives
down to the operative level. The front-line’s freedom of action is reduced
when it comes to choice of tasks to carry out and how to do so. The role of
the front-line is largely reduced to gathering data which is then analysed and
used in decision-making support at a higher level in the organization (Gundhus

et al., forthcoming, 2019).
While the knowledge base previously was rooted in experience-based pro-
fessional judgement, today it is more about quantifiable factors and evidence.
In other words, today’s hegemonic knowledge base is more scientific, quantifi-
able and less contextual. Even though this is not the case at the police academy,
the police organization introduces procedures and objectives that are geared
more towards control rather than assistance and help to the public.
For the police, “knowledge-based police work” is promoted as the legit-
imate base both in central police documents and in the discourse on the
development of the police. Knowledge-based police work is a common cat-
egory for new models for management by objectives, problem-based police
work and crime investigation (Gundhus, 2006, p. 12), and it contrasts with
more random and individual experience-based police work. Knowledge-
based police work is evidence-based and emphasizes observable or quantifiable
effects as valid grounds for action. Observable and quantifiable effects are
almost the only objectives seen as a valid knowledge base for operation, man-
agement and resource allocation. Just as a strict evidence-based approach
completely dominates society’s knowledge hierarchy (Lumsden & Goode,
2016), evidence-oriented knowledge work has also attained a hegemonic
position in the police. When effects that can be measured directly constitute
the dominant knowledge base, a demarcation line is created against more
discretionary professional police work, which loses its legitimacy.
When the police management base their management system on a man-
agement by objectives that is based on an evidence-oriented understanding
of knowledge, as well as on procedures and standardization at an operative
level, this represents a challenge not only in relation to ethical aspects of pro-
fessional practice but also the interaction between colleagues in which the
police profession develops standards for its work (Wathne, 2015). Because
each incident is both general and unique, a sound professional policing effort
requires insight based on the unique context, professional discretion, expe-
rience and instrumental knowledge. Therefore, it is difficult to standardize
policing work through fixed, detailed procedures. Replacing insight with pro-
cedure works as long as thing go as expected, but it is inadequate when one has
to act in a unique moment or according to what the specific situation requires
(Skaftnesmo, 2012, p. 356). However, though much of the police work is dif-
ficult to standardize because it is context-dependent and requires discretion,
it is fully possible to evidence-base and standardize the more technical arrest
methods etc.
In sum, the focus of the NPM reforms on cost-effectiveness and verifi-
able results, along with stricter control, centralization and standardization, have
pushed policing in the direction of control tasks which are increasingly based
on instrumental analyses. In the following section, I will discuss how these
changes affect the police’s social identity.
Transformations of professional identity of

the police
As mentioned in the introduction, the core tasks of the police have histori-
cally been defined along the tension between control tasks and help/preventive
tasks. Traditionally, police identity has been based on the humanistic profes-
sional logic where the police are generalists, integrated in the local community
and acting in cooperation with the public. In this context, the front-line police
made discretionary decisions to a great extent, and accountability meant con-
trolling the power of the police over citizens and protecting their legal rights.
NPM-inspired reforms have caused a shift leading to changes in the institutional
logics of public agencies and creating new positions of power and knowledge
that represent a first step towards a new social construction of reality (Berger &
Luckmann, 2000; Meyer et al., 2014). In Norway, we see how the community
policing model is being abandoned in favour of a specialist model which to a
greater extent considers quantifiable factors as plausible markers for good police
work. These circumstances fundamentally affect identity.
As an analytical concept, social identity enables us to understand reproduc-
tion and changes in institutions because it highlights how the actor’s perceptions
and actions spring from this membership in a social group (Meyer et al., 2014,
p. 3). Organizational identity consists of those attributes that members feel are
fundamental to and uniquely descriptive of the organization and that persist
within the organization over time (Pratt & Foreman, 2000, p. 20). In the
police, organizational identity must at any given time be seen in connection
with the knowledge base that constitutes valid platforms for action. Changes
in the knowledge base can function as a catalyst for the development of a new
police identity, and vice versa. This point must be seen in relation to the fact
that to this day, the police management still assert that the ten basic princi-
ples of professional humanistic logic apply (Ministry of Justice and the Police,
1981), while at the same time we see quantifiable knowledge being emphasized
as the way forward.
In line with how social context can help shape social identities, individ-
ual preferences and frames of reference (Friedland & Alford, 1991, p. 232;
Meyer et al., 2014, p. 1), front-line police officers and police management can
develop different professional identities. Empirical studies have shown that the
management’s professional identity to a certain extent follows the formal role
displacement of the NPM reforms towards that of a business manager who is
mainly concerned with financial results and “production”. For example, the
findings of the Auditor General showed that 21 out of 25 police districts lacked
incentives to cooperate across district boundaries in investigations that crossed
district lines, because the cooperation was not rewarded financially or shown
in target and reporting systems in the management dialogue (Office of the
Auditor General of Norway, 2010). This indicates that NPM logic and man-
agement by objectives can teach employees to think in a different way and to
change cultural norms and values (Christensen & Lægreid, 1997, p. 392) and
that NPM reforms can contribute to moving the manager’s role in the direc-
tion of a business manager (Røvik, 2009, p. 161).
In line with this, a Norwegian study has found that police managers adopt
elements from management logic to a greater degree compared to non-managers.
Police managers are motivated more by management by objectives than non-
managers, which can be partly explained by the fact that managers tend to think
that management by objectives better captures the most important aspects of
police work than do the front-line employees (Wathne, 2015). Increasingly,
non-managers feel that management by objectives does not capture important
aspects of the police work.
The facts that police managers are recruited from the ranks of ordinary
policemen and that well over 90% of all police employees are motivated by
a desire to make a difference for others, strengthens the hypothesis that the
managers’ hierarchical position pushes the motivation towards external incen-
tives, rather than the assumption that externally motivated managers seek or
are recruited to management positions (Wathne, 2015). When managers are
measured by results in the management by objectives system, and to a lesser
degree provide services directly to the public, the instrumental logic that gov-
erns the management system gets stronger motivational force, and the police
manager’s motivation shifts outwards. This is a paradox in light of a study that
shows that the motivation of police employees for their work is in line with
“public service motivation” (Wathne, 2015), where individuals are motivated
by tasks in the public sector because they have internalized values that are
embodied in these organizations (Perry & Wise, 1990, p. 372; Vandenabeele,
2011, p. 90). In this way, the erroneous assumption from the field of econom-
ics that man is an economic actor can become self-fulfilling (Ferraro et al.,
2005). Measures that aim to increase internal competition and reward employ-
ees who act in accordance with set goals can over time lead to an organization
that consists of employees who pursue their own interests rather than the best
interests of the organization (Ferraro et al., 2005).2 In other words, the profes-
sional social identity changes when the logic of the management system rubs
off on the cultural values and the employees’ thinking. In this way, NPM
reforms can function as an identity project where new professional roles and
social identities emerge: “from a servant of the state, its interests and its people
to a manager of organizations and scarce resources” (Meyer & Hammerschmid,
2006, pp. 1001, 1011). Even if specific groups of employees can be associated
with a specific institutional logic, one cannot assume that all members of the
group will always relate to the same logic: “They may be influenced by the
nature of the issues at hand – how they characterize it, or how important
they think it is” (Pollitt, 2013, p. 348). This means that even if these logics
may have contributed to developing different ideas of what constitutes good
practices among managers and non-managers, it is not necessarily the case that
managers and front-line officers have two distinctly separate professional iden-
tities. When police employees relate to competing institutional logics, they
can construct new and hybrid identities that draw on several types of logic
by mixing new orientations with old ideas (Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006,
p. 1013). It is reasonable to assume that the new police identity does not
emerge as a clear transition from one identity to another, but as the develop-
ment of a hybrid identity.
Conclusion
As I have shown in this chapter, NPM is transforming the Norwegian police
in several ways. The NPM reforms’ focus on efficiency and quantifiable polic-
ing tasks has, along with the construction of a more dystopic risk assessment,
narrowed the police’s core tasks towards control tasks. This narrowing of tasks
is reinforced by the standardization made possible and assisted by digitaliza-
tion and transports the logic behind the evidence-based knowledge basis of
management by objectives from management level to the operational level.
In practical terms, this means a weakening of the close, dialogue-based polic-
ing represented by the community policing model and the university college
project (Høgskoleprosjektet). Standardization must be seen in relation to the
fact that the professions were from the 1970s subjected to criticism about their
privileges and powers, which diminished trust and contributed to an emphasis
on more control (Døving et al., 2015, p. 33). Previous studies have shown
that the front-line has exhibited strong resistance to the changes brought by
reforms and to stronger control, a resistance which has strengthened traditional
assumptions and work practices rather than challenging the police officers’
objective and identity (Gundhus, 2006; Chan, 2007; Andersson & Tengblad
2009). However, the technological measures in the police reform contribute to
a partial standardization of front-line work by reducing the freedom of choice
of tasks and solution methods. This is a significant difference which also makes
it more challenging to mobilize resistance to the changes. In this way, NPM,
together with the digitization wave, has weakened the police profession in
new ways. What will happen to police identity and public relations over time
remains to be seen.
Notes
1 At the end of the 1980s, the concept of “audits” became increasingly common and
more and more entities were required to provide detailed accounts of their activities
(Walker, 2005, p. 3).
2 This does not mean that police employees who follow the NPM logic are necessarily
more concerned with their own careers than the organization’s interests. It may be a
question of loyalty based on the belief that a police employee, as part of that state’s politi-
cal power, must conform loyally to the demands which management puts on them.
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Part V
Terms of employment
Precarious work in a Nordic setting
Introduction
The spread of precarious work is considered by many observers to be the

greatest threat to the established security structures in the labour market. In
many countries, the established social policy and employment relations do not
offer much protection to people with insecure and unpredictable employ-
ment relationships. Therefore, they must find other approaches to creating a
dignified life.
Also in the Nordics, work seems to be becoming increasingly precarious.
This creates challenges for the Nordic approach, and different approaches are
being sought to meet these.
Chapter 14: Precarity in Nordic working life? By Mari Holm Ingelsrud, Niels Warring,
Janne Gleerup, Per Bonde Hansen, Anders Jakobsen, Anders Underthun and Søren
Salling Weber.
In this chapter, the phenomenon of ‘precarity’ in the Nordic context is pre-
sented and discussed, based on a literature study. The prevalence of precarious
work is investigated and the question of whether the Nordic communities are
resilient to precarization is raised. The answer is ‘yes, so far’. However, the
answer is also that precarization poses major challenges to the Nordic tradition.
Chapter 15: Experiences of precarious work among graduates in the Danish labour
market. By Janne Gleerup, Anders Jakobsen and Niels Warring.
When flexibly employed academics in Denmark feel insecure about their job
situation, it is not just an expression of their individual choices about what
work they want to do. It also reveals a broader trend where public employees,
who have traditionally had highly secure employment in the Nordic coun-
tries, find their job and income security to be fading. The dynamic interplay
between societal developments and subjective experiences of quality and con-
flicts in working life is examined.
Chapter 16: The formation and destabilization of the standard employment relationship
in Norway: the contested politics and regulation of temporary work agencies. By Per
Bonde Hansen and Anders Underthun.
Here temporary work agencies are studied in a historical perspective. Both
employers and trade unions have been heavily involved in the regulation of
temporary work agencies. Norway has a relatively strong version of standard

employment. The regulation of temporary work agencies contributed to the
creation of this strong version.
Chapter 17: Working life on Nordic labour platforms. By Søren Salling Weber.
This chapter explores how the platform economy and the sharing economy
affect those who are working there. Digital platforms are created to organize
labour more effectively. However, they also change the way work is organized
for employees and places them in relatively vulnerable positions. Initiatives to
include the platform economy in the Nordic approach are highlighted.
Chapter 14
Precarity in Nordic working life?

Mari Holm Ingelsrud, Niels Warring, Janne
Gleerup, Per Bonde Hansen, Anders Jakobsen,
Anders Underthun and Søren Salling Weber
Introduction
Precarious work, understood as work conditioned by a lack of security and
predictability (Standing, 2014), is not a new phenomenon in the history of
capitalism. However, according to Isabell Lorey (2015 [2012]), our experience
of precarity is relative, always mediated by the social and political institutions
shaping societal life. Lorey argues that contemporary precarious work is char-
acterized by new and specific dynamics following the rapid globalization of
the world economy since the 1980s. Kalleberg (2009, p. 1) emphasizes that
“uncertain and unpredictable work contrasts with the relative security that
characterized the three decades following World War II”, while Beck (2000)
describes a “new political economy of insecurity”. With reference to Karl
Polanyi’s classic work from 1944, The Great Transformation, we also see signs
of a new “big transformation” of society suggesting that precarization mirrors
new forms of crises in global developments in capitalism. Processes of flexibi-
lization, polarization and degradation of work have all been associated with
precarious work (Kalleberg, 2003; Sennett, 2006; Munck, 2013; Paret, 2016).
Despite critical voices warning against the transition to an age of insecurity
and social instability at the turn of the millennium (Sennett, 1998; Beck, 2000),
the norm of the standard employment relationship (SER), understood as full-
time, continuous employment with one employer (Vosko, 2009, p. 396) still
dominates Nordic working life. Is then precarization in the Nordic countries a
relevant theme for research?
Two main questions guide this chapter: (1) “How is the precarization of
employment expressed in Norway and Denmark?” and (2) “Is the Nordic
model resilient to precarization?” We start by analysing the relationship
between flexibilization and precarization in a brief literature review. Here, we
pay particular attention to how processes of flexibilization, polarization and
work degradation are related to precarization and insecurity. We then give a
short account of how Norway and Denmark fare on some measures associated
with precarity. The challenge of measuring precarization with standardized
quantitative instruments is a point that we will touch upon, also considering
relevant results from qualitative studies.
286 Mari Holm Ingelsrud et al.
To answer the second question, we will describe how legal, normative and
economic boundaries govern the employment relationship in Norway and
Denmark. We also discuss how standard employment is challenged by pro-
cesses of flexibilization, increasing polarization and decreasing union density.
We conclude the chapter by summing up the discussions and relating them to
issues dealt with in the three following chapters in this Part of the book.
Precarious work: what are we talking about?

Attempting to grasp the complexity of precarization, Vosko (2010) defines pre-
carious employment as employment relationships characterized by insecurity,
low income and limited social rights. She argues that precarious employment is
shaped by the relationship between employment status (whether paid worker
or self-employed), forms of employment (temporary versus permanent or part-
time versus full-time), the social context (occupation, industry, geographic
location), the social location of the worker (gender, race, citizenship) and
dimensions of labour market security.
The deregulation of capital markets, elimination of price controls and trade
barriers, privatization of state enterprises, tight economic policies, limitation of
state aid schemes and security systems, and weakening of trade unions’ influ-
ence are all held to be drivers of a growing international precarity (Harvey,
2005; Boas & Gans-Morse, 2009). Kalleberg (2012) asserts that two trends are
particularly apparent: the first is an increasing inequality in job quality, skills and
wages through polarization processes that particularly undermine middle-class
jobs. Secondly, Kalleberg asserts that precarity is a more persuasive phenom-
enon that affects all workers through increased insecurity. As such, Kalleberg
argues that discussions about the precarization of work must take both trends
into account. Increasing polarization leads to growing differences in job qual-
ity and job security between workers at the high and low ends of the labour
market. Kalleberg’s argument dovetails Sennett’s (2006) observation that this
new work organizational tendency in contemporary capitalism influences jobs
at all levels (Sennett, 2006).
Among theorists concentrating on the polarization trend, Robert Castel
(2002) links precarity to a division of society into different integration zones.
The fully integrated are represented by those who are (still) in a standard
employment relationship of full-time fixed employment with regulated con-
tractual relations. At the other end of the scale, we find the disconnected, a
category that also includes the unemployed. The precariat, Castel argues, can
be regarded as being in a transition zone between the integrated and the dis-
connected. Here, increasing precarity represents a dis-integration of society, a
coming-apart that might have other societal and social consequences (Castel,
2002). Arguing that “the precariat” is a “new dangerous class” in the mak-
ing, Guy Standing (2014) describes how members of the precariat experience
similar types of insecurity without sharing a common vision of what sort of
Precarity in Nordic working life? 287
good society they would like to create. The precariat is a floating labour sup-
ply moving in and out of jobs and is characterized by a lack of occupational
identity around which their lives can be generatively structured. The precariat
often enjoy fewer rights than full citizens and sometimes lose rights along the
way. Standing has defined seven forms of labour insecurity that are related to
precarity as a phenomenon: labour market insecurity, employment insecurity,
job insecurity, work insecurity, skill reproduction insecurity, income insecurity
and representation insecurity. According to Standing, it is the breakdown of
security into one or more of these dimensions that constitutes precarity. Labour
insecurity in one or more forms also leads to a more heterogeneous labour
force. Perhaps most importantly, class divisions have been supplemented by
(im)migrant divisions and hierarchies (McDowell et al., 2009).
Sennett (2006) argues that organizational changes in firms at the cutting
edge of the economy have a cultural influence on broad aspects of life, from
the valuation of skills to consumption and politics. The economic logic of the
stock market favours short-term thinking, creating volatile businesses run by
consultants who are in it for quick gains. The ability of businesses to adapt rap-
idly is seen as a prerequisite for success. The ethos of flexibility is increasingly
guiding working life, changing how we are valued as workers, how we work
and how we live. For employees, flexibility is linked to increased risk and inse-
curity in work through the shift towards more precarious employment (Allen
& Henry, 1997). Also taking the standpoint of the workers, Kalleberg (2009)
defines precarious work as “employment that is uncertain, unpredictable and
risky from the point of view of the worker” (Kalleberg, 2009, p. 2).
Different forms of labour flexibility have expanded and become core
elements in the development of post-Fordist and neoliberal labour market
(de)regulations and state policies (Castel & Dörre, 2009). A recent review
(Spreitzer et al., 2017) identifies three dimensions of flexibility that underlie
research on alternative work arrangements: the employment relationship, the
scheduling of work and where work is done. Flexibility on these dimensions
offers possibilities for both employers and employees, albeit sometimes in con-
flicting ways. Flexible employment relationships include direct non-standard
employment (on-call work, part-time work and seasonal employees), agency
work and contract work. Flexibility in the employment relationship is posi-
tive from the vantage point of the firm, minimizing risks involved in hiring.
Standing (2014) states that numerical flexibility related to growth in temporary
and part-time jobs and outsourcing is an important rationale for precarization.
He also points to increased wage flexibility in moving from fixed to flexible
pay and how what he calls “social income” (the sum of income needed) is
becoming more insecure. Finally, functional flexibility is related to manage-
ment control over work and the ability to shift employees between tasks,
positions and workplaces. It involves potential de-professionalization and
reduction of the influence of occupations and professions and their unions,
thus resulting in growing insecurity and individualization.
The individualization of risk through increased flexibility does not have the
same consequences for all employees. For some groups of high-skilled workers,
increasing flexibility offers the possibility of tailoring one’s working life according
to one’s own preferences. Contract work for this category of workers might rep-
resent great possibilities, while the perceived risk and insecurity remain low. At
the other end of the labour market, low-skilled workers who are easily replaceable
might find themselves struggling to find a job that offers continuity of employ-
ment and adequate payment (Spreitzer et al., 2017). For these workers, flexibility
is synonymous with unpredictability and insecurity. As such, the flexibilization of
employment contributes to the polarization of work as discussed earlier.
Precarity has previously been associated with the deterioration of work and
employment relationships among unskilled and skilled workers in the private
sector (Kalleberg, 2009; McKay et al., 2012). However, there is an increasing
awareness of how precarity is spreading to public employees and highly edu-
cated workers. According to Isabell Lorey (2015 [2012]), the increasing focus
on precarity reflects the fact that we are currently undergoing a change towards
“governmental precarization”. She separates the common existential condi-
tion of precariousness from the historically specific feelings of precarity that
result from institutional attempts to mediate precariousness. What constitutes
the current neoliberal governmentalization is the increasing individualization
of the processing of precariousness and the creation of security. Through flexi-
bilization, economic risks are shifted from employers to employees.
Other scholars, however, challenge the widespread idea that precarious
work is exclusively linked to recent processes of neoliberal politics and flexibi-
lization. According to Betti (2016), a gendered historical approach shows that
women and migrants experienced a “significant level of precariousness” even
during the period regarded as the heyday of the standard employment relation-
ship and the “golden age” of capitalism (Hobsbawm, 1994), i.e. the first three
decades or so after World War II. In this perspective, precariousness is not a
new phenomenon, rather it is embedded in industrial capitalism. Thus, it is not
the existence of precarious work in itself, but the level of precariousness and
how precariousness spreads across the work force that have changed.
The theories reviewed in this section cover various aspects of precarization:
polarization, flexibilization and work degradation. The next section inves-
tigates how precarization is expressed in Norway and Denmark, specifically
with respect to increasing polarization through flexibilization and increasing
job insecurity. We also argue that the most used statistical measures of precar-
ity might conceal significant developments in Nordic working life that only
appear when we focus on specific sectors.
Precarity in the Nordic countries?

Compared to the situation in many other countries, precarious work is spread-
ing slowly in the Nordics. Some statistics even suggest that the period since the
late 2000s has hardly shown any increase in different types of “atypical” work.
The term atypical work simply describes deviations from what is regarded as
typical, i.e. the standard employment relationship. Hence, it is not identical
to precarious work. As Vosko (2010, p. 2) has pointed out, there is clearly
a relationship between the two concepts, but some non-standard or atypical
employment can be relatively secure, and precariousness may apply to all kinds
of work for remuneration. In this chapter, however, we find it relevant to base
our discussion on statistics on atypical work, as we consider the scope of atypi-
cal work as a marker and prerequisite for the existence of precarious work.
The part-time employment rate is high in Norway (24% of total employ-
ment in 2015), while in Denmark it is closer to the level of the rest of the
EU28 (21% and 19%, respectively). Figures from Eurostat show an increase in
the part-time employment rate in Denmark and EU28 (from 18% and 17% in
2005) and a small decrease in Norway (from 26% in 2005). They show a stable
temporary employment rate at around 11% in EU28, and 7% in Denmark and
Norway. There is a small increase in the long-term unemployment rate in all
countries, from 1.1% in 2005 to 1.7% in 2015 in Denmark and from 0.8% to
1% in Norway. These figures are lower than those of EU28 at 4% in 2005
and 4.5% in 2015.1 However, the prevalence of precarious jobs is likely to be
underestimated in surveys such as the Labour Force Survey. For instance, those
workers holding the most precarious positions, such as immigrant workers, are
unlikely to be invited to answer the questionnaires.
The Nordic countries are, like the rest of the Western world, witnessing
increasing economic polarization (OECD, 2017). Research specifically on
migrant labour suggests that migrants tend to end up in non-standard employ-
ment arrangements to a greater extent than native citizens (Ødegaard, 2014;
Neergaard, 2015; Raess & Burgoon, 2015; Broughton et al., 2016, p. 50).
Migrant workers are often overrepresented in the temporary work agency
(TWA) industry, reflecting the TWA industry both as an entry point to the
labour market and the role the industry plays in terms of facilitating cross-
border mobility (Coe et al., 2009, 2010; Friberg, 2016).
For Norway, this both applies to short-term, circular migration and more
long-term migration (Nergaard et al., 2011). Approximately 40% of registered
employees in the staffing industry in Norway were non-Norwegian citizens in
2016 (Ellingsen et al., 2018) compared to approximately 25% just six years ear-
lier (Nergaard et al., 2011). Migrants are often in a less regulated space as posted
workers and are put under pressure from (foreign) employers that operate in
Norway to work for sub-standard wages and conditions, even though this is
deemed illegal by the Work Environment Act. Eldring and Schulten (2016)
point out that labour market regulations have little effect if not enforced or
monitored closely. However, studies show that working conditions for Eastern
European EU nationals in 2010 had improved from levels in the first years fol-
lowing the 2004 EU enlargement. For instance, Alsos and Eldring (2014) find
that the strengthened regulation on wages through the general applicability of
the collective agreement had some positive effects. However, 38% of posted
Polish workers in Norway still received below the stipulated minimum wage
in 2010. Haakestad and Friberg (2017) conclude that large-scale migration has
had a degrading and deskilling effect on skilled work in the Norwegian con-
struction industry.
In addition, with reference to Denmark and Sweden, Refslund and
Thörnquist (2016) point out that migrants are often constrained to take on jobs
in comparatively unorganized sectors and therefore become “low-wage” com-
petitors. Refslund (2016) finds that labour migrants in certain industries such
as cleaning and agriculture are constrained by not knowing how to claim their
rights in the Danish agreement-based model of industrial relations. Hansen
and Hansen (2009) find that for instance very few East European construction
workers are organized, and attribute this to high wages and different cultures in
their home countries. Andersen and Felbo-Kolding (2013) show how migrant
workers are perceived as more willing to accept flexible jobs and are presented
with worse working conditions by employers. However, it is not only a lack
of knowledge of the capacity to enforce their rights that makes it difficult
for many migrants to decline temporary or flexible employment. It is also
due to a continuous decline in social security for migrants (Bredgaard et al.,
2009; Mailand & Larsen, 2011). As Rasmussen et al. (2016) point out, this
results in more regulation gaps, which means for migrants that: “The bound-
aries between forced labour and very exploitive conditions tend also to be
blurred” (Rasmussen et al., 2016, p. 82). In a comparison between Denmark
and Norway, Friberg et al. (2014) find that differences in institutional configu-
rations between the countries result in different outcomes for Polish migrant
workers. Due to higher levels of union organization, the majority of Polish
migrants in Denmark earn wages much closer to those of Danish workers than
Polish migrants in Norway.
At the other end of the labour market, surveys among highly educated
workers in Denmark show higher figures for temporary employment than the
labour force surveys, and the numbers have increased significantly in recent
years (Pedersen & Ribe, 2013; Scheuer, 2017). There are other uncertainties
connected to a precise quantification of precarious work. One example is the
attempt to measure the amount of involuntary part-time work, where what is
considered involuntary is debated. There is also the often confusing and mixed
use of the notions of atypical, contingent and precarious work. Atypical work
can be anything but precarious work, if one asks successful freelancers or inde-
pendent professionals. On the other hand, workers in standard employment
relationships may hold severely stressful jobs, be affected by insecurity and have
experienced periods of unemployment.
If we define precarity in line with Kalleberg (2012) and others, we have to
look beyond mere changes in the prevalence of atypical forms of employment
relationships and take several factors into account that identify changes in both
work and society at large. The societal and economic developments pointed
out earlier increase pressure on employees. Several surveys have attempted to

measure perceived job insecurity and general feelings of insecurity. Data col-
lected by the Norwegian Work Research Institute in collaboration with the
union YS in an annual survey representative of the working population since
2009, shows a slight increase in how worried employees are over the risk of
losing their job (Steen et al., 2017). A Danish survey on general feelings of
insecurity (including job insecurity) shows that numbers have more than dou-
bled over since the late 2000s (Andersen, 2014). Numbers are highest among
the lower classes (based on income, education, etc.), but the relatively highest
increase is among the upper and middle classes. Differences in results from
surveys can probably to some degree be explained by national differences in
labour market conditions, but they might also mirror difficulties in producing
detailed and valid figures on such a complex matter as perceived insecurity.
Since precarity is so strongly related to subjective experiences and general life
situations, it is relevant to approach the phenomena in different methodologi-
cal ways. A growing number of research projects based on qualitative data have
emerged. Qualitative data can inform about broader consequences of precari-
ous work that will not normally be visible in statistics. These can for example
be considerations of whether to have children or not (Chan & Tweedie, 2015)
or processes of marginalization among youth (Nielsen et al., 2017).
There is a need for a continuous broadening of perspectives and knowl-
edge of tendencies towards precarity in the Nordic countries. As a relational
phenomenon, it is also appropriate to discuss precarization in context, much
in the same way as when discussing relative poverty. This includes the sub-
jective experiences of having fewer opportunities than are considered part of
a “normal” life lived by the majority. In the Nordic countries, post-Fordist
(de)regulations and neoliberal policies have gradually affected institutional
arrangements and labour market dynamics (Gleerup et al., 2018). In the fol-
lowing section, we discuss some of the characteristics of the Norwegian and
Danish policies and regulations.
Industrial relations and the regulation of work

arrangements
To answer the second question posed in the introduction, “Is the Nordic
model resilient to precarization?”, this section gives an overview of the regula-
tion of work arrangements in Norway and Denmark. We focus on regulation
of the employment relationship and employment protection, including the
Danish flexicurity model. To assess the resilience of the Nordic model, we
examine recent changes in the regulation and the impact of EU legislation,
with a particular focus on the EU directive on temporary agency work.
There are some marked differences in the Norwegian and Danish regulation
of work, particularly in employment protection and temporary employment.
Working arrangements in Norway are regulated through a combination of
legislation and collective agreements, whereas in Denmark employment pro-

tection and the employment relationship are regulated in collective agreements.
According to Gooderham et al. (2015), the emergence of flexicurity challenges
the notion of one Nordic model of industrial relations.
Union density is high in the Nordic countries compared to other European
countries. In Denmark, around 70% are union members, while in Norway the
density is at around 50%. One important reason for the difference is that in
Denmark unemployment benefits were for a long time covered by the unions,
whereas in Norway the state offers such benefits. However, both countries are
witnessing a fall in the degree of unionization (Nergaard, 2016).
The Norwegian Working Environment Act: do

recent changes point towards increased
precarization?
The Norwegian Working Environment Act,2 with some exceptions, applies
to all undertakings that engage employees. It explicitly states that the general
rule for employment (as defined in §14–9) is that “the employee shall be
employed permanently”, but that an agreement on temporary employment,
or employment which has a defined start and end date, can be made in the
following cases:
1 When the work is of a temporary nature

2 Temporary substitution (i.e. during sick leave for the permanent employee)
3 Internship/apprenticeship
4 As part of work training (sponsored by the state)
5 For athletes, coaches, referees and others in organized sports
6 For a period up to 12 months, including up to 15 percent of the employees
in the organization.
This shows that the standard employment relationship retains its strong posi-
tion. However, point 6 was included in 2015 as part of a liberalization of
temporary employment. Temporary positions and the hiring of agency workers
are to be exceptions. There are quite strict laws governing the use of temporary
employees or agency workers, mainly allowing this when the work itself is
temporary, as replacements for permanent employees on leave of absence or in
the case of trainees. The Working Environment Act, granting employees both
the possibility to influence work and the duty to participate, also covers indus-
trial relations. Collective agreements may include exemptions to the Working
Environment Act to the extent that is covered by the act. For instance, while
the law states that normal working hours are 40 hours per week, unions with
more than 10,000 members may agree with employers or employers’ organi-
zations on working hours for their members that exceed these limitations.
There is no minimum wage in Norway. However, some sectors subject to
increased labour migration after the expansion of the EU in 2004 introduced a

general application of collective wage agreements to counteract wage dumping
(Eldring & Alsos, 2012).
The EU Directive on Temporary Agency Work (EC, 2008) aims to ensure
satisfactory working conditions for temporary agency workers and to develop
the sector as a flexible solution for employers.3 The Directive was not imple-
mented in Norway until 1 January 2013 and was met with massive opposition
from the labour unions, viewing this as a further liberalization of temporary
agency work and a threat to the rule of bilateral permanent employment. Since
only the first aim of the directive, that of ensuring that agency workers’ work-
ing conditions are equal to those of the permanent staff, was implemented,
some have argued that there have been no changes in the law regarding the
right to engage temporary agency workers in Norway (Eriksen & Nesheim,
2016). By contrast, Bergene (2016; Bergene & Ewing, 2015) argues that the
Directive’s recognition of temporary agencies as employers represents a quali-
tative shift in the view of labour as a commodity in Norwegian working life.
The Norwegian employee unions also contested the expansion in the
right of employers to hire temporary workers that came into effect from
January 2015. After negotiations, the right to hire at least one temporary
employee for any reason for a duration of up to 12 months was implemented,
but with several restrictions. Among the most important was the restriction
on work tasks, where employers cannot hire another temporary employee
to do the same types of tasks performed by the initial temporary worker in
the first year after the first temporary engagement. Furthermore, a temporary
employee who had been employed for more than four years by the same
employer gained the right to a permanent position with that employer. The
2015 changes in the legislation reduced the necessary duration of temporary
employment to three years. Although it is too soon to evaluate the full conse-
quences of the regulatory changes, the intention of the changes is to liberalize
the use of temporary labour while also offering greater rights for tempo-
rary employees. The recognition of temporary employment as a functional
alternative to the standard employment relationship serves to normalize non-
standard employment relationships (Bergene et al., 2015).
These recent changes envision a new phase in the history of the standard
employment relationship. Historically speaking, a long period of movement
towards increased government control of employment arrangements halted in
the early 1980s. The regulations, such as protection from unfair dismissals and
restrictions on the use of temporary work agencies, were maintained in most
sectors during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2000 the ban on temporary work agen-
cies and private intermediation of labour was lifted. Even though the important
legislation that governs the standard employment relationship in Norway is still
mostly intact, the above-mentioned changes in the Working Environment Act
represent a break with the regulations of the past and a step in the direction of
a less extensive standard employment relationship (Hansen, 2018).
The Danish flexicurity model: a structural barrier to

precarious work?
The growth of different forms of flexibility is related to the development of
precarious work, as argued earlier. In Denmark, the system of flexicurity has
developed through collective agreements over several decades. In the com-
parative literature on policy development, the “flexicurity model” is touted
as an ideal for ensuring employment, skill development and income security
in a highly flexible and thus competitive labour market (Auer & Cazes, 2002,
p. 16; Broughton et al., 2016, pp. 28, 46). The logic behind the model is that
these labour market policies shorten periods of unemployment. In effect, it
implies that employers have been awarded greater flexibility in the right to
hire and terminate employment relationships. In return, employees have been
granted security in the form of relatively generous unemployment benefits
and training provision. There is extensive welfare and high unemployment
benefits related to short-term unemployment. From a working life perspec-
tive, the “f lexicurity” system means that the uncertainties inherent in flexible
forms of employment are often outweighed by other forms of security in the
labour market, and the work is thus not experienced as precarious by workers.
However, since the late 1990s, the model has gradually been changed and the
security part of the labour market model has been weakened.
Retaining the level of security needed to achieve real “flexicurity” relies
on both continued political support for welfare subsidies, the strength of
unions and innovative institutional development to meet the demands of
new forms of precarious employment (Rasmussen et al., 2016). In the wake
of the economic crisis, the Danish model seemed able to “normalise atypical
work” (Bredgaard et al., 2009, p. 17), which meant that collective agree-
ments and unemployment benefits generally covered all workers, including
those in irregular employment. However, the broad national comparisons
risk masking relative differences within the Danish labour market. There are
differences in the contractual arrangements between sectors and between
employees in Denmark.
Although marginal part-time work and temporary work is less common
than permanent employment in the Danish labour market, workers hold-
ing these positions are more exposed. Employees in the private sector and
manual workers generally have the lowest protection. The “white-collar act”
(Funktionærloven) grants salaried employees a longer period of notice before
termination.4 EU legislation has been adopted as a minimum regulation. But
since working conditions are regulated through collective agreements, the
implementation of EU law has had limited effects (Andersen & Mailand, 2005).
The regulation with collective agreements entails that “sector institutions may
be just, if not more important, than national IR-settings, when exploring the
incidence of precarious employment and contingent work” (Rasmussen et al.,
2016, p. 102). The degree of security offered to workers is highly differentiated
across the labour market. In sectors with a lower degree of unionization and
relatively more labour migration, employees do not profit from the rights and
benefits associated with employee participation in the labour market.
Close to a third of the Danish workforce is employed in “atypical” work, and
although a fair amount of these workers are well-established and not relevant
to include in the precariat, being outside the formal agreements of the normal
full-time, permanent jobs that are the norms for regulation can have many con-
sequences. It can be difficult to obtain certain social benefits like unemployment
pay, occupational pension schemes, private health care insurance schemes and
paid maternity, paternity and parental leave (Mailand & Larsen, 2011, p. 27). Also,
formal rights to further training and education are difficult to obtain for work-
ers outside the standard employment relationship. Broader societal consequences
include difficulty in getting a home loan or establishing a family. Although the
flexicurity model builds on mutual agreements on providing security to employ-
ees, it primarily offers security to those in normal full-time, permanent jobs.
Workers outside the labour market or with contingent work might only expe-
rience the flexibility part of “flexicurity”, which makes the model a barrier to
creating a decent life. On a broader societal level, this is also the result of a move-
ment from welfare to workfare (Peck, 2001) where social benefits are dependent
on stable labour market affiliation. The transformation of the state to a “competi-
tion state” (Pedersen, 2013) with its focus on securing the best opportunities for
companies to compete in a global market is part of this development.
Although we have argued that the flexicurity model is not necessarily a
strong barrier to the spread of precarity, flexicurity can in principle be devel-
oped to deal with tendencies to more precarious work for a growing number
of groups in the labour market. The main question, however, is whether the
challenges imbedded in the capitalist economy, and not least the political
responses, are too substantial for flexicurity-related models to deal with. The
objective pressure on capital accumulation and probable continuous financial
crises will create pressure on collective agreements challenging the scope of
security offered to employees. Furthermore, the flexicurity model only exists
as long as there is strong support for unions, not least regarding the number of
potential members they are able to attract. Although membership is not declin-
ing dramatically, it is argued that if membership rates drop just slightly more,
employers will not automatically negotiate as enthusiastically with unions.
Finally, the policies of the unions are also an important factor to take into
account. Until recently unions have not paid much attention to issues of pre-
carity. However, they are now beginning to realize the necessity of developing
responses to precarity; it is necessary to ensure their support and participation
in finding both short-term and long-term solutions to deal with precarity.
Conclusion
Perspectives on the “precarization” of work have emerged as an important
approach to describe and explain structural changes in the labour market, the
institutionalization of employment, the organization of work and the quality of

working life. In this chapter, we have outlined key contributions that highlight
how precarization involves higher job insecurity and how this is related to the
use of flexible employment models, skill and wage polarization, and discussed
how these tendencies lead to a more general degradation of work quality. In
some respects, the situation in the Nordic countries stands in contrast to this
literature with a relatively high degree of employment security and education
levels and a lower wage polarization. Yet the Nordic countries do not operate
in isolation and are clearly marked by pressures of liberalization through flexi-
bilization, increasing polarization and insecurity.
We have discussed how this pressure is expressed in Norway and Denmark
in this chapter. First, we presented trends of polarization in labour markets,
which occur both between and within sectors of employment. Enclaves of low
or unskilled migrant workers in comparatively under-regulated spaces repre-
sent precarious working conditions in the low end of the job quality spectrum.
The extensive flexibilization of employment, even within some areas of highly
qualified work, increasingly splits off employees into a precarious employment
periphery where work is experienced as insecure. It is thus important to rec-
ognize relative differences within the Nordic labour markets. We then showed
how higher general job insecurity results from increasing individualization of
risk through increased flexibility, as an ongoing structural change for employ-
ees in parts of the Nordic working life previously judged as stable. In this
respect, it is important to recognize the dynamic character of the labour market
institutions in the Nordic countries. As shown by the examples of regulation
of temporary employment, temporary agency work and the Danish flexicurity
model, collective agreements and legislation are not only differentiated but also
continually renegotiated.
The answer to our second question of whether the Nordic model is resil-
ient to precarization might therefore be: “so far”. Even though they are
among the most egalitarian countries in the world, the Nordic countries are
witnessing increasing inequality and polarization, which creates more inse-
cure working conditions within vulnerable sectors of work. Decreasing union
density, increasing individualization of working arrangements and the globali-
zation of finance and labour are forces shifting the power balance in favour of
capital. Developments in these areas pose challenges to the underlying prem-
ises of high job quality in the Nordic countries. The structural developments
described not only express but also demand continuous reconfigurations of
labour market institutions.
Nordic working life research can contribute by paying attention to and ana-
lysing the problems of precarious work and working with the actors involved
to ameliorate the situation. In the following chapters, the authors will pre-
sent various perspectives on precarization in the Norwegian and Danish
labour markets. Both the empirical basis and the focus in the chapters vary
by emphasizing, respectively, the level of regulation, work organization and
the subjective experience of precarious work. However, by being centred on

the concept of precarity, the chapters are not only united in their empirical
interest in atypical and flexible forms of employment but also in their critical
analytical interest.
In continuation of this, it is important not to take the fall of the standard
employment relationship for granted, but rather to take its status as an expres-
sion of a particular and context-dependent balance of social forces. Separating
necessary structural developments from strategically imposed ones remains an
important critical impulse for Nordic working life research.
It might be tempting to see precarization as an irrelevant research field in the
comparatively well-functioning Nordic labour markets. However, the criti-
cal, structurally oriented interest in the experience of insecurities in working
life expressed in the concept of precarity constitutes an exciting opportunity
for Nordic working life research to contribute to social change. The reality of
global commerce and regulation means that Nordic working life research must
take global development tendencies into account when understanding local-
ized working life problems. All in all, research into precarity highlights and
aims to understand how the liberalization and flexibilization of work seems to
be an economically functional trend that can create new challenges in working
life. These are challenges that we must engage with, understand, give voice to
and amend through historical perspectives and critical analysis.
Notes
1 Tables can be found here: Part-time work: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=
table&init=1&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tesem100; Temporary employment:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1&language=
en&pcode=tesem110; Long-term unemployment: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/
table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tesem130.
2 www.arbeidstilsynet.no/contentassets/e54635c3d2e5415785a4f23f5b852849/
working-environment-act-october-web-2017.pdf.
3 http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=706&langId=en&intPageId=207.
4 www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/
national-contributions/denmark/denmark-fexicurity-and-industrial-relations.
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Chapter 15
Experiences of precarious work

among graduates in the Danish
labour market
Janne Gleerup, Anders Jakobsen and
Niels Warring
Introduction
The Nordic labour market systems are strongly regulated by collective agreements
and influential labour market organizations. This is also true of Denmark, where
the model is often described as the flexicurity model, combining a high level of
flexibility with a high level of social security. However, during recent decades,
the balance between flexibility and security has tipped in favour of flexibility,
and it is becoming increasingly difficult to access social benefits during periods
of unemployment (Ibsen, 2011; Madsen, 2011). In this context, the debate on
the spread of precarious work has recently taken off and received increasing
attention in current analyses of labour market changes in Denmark (Larsen,
2011; Mailand & Larsen, 2011; Rasmussen et al., 2017). The case of gradu-
ates in Denmark illustrates how the problem of precarious work is emerging
everywhere, not just among marginal groups in less developed welfare regimes.
Earlier, the term “precarious work” was primarily associated with increasingly
insecure wage and work conditions for unskilled or low-skilled workers, vul-
nerable groups and migrant workers (Kalleberg, 2009). Problems in these parts
of the labour market are still unsolved and tend to increase. However, now it
seems that highly skilled, well-educated groups in the labour market are also
experiencing changes towards more precarious work in terms of more tempo-
rary work contracts and generally more insecure work and wage conditions.
A university degree is no longer a guarantee of security; you cannot educate
yourself out of the risk zone any more.
Based on results from two related research projects, this chapter presents
empirical examples of how precarious work is experienced and dealt with
by graduates in the Danish labour market. The data consists of a series of
semi-structured qualitative interviews with a broad focus on the interviewees’
life situation and experiences with precarious work. This chapter starts out
by elaborating briefly on the specific forms and consequences of precarity in
Denmark. We reflect on the concept of precarious work, explaining how and
why we define it as we do. We argue that the complexity of the phenomenon
calls for an interdisciplinary approach, viewing subjective experiences in the
Precarious work among graduates 303
light of current changes in the labour market interwoven with globalization

and the transformation of the Nordic welfare state model. We then briefly
describe key components of the contemporary tendencies towards increased
precarious work among graduates, along with the overall critical theoretical
framework that inspired us in the interpretation of precarity as a subjective
experience. Secondly, we introduce the two empirical research projects that
we draw upon, before presenting theme-based analytical findings that show
how precarious work affects the (working) lives of graduates. We sum up by
suggesting how the qualitative insights on precarity may elucidate modern
Nordic working life, and how these findings may indicate more fundamen-
tal transitions in the labour market and the Danish welfare model in general.
Finally, we engage in a prospective discussion on how qualitative working life
studies on precarity may inform discussions and decision-making processes in
the face of these new tendencies. As an example, we discuss whether the labour
movement, as a uniquely influential actor in the Danish labour market system,
may play a new role by addressing precarity proactively, based on dialogue
with affected members and in cooperation with employer organizations and
the government.
Is the spread of precarious work a relevant

research topic in Denmark?
When viewing the problems of precarious work in an international compara-
tive perspective, it is fair to question the urgency of the problems of precarity
in Denmark. Denmark does not really have working poor in a global context,
but even here more and more people are becoming “combiners” of several
low paid jobs to make a living. So far, these conditions affect only a minor-
ity in Denmark, yet still represent a worldwide tendency. A current Danish
debate about precarious work concerns the question of whether the spread
of precarious work is just a marginal phenomenon or whether the tendency
expresses a general societal trend that will eventually reach the core of society
and potentially affect a majority of employees and organizations. Researchers in
Denmark disagree on the answer, but if we view labour market changes in an
international perspective, there seem to be strong structural and political driv-
ers towards more precarious work (Altvater & Mahnkopf, 2002; Dörre, 2009;
Kalleberg, 2009; Harvey, 2010; Standing, 2016). It is unlikely that Denmark,
as a small open market economy and member of the European Union, will
or can develop in completely the opposite direction to the rest of the world.
Hence, research on precarization is justified in its own right, but it may also
serve as a perspective on the analysis of other labour market changes shaping
Nordic working life, which are discussed in other chapters of this book. Firstly,
precarization could clearly lead to more inequality in society. This might be in
the form of increased economic inequality produced by new divisions between
304 Janne Gleerup et al.
insiders and outsiders in the labour market, if not the rise of a whole new and
dangerous class, “the precariat”, as Standing (2011) argues. In continuation
of this, it is fair to expect that some groups will be more affected than others,
revealing differences among professions as well as divisions based on ethnicity,
gender and age. Secondly, technology may play a part in the process towards
precarization, with the rise of the platform economy (Rasmussen & Madsen,
2017). Thirdly, the spread of precarization is inextricably linked to processes
of globalization (Harvey, 2004, 2010) that affect structural conditions that will
shape Nordic working lives in the future. Finally, research on precarization
sheds light on changes related to the Nordic traditions of strong trade unions
operating at the institutional level in cooperation with employer organizations.
Can trade unions address the problem of precarious work in ways that maintain
their relevance in the Nordic model?
Precarity among graduates

Historically, educational politics changed in Denmark after World War II. The
“university of the masses” was born and this led to a huge growth of people
gaining a university degree. Today 12% of the workforce consists of graduates
who find jobs in all kinds of (emerging) areas, and every third new job is taken
by a graduate (Blankholm, 2016). However, statistics also show that some-
where between 20 and 30% of graduates are affected by precarity, depending
on how precarity is measured (Pedersen & Ribe, 2013; Ejlertsen, 2017). Other
statistics indicate slightly lower figures (Scheuer, 2017), suggesting only a small
growth in precarious work. However, researchers all agree that precarity is pre-
sent among graduates and seems to be spreading in various highly skilled fields.
More and more graduates are employed on temporary contracts, and full-time
permanent jobs are gradually being transformed into temporary, project-based
or part-time jobs (Mortensen & Damholt, 2017). Tendencies differ depending
on fields of work, but e.g. in public administration we can identify a quite sig-
nificant shift away from permanent to temporary employment. About 20% of
the graduates working in the public sector now work on temporary contracts,
and this development is part of a larger transformation of the public sector, to
some extent related to budget cuts and destabilized budget structures (project
economy), hindering long-term planning and encouraging more shortsighted
planning logics in public institutions. Tendencies pulling towards temporary
work are becoming “the new normal”.
Some may ask whether well-educated groups are at all vulnerable to the
spread of temporary contracts in the labour market. Compared to precarity
among blue-collar workers in the industries, the well-educated are in many
ways better off. Their high level of education enhances their employment
opportunities, and they earn up to 80% more throughout their working lives
than skilled manual workers (Udvalg om bedre universitetsuddannelser, 2018).
In other words, is the spread of precarious work among people with higher
education a broad societal problem, or does it only concern a small part of an

otherwise privileged social group? Even though society educates and needs
people with higher education, and even though unemployment rates for grad-
uates are declining, we would argue that graduates are vulnerable in several
ways. Changes in conditions for employment undermine not only income
security but also the quality of work conditions among knowledge workers is
threatened by precarity. As we will show, these professionals also find that this
affects the quality of work in itself.
The notion of precarity

The history of precarious work is as long as the history of work in general, and
problems of precarity have throughout the centuries been constituted by shift-
ing power relations, basically related to the interplay between capital and work.
The specific term precarity originates from France and turns up in writings as
early as at the beginning of the 19th century. Marx and Engels later described
precarity as an integral dimension of the capitalist mode of production, and
after a short historical period of Fordist regulation in the European labour mar-
ket models in the 20th century, the debate on precarious work returned in the
early 1980s as a consequence of neoliberal deregulation alongside other labour
market reforms that provoked insecure work and pay conditions (Gleerup
et al., 2018). Further, the Nordic welfare state model is influenced by the neo-
liberal turn. In a Danish context, the universal welfare model built throughout the
20th century is now challenged by the ideals of a workfare model that reduces
the level of state-guaranteed security and unemployment benefits (Esping-
Andersen, 2000; Mckay et al., 2012). After the millennium, the state ideal has
moved towards the competitive state, infused by ideas of the project society/
project economy (Hirsch, 1998; Hardt & Negri, 2000; Pedersen, 2011). The
notion of precarity must be determined in the light of such societal changes
that involve various structural and political drivers changing working lives in
Denmark in general, but particularly among precarious workers.
Whereas classical questions about work and pay conditions have been
subject to extensive research and public debate in Denmark, the focus on
precarious work and the discussion of its content and extent is relatively
new. Precarious work can be defined and analysed in many ways depending
on the dimensions of the phenomenon to be explored (Campbell & Price,
2016). Guy Standing (2011) has suggested that precarity should be under-
stood as the absence of different forms of labour security. Relating precarity
not only to forms of employment but also to the question of (in)security, the
notion allows for a broader understanding of precarious work, where secu-
rity is a relative and relational phenomenon based on both objective criteria
and subjective experiences. Following this, we suggest the terms potential and
actual precarity to underline how precarization can be understood as a continuum
between poles that contains many individual differences and shifting in and out of
precarious work. Potential precarity also affects the not-yet precarious individuals,
as a “horizon” influencing their choices and experiences of security and insecurity.
By using the terms potential and actual precarity, we gain access to an
understanding of the processes that form the growth in precarious work as
related to broader societal and labour market transformations. In this way, it
is also possible to depict how precarity is spreading into the world of full-time
employment. In particular, the expansion of different forms of labour flex-
ibility that have become core elements in the development of post-Fordist
and neoliberal labour market regulations and state policies show us that pre-
carity must be seen in a continuum rather than as an “either-or” (Lambert &
Herod, 2016). When we explore the phenomenon of precarity in a broader
historical societal perspective, we find that the process reflects a gradual ero-
sion of the full-time permanent employment norm developed throughout
the era of Fordism (Castel & Dörre, 2009).
As working life researchers, we aim to explore the subjective dimension of
precarity. The focus on changed welfare systems and labour market regula-
tions must therefore be supplemented by interpretations of changes in worker
subjectivity. The classical image of the worker as a wage earner has been
undergoing transformations flavoured by new ideals of employees as bearers
of an “entrepreneurial mindset” with strong imperatives to the worker to be
passionately engaged in work as a means for self-realization or even emanci-
pation (Ekman, 2013). Understanding modern precarious worker subjectivity
calls for viewing precarious work as not only affecting people’s work but also
their entire lifeworld. It has strong effects on family life, feelings of exclusion
from core elements of society, guilt and shame, etc. Of course, precarity is
a phenomenon that affects people through their labour market participation
(or lack of it), but if we distinguish rigidly between labour market work and
leisure time, we may risk overlooking important dimensions of precarious
working life subjectivity. Living in precarity requires a lot of unpaid work
since those affected are constantly forced to spend time and effort on finding
the next job and thereby maintain their income and professional identity as
highly educated employees.
All these influential drivers of change make it impossible to operate with a
strict generic or decontextualized concept of precarity. Rather, we stress the
importance of defining precarity in the light of (and with sensitivity towards)
these trends, thus viewing precarity in an everyday life perspective.
Qualitative research on precarious work among

graduates
Until now, the vast majority of research on precarious work has focused quan-
titatively on important issues of who is affected by precarious work, where
and how. However, qualitative research has also been conducted (Birch &
Strandvad, 2005; Bourguignon, 2012; Fersch, 2014). Some projects have
specifically dealt with people with higher education This includes Sander’s
large study that includes the construction of four different typologies that
categorize ways graduates experience and handle precarity (Sander, 2012).
Sander’s results show major differences in how the challenges are met and how
far precarity affects the ability to act upon one’s own work and life situation.
Others have analysed how the prospect of a precarious working life can influ-
ence how young graduates plan family life (reproductive insecurity, Chan and
Tweedie, 2015), while Armano and Murgia (2013) discuss how knowledge
workers’ strong identification with their work can lead to self-exploitation. As
we will see, some of these findings are also reflected in our Danish material.
The empirical findings that we present in the following section derive from
two related current Danish research projects exploring how precarious work
conditions are beginning to emerge in the highly skilled part of the labour
market. The projects deal with the overall question of how precarious work is
experienced and raise questions as to how precarity affects professional identi-
ties and the meaning of work: how do those affected interpret and respond to
their situation and how do they cope with the growing insecurity and unpre-
dictability of their working life?
The first research project we draw on in this chapter is the PhD project
“Precarity and Professional Identity”, conducted by Anders Jakobsen (as yet
unpublished). The research focuses on the relationship between precarity
and meaning in work and contains a series of qualitative interviews with
graduates exploring how they interpret precarious work as both an opportu-
nity and a constraint to experiencing meaning in work. The second research
project “Precarity: Of Academic Work” is being conducted by Gleerup and
colleagues (2018) and funded by the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs
(Dansk Magisterforening). The research focuses on the socio-historical back-
ground to precarious work as a basis for a qualitative study including over 40
interviews exploring how precarity is experienced and dealt with by gradu-
ates in various highly skilled fields of work in the public and private sectors.
The participants are cultural workers, freelancers, university teachers and
employees in public administration.
The overall theoretical framework and research design of both projects are
inspired by the tradition of critical theory, combining an analysis of societal,
political and economic structures with a psychosocial analysis of subjec-
tive dynamics and orientations. When linking societal and subjective issues
through critical theory, we try to avoid approaches that understand subjec-
tive experience as a mirror of objective conditions. Subjective experience is
always more than that, and the patterns in the dialectic connection between
micro and macro levels are difficult to grasp making use of a single level
of perspective.
In our research as a whole, we draw on a variety of theoretical sources of
inspiration. In this chapter, we highlight the work of Regina Becker-Schmidt,
which we find relevant to the study of precarious work among graduates
(Becker-Schmidt, 1982; Jakobsen, 2018). Her central concept is that of

ambivalence. According to Becker-Schmidt, all (wage) labour is not just an
expression of instrumental orientations within the worker. Furthermore, it is
neither just an expression of identification nor a source of individual gratifica-
tion. Instead, work is experienced ambivalently, and these ambivalences stem
from unsolved conflicts on the societal level, but also from conflicts in the pri-
vate life and biography of the individual (Becker-Schmidt, 1982). Subjective
experiences of precarious work are thus clearly ambivalent: precarious work
may on the one hand be experienced as an opportunity for meaning in work
by working in one’s professional field, which may not be possible otherwise.
On the other, precarious work is often a source of negative feelings, due to
lack of recognition, lack of interaction with peers and lack of security in terms
of income and pension.
The analysis of our empirical data also draws on what we define as an eve-
ryday life perspective, theoretically inspired by the French researcher Henri
Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 1991) and his critical approach to everyday life with core
notions of (and focus on) space and rhythms as important components in the
shaping of our everyday lives. Against this background, we aim to show how
tendencies towards precarious work are experienced and dealt with by affected
graduates in a lifeworld perspective. Although the subjective experiences of
precarious work are in focus in the interviews, our aim has been to understand
precarity as affecting a person’s whole life situation, which explains our use of
everyday life theory.
In the following presentation of selected empirical findings, we focus on
these three themes: meaning of work, participation in the workplace and
precarity in a life perspective. The findings illuminate precarious work as a
subjective phenomenon in these three important, albeit far from exhaustive,
dimensions.
Experiences of meaning and meaninglessness

In highly skilled work, as in all other work, the experience of meaning, or
the absence of it, is an important factor for the subjective experience of work
quality (Ravn, 2008; Kamp, 2011). With a rising proportion of graduates
working under precarious conditions in Denmark, the question arises not
only of the structural consequences of precarious work among graduates
but also of the subjective experience of quality and meaning in work. A closer
look reveals that the relationship between precarious work in different forms
and the subjective experience of meaning in work is not obvious. Thus, on
the one hand, Standing describes how precarious work leads to loss of a work-
based or professional identity, because the flexible character and instrumental
orientation of (and in) precarious work leads to a loss of a feeling of commu-
nity and ethical standards and norms, reducing work to “careerless jobs” without
“social memory”, reciprocity or fraternity (Standing, 2011, pp. 12, 23).
On the other hand, freelance highly skilled work at least in some forms seems
to be associated with high commitment and identification, and thus presum-
ably high degrees of subjective meaning (Ekman, 2013). Due to the very
different professional fields and somewhat different degrees of work security
among the graduate precariat, differences in the relationship between precarious
work and the experience of meaning in work must be expected.
Meaning is in our understanding rooted in a critical perspective, where
work is viewed as both socially constituted and as an important form of human
expression: a life activity. As such, work becomes on the one hand an impor-
tant potential source of meaning, but on the other, work may also be a source
of experiences of alienation and meaninglessness if instrumental or rigid (wage)
labour orientations gain the upper hand (Kamp, 2011; Gleerup et al., 2018). In
continuation of the critical perspective, the central research interest becomes
how these experiences may serve as a conserving or transformative potential for
the critique and development of precarious academic work.
In the above-mentioned study by Jakobsen, the majority of the participants
experience precarious work as both a possibility and a barrier to experiencing
meaning in work. On the one hand, precarious employment is experienced
by the participants as an opportunity for working within what they under-
stand as their professional field and which is not accessible to them (for reasons
of competition or otherwise) under normal full-time permanent employment
conditions. On the other, many participants emphasize the harsh price to pay
in terms of the unpredictable and insecure working conditions involved. The
majority of the experiences are thus to some degree ambivalent. The partici-
pants have to balance the two goals of income security and the opportunity
to do meaningful work. This implies yet another balancing and negotiation
as to whether a job opportunity is actually professionally meaningful enough.
Many participants find this constant balancing and negotiation of identity to
be a strain. All wage labour involves such compromises, but these participants
point out that it is the permanent state of these inner negotiations that they
find wearing.
However, the participants differ. One participant underlines how precari-
ous work allows her to work within what she understands as her professional
field, which would not be accessible to her otherwise. For her, precarious work
becomes a possibility for experiencing meaning in work:
Yes, I think I would call myself self-employed, and for instance not an
entrepreneur, in other words self-employed in the sense that I myself fnd
the work I want to do. Yes, like I decide myself which work I fnd attrac-
tive and which things I want to do, and if something comes along which I
think would be nice, then of course I say yes.
(Woman, humanities, in her thirties, currently self-employed)
She continued as follows:

Yes, I chose to be self-employed because I thought it was the only way I

could work with or talk about my professionalism all the time.
This participant has apparently succeeded in establishing herself as a self-

employed professional, basing her work on her educational background and
experiencing meaning in work by employing her professional skills in diferent
assignments. Other participants underline how precarious working conditions
are a heavy price to pay for working within, or even just on the fringe of, their
professional feld. As one participant states:
But there are also just some things which the whole time make it a bit
negative, also where you can feel that the more years you have been in it,
the more it wears you down. We also don’t get a pension so in a way you
really cannot put it aside.
(Woman, natural sciences, in her forties,
currently in a temporary position)
This participant has for many years been working in temporary teaching posi-
tions at a university. She has been quite content with this, but is now increasingly
worried about her prospects, pointing out how the goal of professional mean-
ingfulness may lead to one staying “too long” in precarious working conditions.
At the other extreme, one participant underlines how lack of meaning in
precarious work has led him to quit a job:
Professionally, I wasn’t very happy with it. Because even though it was
interesting to work with these people, it wasn’t very interesting profes-
sionally to me and didn’t have much to do with my professional identity,
I thought, so I quit the job.
(Male, humanities, in his thirties, currently unemployed)
The participants thus experience precarious work very diferently, in some cases
as an opportunity and in others as a barrier to experiencing meaning in work.
Participation in the workplace

In the project by Gleerup et al. (2018) we find that an important aspect
of precarious work life revolves around the conditions for participation at
the workplace level. Many of our participants experience a variety of unfair
differences and illegitimate inequality between the permanent and tempo-
rary staff. Besides the inequalities in formal employment conditions and pay
between temporary and permanent staff, many stress the difficulties of social
and professional integration at work. Hence, many of the participants work-
ing on temporary contracts have trouble “finding their place” as a member
of the workplace community. From a social perspective, some point out that
temporary workers are rarely invited to annual summer seminars, Christmas

dinners or other social activities. From a professional point of view, some
stress how it hurts when temporary workers are not invited to take part in
meetings about how to organize, conduct or develop the work. Some find
that permanent staff tend to overlook the contributions by temporary staff,
while others reason that the permanent staff are unaware of who the tempo-
rary workers are, let alone their unequal pay and working conditions. Some
feel almost invisible or taken for granted by permanent staff. As one puts it:
It’s the sense of not. . . You’re just not important. It shows in so many
ways, we’re expected to do all sorts of things, but we don’t get paid for it.
At small well-functioning workplaces, employment diferences seem to play

a minor role, since the need for close cooperation supports group solidarity
and shared interests. At large workplaces like a university, diferences tend to
exclude the temporary staf from important professional parts of the workplace
community. As one university teacher puts it:
I’d very much like to join a research group, but I know perfectly well that
when it comes to money and funding of new projects, I’m not included.
These examples show how the lack of social and professional recognition from
colleagues matters a great deal to the participants. When talking about the
inequality, many participants try to balance their analysis, often stressing that
permanent staf can be very friendly, and some participants even blame them-
selves, reasoning that they should have been more outreaching or explicit in
showing their qualifcations and eagerness to invest in the workplace. Others
state pragmatically that they do not expect to be treated as equals with per-
manent staf, as long as temporary staf are not ignored and their position as
co-producers is recognized at the workplace level. As we shall see, these prob-
lems are also interwoven with the participant’s relationship with management.
The difficult relationship with management

Temporary staff are vulnerable in the interplay with management. Many of
them describe their temporary position as “a permanent trial”, meaning that
they feel continuously tested, sometimes without really knowing what crite-
ria they are being judged by. Consequently, many participants over-perform.
They take on more responsibility than their contract stipulates, and they accept
an unfair distribution of the workload in order to show their dedication and
willingness to work hard. Furthermore, participants tell how they are con-
stantly looking for signs indicating that they might get a permanent position or
at least another time-limited contract when their current contract finishes. As
one participant explains:
You’re constantly interpreting all kinds of signs that might reveal if

management is ready to prolong your employment for a couple of
months extra.
Some argue that as a temporary worker it is impossible to report sick at work.

The risk of negative consequences is simply too high. These examples show
that temporary workers sufer from unclear performance expectations, making
them very worried about how to navigate in clever ways in order to maintain
and improve their employment relationship.
The empirical findings as a whole clearly show that at the organizational
level the tendency towards more precarious work leads to changes affecting
both the work environment and the quality of work. Increasingly unequal
work and learning conditions emerge, formal and informal privileges become
more and more differentiated and, in several cases, the temporary workers
find that the workload is unfairly distributed. In addition, management and
colleagues may overlook qualifications among the temporary staff that could
improve work quality. It is evident that the situation affects not only temporary
employees but also permanent staff, either directly or indirectly. This is partly
because continuity is lost when large turnover becomes “the new normal”,
partly because the quality of the social climate erodes within this fragmented
atmosphere. At some large workplaces, extensive use of temporary contracts
results in competitiveness among several temporary employees all striving for
a permanent position. Hence, not only the work environment but also the
quality of work are affected. Professional standards can be undermined by a
poorly functioning work environment if inequality and competition rather
than cooperation and mutual learning define the atmosphere and set unsatisfac-
tory conditions for performing highly skilled work. The participants find that
management rarely supports their aspirations to perform serious and meaning-
ful work, and their wish to be included in professional communities at work is
often overlooked.
Professional identity and responsibility

The empirical findings show that the possibilities of maintaining and develop-
ing a professional identity matter a great deal to the participants. In some fields
of work, graduates are recruited for specialized tasks, and they experience good
opportunities for using their professional skills, even if only for six months
or less. Examples cited are cultural workers such as specialized archaeologists
recruited for exciting excavations. However, others find little opportunity to
make use of their skills. Some of the participants have chosen to supplement
their income from precarious highly skilled work with part-time unskilled jobs.
Some work in the care sector, others have cleaning jobs in the evenings. In this
way, they hold onto their profession, even though their basic income derives
from unskilled work. Combining suitable work for graduates with unskilled
work often gives rise to doubts and ambivalence about strategy: “Shall I give up
on my professional identity or keep trying to get a full-time job suitable for a
graduate?” Participants tend to hold onto their professional identity by striving
for employment within their professional field. However, conditions for pro-
fessional development in their fields tend to weaken and become differentiated,
leaving the temporary employees with little or no access to further educa-
tion. Management invests educational effort in permanent staff, and interesting
development work is given to them, rather than to the temporary staff. Long-
term strategies of workplace development do not include the temporary staff,
and their individual qualifications are often not recognized as potentially useful
in future planning. In the end, these factors may lead to de-qualification of
temporary graduates.
Most temporary workers experience ambivalence related to their sense of
professional responsibility. They want to engage and take responsibility for the
quality of work, but their time-limited contracts and lack of inclusion in the
professional community at work stand in the way. The interview data show
different strategies to deal with such circumstances. Some engage even harder
when contracts are soon to run out. Others tend to let go of professional
standards in order to protect themselves from disillusionment because their
involvement goes unacknowledged. Some tell us that this is a very ambiguous
situation to be in, since they do not want to downgrade their involvement, but
they are forced by circumstances to let go of responsibility. Sometimes reasons
are practical: they need to spend increasingly more time and effort on finding a
new job when their contract is almost over. It can be an ambivalent challenge,
leaving unfinished business behind, when a contract runs out:
I was kept on illegally for four months. They don’t feel bad about it, and I
wanted to be kept on. Then they gave me the work nobody else wants. . .
But I write everything down in manuals for the next temporary employee.
It’s only fair to do that, when you know you’ll be out of here soon. But
I’m thinking: good luck! Being a temporary worker, you have to protect
yourself a little bit. You can’t get too emotionally involved, wondering
how they’re going to manage when I’m gone.
As the quote shows, it is an ambivalent matter to maintain a sense of moral

and professional responsibility, and often the participants are struggling to
fnd a balance between engagement and self-protection. They also show
that considerable knowledge is lost due to the large turnover in staf, and
sometimes initiatives or projects must start all over again or end before time
because it is impossible to establish continuity. As one explains about an
important development project that fell apart:
It leaves a ruin of unfnished work. I was allowed to take up a project left

behind, but I had to give up on it. It was work started by temporary staf
who aren’t here any more – perspectives on the project have vanished
with them. What a waste, it could have been so great, doing the project.
90% of all the work never done relates to the fact that there’s no structure,
people have just left.
Precarity in a life perspective

The spread of precarious work also influences the private lives of the partici-
pants. Especially among the young graduates, planning problems matter: can
we afford to have children if both parents are loosely attached to the labour
market? Can we afford to buy the bigger flat we need when we’ll both be
out of a job in a few months? Should we move to another part of the country
because one of us has got a time-limited job offer there? What are the long-
term consequences of jobs without pension benefits? Will I suffer from poverty
in my old age? Such questions make it difficult for the participants to keep faith
in the future, and many of them anticipate that social security in the welfare
system will erode before they retire.
Even though some participants emphasize that they do not see full perma-
nent employment as the solution to all their problems, and despite some being
able to find their way by combining different jobs or making a living as free-
lancers and self-employed professionals, it is evident from the data from both
projects that the majority find precarious work to be stressful. Temporality and
unpredictability are defining factors in their everyday life. This makes it diffi-
cult to plan the future, and many experience a gradual loss of control over their
own lives. The sense of not belonging anywhere means that the mechanisms
of individualization strike harder, as does the sense of insecurity, the lack of
recognition, the loss of professional integrity and the sense of disappointment.
All of these are severe negative companions to the emerging precarity.
Although the participants point to structural or organizational factors as the
reason for precarity, there is also a strong undercurrent of feelings of guilt and
shame. Shame is a well-known effect of processes of exclusion and margin-
alization and affect the whole life situation of staff in precarious employment.
The companion to shame, guilt, also appears as a theme for some of the par-
ticipants. They struggle with doubts like: maybe it’s also my own fault, I could
have done this or that better to improve my career opportunities. Probably this
theme is especially significant among graduates due to high levels of professional
expectations underlined by an individualized responsibility for maintaining and
developing professional competencies. In a life perspective, feelings of shame
and guilt spread to all spheres of everyday life and can dramatically affect and
dismantle opportunities to be proactive.
Among the younger graduates, we sometimes trace a more pragmatic or
hopeful attitude than among the experienced. The young graduates still have
hopes for a permanent job in the future, and some identify positive aspects
of trying out different kinds of temporary jobs while waiting for the right
permanent job to show up. They take the opportunities to improve their quali-
fications and CVs through a series of time-limited jobs. However, most of
them also fear that this is not just an initial phase but may instead reflect an
emerging structural change in the labour market whose full consequences they
as graduates are the first to experience. As one of the participants puts it:
Both my parents are graduates with full-time permanent jobs. I’ve got
good marks and I suppose I thought I could be like them. Now I’ve
had temporary work for more than fve years. Maybe this is how things
actually are! I hope not!
Other young participants argue that they have been cheated by “the edu-
cational promise”. They were advised to choose higher education and had
counted on this providing maximum security. Now they fnd that they apply
for jobs they cannot get, because they are overqualifed as graduates.
Wishes for change

Finally, we asked the participants what thoughts they had about how their life
situation could be changed for the better and how precarity should be dealt
with on a societal level. Some would like the public to know more about
precarious work and pay conditions spreading among graduates. Others ask for
networks and trade union support to negotiate better conditions in temporary
contracts. Some suggest, in complete contrast, that trade unions should make
efforts to abandon temporary work contracts completely. This strategy, how-
ever, can also backfire on precarious workers. One university teacher explains
how she sometimes feels caught in ambivalence between principles and reality:
I’m so much against all the time-limited job ofers – we’re being exploited,
it should be forbidden! Still, every time I get a new ofer, I agree. Sometimes
I even ask my trade union to help me out on a formal level, so that my
contract can be extended once again.
This last quote provokes the question: are the precarious workers well supported
by their trade union, or does the trade union fail to grasp their specifc needs
and interests? Some participants do not believe that the trade union really cares
about them, while others argue that organizing precarious employment is the
most important current trade union challenge and provide practical ideas and
suggestions on how to improve work conditions through trade union initiatives.
Summing up the empirical findings

Throughout this chapter, we have aimed to show that precarity exists within
the field of highly skilled work. Summing up the empirical themes, we find
that ambivalence characterizes individual strategies in various ways. Participants

find it difficult to achieve and maintain professional identity and meaning in
work when subjected to a series of temporary work contracts and highly uncer-
tain career prospects. Many struggle to find ways in which they can combine
a fair level of income security with a meaningful job content corresponding to
their high level of education.
In relation to workplace participation, precarious graduates also experience
a variety of difficulties. Workplace integration is hard to achieve, and interplay
with colleagues and management is vulnerable. Different kinds of inequality
exist, and the graduates find their professional identity and sense of responsibil-
ity undermined by the temporality, unpredictability and shortsightedness that
accompany the precarious work conditions.
Finally, when viewing precarity in an everyday life perspective, we find that
graduates are affected in many regards. Some feel deceived by “the educational
promise”, realizing that a university degree cannot protect them from a pre-
carious working life. Young graduates in particular fear the future, anticipating
scenarios of permanent precarity or old age in poverty. To some extent, they
turn their analysis inward and hence struggle with feelings of shame and guilt.
Others, however, turn their analysis outwards, arguing that precarity problems
must not be individualized, since they are rather products of negative societal
developments that must be counteracted. These graduates call upon their trade
unions to hear their voice and renew their policies.
The results of our research projects indicate that it is important to continue
to make use of both sociological and humanistic approaches to identify the
variety of consequences of precarity. This is in order to interpret how the
spread of precarious work affects individuals, families, workplace communities
and the quality of work itself – and thereby clearly also society at large. Such
analytical work may inform and enhance discussions and decision-making
processes at several levels.
Perspectives of action for change

It is not easy to predict the consequences of precarity in the future, and the
complexity of the phenomenon indicates that overcoming problems should
not be left to the labour market parties to solve alone, since the problem is
rooted in developments in capitalism and heavily interwoven with political
aims to reorganize systems of social security in the welfare state. However,
the Nordic labour market models are characterized by unique traditions of
strong cooperation between the social parties and the government, and the
vast majority of Danish workers are still members of trade unions. In light
of this, it is relevant to ask whether trade unions could engage in dialogue
with members affected by precarity and develop new policy strategies in
cooperation with them, developing more explicit and well-founded alliances
between precarious and non-precarious members. Collecting and exploring
the experiences of precarity in a shared learning environment could pave the

way for politicizing insights and translate them into new demands within (and
beyond) the labour market negotiation system. Individualization and feelings
of guilt and shame are not only experienced by precarious workers. More and
more people in permanent jobs suffer from stress and work-related depression
and take sick leave as a result of unsustainable labour market developments.
The tendency towards increasing uncertainty regarding the future welfare state
model is shared by permanent and temporary staff alike, and this may consti-
tute a potential for unions to gather and build on experiences across members’
specific employment conditions. Unions have the opportunity to bridge the
seemingly opposing interests of secure and precarious workers.
Finally, sustainable working conditions are not only important from an
employee perspective. Also at the political level, it is gradually recognized that
knowledge work will play an important role in the future, and if the labour
market involves more and more precarious work, the quality of work may be
at risk. Hence, politicians at national level could renew the Nordic tradition
of close cooperation with the social parties and develop Nordic alternatives to
the spread of precarity.
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Chapter 16
The formation and destabilization

of the standard employment
relationship in Norway
The contested politics and regulation of
temporary work agencies
Per Bonde Hansen and Anders Underthun
Introduction
The flexibilization of post-Fordist production, neoliberal governance and the
precarization of employment relations have typically been held as important
processes for shifting power structures in Western welfare states in recent dec-
ades (Allen & Henry, 1997). For instance, Peck and Tickell (2002) argue that
an emerging neoliberal order has put considerable pressure on the political
and economic functions of the state, while Jessop (2002) argues that Western
welfare states to various degrees have undergone a shift from the Keynesian,
redistributive welfare state to a neoliberal competition state.
One of the key organizing principles of the state in political-economic
terms is the regulation and status of employment relations, or more specifically:
What is the status of different forms of employment? The standard employment
relationship (SER), understood as permanent, open-ended, full-time employ-
ment in a bilateral employment relationship (Vosko, 2008), has been one of
the hallmarks of Western welfare states. However, the imperative of flexibility
(e.g. Atkinson, 1987) in a post-Fordist economic order has challenged the
dominant position of the SER. In complete contrast, precarious employment
(Standing, 2011) is characterized by insecurity, low income, often fixed-term
contractual employment and inferior social and statutory entitlements (Vosko,
2009). Often cited as a symbol of precarious employment, temporary work
agencies (TWA) rest their operations on mediating mostly fixed-term labour
to provide flexible, on-demand man-hours to a client organization (Vosko,
2009). The idea of labour as a commodity has been highly controversial, in
particular by labour interests which have highlighted the precarious nature
of such work arrangements. In a historical context, TWA work has also been
controversial for employers, as the SER supported capital interests that were
dependent on growing and predictable labour services.
The contested nature of the TWA industry has implied strict regulation
across Europe, in particular in welfare states where the SER has retained a
high status, such as the Nordic countries (Vosko, 2009; Thelen, 2012). In this
Standard employment relationship in Norway 321
chapter, we ask how the economic, legal and normative foundation of the SER
in comparison with temporary agency work has been debated, contested and
regulated in Norway from 1945 to 2018.
We argue that the concrete contestation of TWA employment has been
vital in shaping and reshaping the strong Norwegian version of the SER. The
norms for “standard” and “non-standard” employment relationships were for
a long time unspecified and have repeatedly been subject to change. However,
the research in this field largely relates to the changes in the regulation of
temporary work from the 1990s onwards,1 and in this way failed to recognize
the historical and dialectic process of co-constitution between the standard and
non-standard in employment relations. In our argument, we also emphasize
that it is important not to take the gradual fall of the SER for granted, but
rather to consider its more fluctuating status as an expression of a particular and
context-dependent balance of social forces. A further aim of this chapter is to
pay special attention to the role of employers as an organized class. Historical
research in this field has mainly focused on trade unions and workers, while
research on employers and their historical role has tended to focus on employers
as individual actors.2
Based on written sources from various archives and more recent documents
and academic publications, this chapter will discuss this topic from a historical
perspective. We will also reflect upon the current status of the SER in relation
to temporary agency work. We organize the chapter in the following man-
ner. First, we provide a theoretical background to the status of the SER in
Western welfare states. Second, we present four, relatively distinct, periods of
Norwegian employment history with a focus on how the economic, normative
and legal foundations of the SER both influenced and were influenced by the
contested negotiation of TWAs. We conclude by discussing the current debate
on temporary and precarious work in a Norwegian context, marked by the
remarkable lingering strength of the SER affected by the considerable changes
to how Western welfare states are organized and have been affected by a global,
neoliberal economic order.
The standard employment relationship

Historical-dialectic perspectives on the relationship between capital and the
state in post-World War II Western welfare states reflect a focus on the inter-
play between forms of capitalist accumulation and the institutional “fixes”
(Peck & Tickell, 1994) that have changed throughout the course of history. For
instance, the shift from Fordist mass production and Keynesian-oriented welfare
provision and employment stimulation to a post-Fordist flexible accumulation
and innovation-oriented “Schumpeterian competition state” (Jessop, 2002,
p. 95) is a typical way of seeing the historical and functional connection between
the state and capitalist organization (Cerny, 1997; Amin, 1994; Brenner, 2004).
322 Per Bonde Hansen and Anders Underthun
Even though these institutional changes or fixes have had different expressions
in different national contexts (Esping-Andersen, 1999; Hall & Soskice, 2001),
the parameters for economic activity have changed quite dramatically follow-
ing processes such as economic globalization and supranational deregulation.
In this way, the struggle over the economic, normative and legal foundation of
the SER is very different today (2018) than it was in 1945.
The SER became the typical employment relationship in Western cap-
italist economies after World War II, both in quantitative terms and as a
political and legal norm. According to Vosko (2010), the SER rests on three
pillars: (1) a bilateral employment relationship between an employer and a
worker, where the worker performs work under the direct supervision of the
employer; (2) a full-time position; and (3) continuous employment. The SER
thus involved a relatively high degree of job security for workers.
In a historical perspective, the pillars of the SER have repeatedly been subject
to change and struggle. Thus, an analysis of the content and status of the SER
as an organizing principle of Norwegian working life must treat employment
norms as dynamic and dependent on changing historical circumstances and a
changing institutional, political and normative context. In this chapter, we argue
that the pillars of the SER are founded historically on legal, normative and eco-
nomic conditions or what we coin foundations (Hansen, 2018a). We argue that
the strength of these foundations constitutes and is constituted by the changing
balance of social forces and the varying opinions and interests of the actors in the
historical periods we cover.3 We concentrate our analysis of the foundations of
the SER on the pillars of continuous employment and the bilateral employment
relationship. The pillar of continuous employment serves as an example.
The legal foundation concerns permanent employment as a status that is
interwoven into a cluster of rights providing social protection based on the
asymmetric relationship between labour and capital. A central element is the
protection against unfair dismissal. The right to permanent employment can
be traced back to the late 19th century and the emergence of trade unions.
Unions challenged the management prerogative, which was practised in line
with the somewhat paradoxical slogan “freedom of work”. This implied
that decisions regarding hiring or firing workers were solely a matter for the
employer (Seierstad, 1986; Bjørnson, 2007). Through trade union mobiliza-
tion, the employment relationship changed from being an agreement entered
into in the name of “freedom of contract”, to a position with associated rights.
In other words, the employment contract was given a more formalized form
or status (Jacoby, 2004; Freedland, 2013).
The normative foundation concerns the extent to which permanent employment
is considered the ideal employment relationship. The concept of “job owner-
ship” is highly relevant for both the normative and legal foundations of the SER.
According to Selig Perlman (1928), unions have fought for the right to, so to
speak, own their positions in a company. In other words, unions have opposed
the view that the company and the job to be done solely belong to the capitalist,
as the owner of the means of production. Expressions of such “job ownership”

imply formal and informal arrangements such as protection against dismissals,
seniority systems and occupational regulations (cf. Seierstad, 1982, 1986).
The economic foundation concerns the demand for labour, often with cer-
tain skills. The growth of the SER was not only the result of regulations and
norms. Permanent employment was mostly achieved in the period known as
the golden age of capitalism, the three decades of economic boom after World
War II, characterized by a great demand for labour and a policy of full employ-
ment (Hobsbawm, 1995), contrasting with the imperative for flexible labour
(Kalleberg et al., 2003).
Increased numbers of employees in a permanent, bilateral employment rela-
tionship not only implied job security for workers and a certain stability for
employers. Permanent employment was also important for the establishment
of a system of industrial relations. Unions built their strongholds among the so-
called core proletariat i.e. the relatively secure and well-paid part of the working
class. Union density reached its peak in many countries when such workers
accounted for the largest share of the workforce (Hyman, 1999, p. 100).
The dominant role of certain groups of workers leads to another important
element of the SER. To whom was it accessible? As Leah Vosko (2010) has
argued, the SER must be seen in the light of its exclusions. Another impor-
tant characteristic of the SER is, in other words, its exclusivity. Two important
exclusion criteria are gender and citizenship.
First, the SER is based on what Vosko calls a “gender contract”, a division of
labour between female “caregivers” and male “breadwinners”. Second, the SER
was based on citizenship boundaries and intimately connected with the nation
state (Vosko, 2010, pp. 3–5). However, in a Norwegian context, the exclusions
from the SER have not only been gender and citizenship. For example, until
1975, workers under the age of 21 and those who had held a job for under two
years were not entitled to protection against dismissal. In addition, many people
employed in seasonal work and in the construction industry had virtually no
rights to continuous employment. Thus, we argue that the Norwegian variant
of the SER primarily rested on a division between a “core” and “periphery”
of workers, where the normative basis was that the core was not accessible
for everyone. In other words, the fundamental “contract” to which the state,
trade unions and employers in Norway have adhered has involved certain types
of employees being more loosely tied to the labour market (Hansen, 2018a,
pp. 34–35). In this perspective, precariousness can be seen as embedded in the
constitution of the SER.
The SER and the regulation of temporary agency

work 1945–2018
Based on this framework, the changes in the SER in Norway from 1945 to
2018 can be divided into four periods. As we aim to illustrate, the status and
scope of the SER has been dependent on norms, legal regulations and eco-
nomic factors. However, the content of each of these and the balance between
them have changed considerably. The SER has rested with varying strength
at different times on these three foundations. In the first period, from 1945
to 1970, the legal foundation of the SER was relatively weak. This changed
dramatically in the 1970s, when the SER became enshrined in law. In the
third period (1980–1998), the strong normative support for an extensive SER
lost ground as the economy became more unpredictable compared to the dec-
ades preceding the mid-1970s. In the fourth period (2000 onwards), the legal
foundation of the SER was formally weakened through the liberalization of
temporary agency work. That said, the legal foundation has also had a fluctu-
ating tendency following trade union initiatives to extend the statutory status
of collective agreements in the mid-2000s, the implementation of the EU
Directive on Temporary Agency Work in 2013, new provisions on temporary
work in 2015, and consultations and propositions related to stricter regulation
of the TWA industry in 2017–2018.
In our historical account, we focus on the engineering industry and on how
employers and trade unions responded to the TWAs in this sector. From the
third period, we extend our focus to the national level and the legal regula-
tions and strategies of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO)
and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO). The main reason
for this is that the SER prior to the 1970s was largely a product of sector-level
negotiations. In that respect, the engineering industry is a case study of how
the Norwegian variant of the SER was shaped in a specific historical context
of labour shortage and economic growth in a specific sector where the posi-
tion of the SER was stronger than in most other sectors. Nevertheless, the
norms for typical and atypical employment had not been determined even in
the engineering industry. Further, this sector played a leading role in general
developments in Norwegian working life. The shift of focus from the sectoral
to the national level in the 1980s was primarily due to the increased involve-
ment of national level actors, as the SER was enshrined in law during the 1970s
(Hansen, 2018a).
The SER: a normative and economically dependent

phenomenon (1945–1970) 4
During the first phase, from 1945 to 1970, the legal foundations of the SER
were weak. TWAs were unregulated, as was temporary employment in gen-
eral. Protection against dismissal was severely restricted. This implied that the
pillars of the SER rested on the economic foundation. Almost three decades of
economic boom in the “golden age of capitalism” kept the demand for labour
at a high level and implied a decline in precarious employment. However,
the response of trade unions and employers to the TWAs in the engineer-
ing industry shows that the pillars also rested on a quite strong normative
foundation in this sector. The confederation of employers in the engineering

industry (Mekaniske Verksteders Landsforening) and the Norwegian Iron and
Metal Workers Union (Norsk Jern- og Metallarbeiderforbund) organized a
broad initiative to control and limit the TWA industry.
The response of the employers must be seen in relation to the period of
economic boom and a policy of full employment, with high levels of demand
for labour, which allowed for extensive turnover initiated by employees.
According to the employers, TWAs had a negative impact on this situation
(Hansen, 2018b). Employers also reacted to the fact that turnover increased the
wages of the workers, the so-called wage drift (Holden, 1998). The following
quote illustrates how temporary work agencies could provoke strong reactions
among employers. According to Rein Henriksen, director general of a large
Norwegian company, Borregaard, and also a member of the Central Board of
the Norwegian Employers’ Confederation, an “obvious reason” for the wage
drift was:
[t]he case that frms that are doing human trafcking – to put it that way –
are able to operate, regardless of all guidelines, and I would like to ask
whether a proper campaign can be initiated to put a stop to this trafc . . .
Is it not possible to put an end to the piracy going on everywhere? Cannot
frms and organizations on both sides get together to exclude these frms
completely?5
Some employers probably opposed the TWAs not only for economic reasons
but also because they regarded permanent employment as the ideal employ-
ment relationship. As we shall see, employers in the engineering industry tried
to boycott the TWAs. According to one of the frms, the purpose was to
“bring the workers, who are now like vagabonds in the TWAs, back to their
home towns and back to their old frms”.6 The resistance may have been based
on a perception that the employees belonged to the employers. Unlike the per-
manent employees, the agency workers were regarded as agents of instability,
atypical or even suspicious.
The employers in the engineering industry aimed at strengthening the bilat-
eral employment relationship in order to maintain a permanent core of skilled
employees in each company. The ultimate motive was to gain control of the
labour force. How did the employers attempt to recover the permanent, bilat-
eral employment relationship? First, employers attempted to mobilize through
moralism, as shown in this example from a letter in 1956: “We have discov-
ered a new incidence of distasteful hijacking of people that causes great harm
to us”. In the letter, a firm was complaining about the loss of some employees
who started to work for a TWA. Second, employers attempted to define the
phenomenon and in that way discover a way to relate to it collectively. More
specifically, the employers tried to agree on the content of the concept of tem-
porary work agencies. The aim was to define the concept in such a way that it
would not include activities which were related but still desirable.7 However,
the employers also adopted actions that were more forceful.
In 1955, the employers in the engineering industry decided to boycott the
agencies. In the beginning, the boycott was carried out silently and only by
a few members of the confederation. Later, the boycott extended to formal
agreements between larger groups of cooperating employers. In 1970, 37 firms
with a total of 20,000 employees signed an agreement that in general banned
the use of TWAs but at the same time accepted a strictly limited use of TWAs
for certain work assignments. An important provision in the agreement stipu-
lated that workers who resigned from one of the cooperating firms to join
a TWA were given six months’ suspension from working for a TWA if the
TWA was working for one of the cooperating firms (Hansen, 2018b).
The Iron and Metal Workers Union pursued a similar approach, but the
trade unions were not, it seems, as militant as the employers. The unions
rejected the agencies but accepted the agency workers as members. According
to the Iron and Metal Workers Union, the TWAs caused problems in different
ways, some of which may be illustrated by the following quote by a local union
representative in the Norwegian Iron and Metal Workers Union in 1965:
These frms are typical of what we call private employment bureaus. Their
activities to a large extent involve supply of labour to frms . . . Union
density is terrible; about 80 to 90% are not organized. We view the activi-
ties of these frms as very unfavourable in industrial development. They
weaken our fght to improve wages and working conditions. They pay
their employees randomly and they work overtime as long as they want.8
The criticism raised by local unions rested on two principles that both con-
cerned the question of solidarity: frst, the unions promoted the need for
equality between workers. According to several union representatives, tem-
porary agency workers earned more than permanent workers. The union
representatives also claimed that the temporary agency workers did not adhere
to working time regulations and worked longer hours. Second, local unions
promoted the need for stability among the workforce. The mobile character
of the TWAs made it difcult for trade unions to control their activities and to
include the agency workers in the union (Hansen, 2018a, chapter 3).
In their attempt to exclude the TWAs from the labour market, leading
unions and employers in the engineering industry pursued complementary
strategies to cope with them. The reasons for controlling the TWAs varied, but
the complementary strategies led to a common approach which implied that
the SER was maintained as the standard. The response of both trade unions
and employers in the engineering industry to the TWAs made it reasonable to
argue that exceptions to the SER should be strictly limited in this sector. The
resistance to the TWAs and the demand for labour were core ingredients of a
strong normative and economic foundation at a time when the legal foundation
of the SER was weak (Hansen, 2018a, pp. 344–346). Above all, both employ-
ers and employees were interested in retaining control. In the period of strong
economic growth after World War II, it was believed that a lack of control
would increase wage drift and turnover between firms, industries and parts of
the country (Bull, 1981). The TWAs were in this perspective an “employer”
out of control, as were the workers who engaged in these enterprises.
The legal foundation is strengthened: the SER is

enshrined in law (1971–1980)
The year 1971 marked the beginning of a new phase in the history of the SER
in Norway. From 1971 to 1980, the SER also became strongly institutional-
ized in legal terms and was extended to include more workers than previously.
Admittedly, the legal regulations that constituted the SER had a longer history.
Protection against unfair dismissals was introduced in 1936, and private media-
tion of labour was prohibited in 1947. In other words, the bilateral employment
relationship and permanent employment were legally protected, but during the
1970s, the legal foundation of these pillars was significantly strengthened.
An important legal change that strengthened the SER was the prohibition
of the hiring out of labour in 1971. This was banned in the Employment
Promotion Act, but exceptions could be granted. The ban was primarily
motivated by the “problems in the engineering industry”, in particular relat-
ing to the lack of control from the employers’ point of view. The TWAs were
believed to contribute to “wage drift” and labour shortages. In other words,
the main argument of the ban was to protect employers from the TWAs and
the agency workers.9 The potentially precarious position of agency workers,
protection of workers in general and the maintenance of the SER played a
minor and more implicit role in the preparatory work by the government.
Yet the effect of the ban was that the bilateral employment relationship was
legally established as the model employment relationship. At the same time,
protection against dismissals was strengthened, and temporary work was, for
the first time by law, strictly limited through the Working Environment Act
of 1977. In a 1980 revision of the Employment Promotion Act, the hiring
in of labour was also banned, thus limiting both the supply and demand side
of temporary agency work. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that it was not
until this decade that the SER became enshrined in law (Hansen, 2018a,
pp. 131–133, 148).
The 1970s was the highlight of an extended period towards enhanced gov-
ernment control of access to labour for employers and access to employment
for employees. However, the effect of the legal regulations remained limited.
The ban on the hiring out of labour did not work as intended. Many TWAs
continued their activities. One reason was the lack of means to enforce the
law. Another was that labour shortages more or less “forced” employers to
use TWAs as tools for additional labour (Hansen, 2018b). At the individual
company level, it was not always easy to subscribe to the collective interest of
excluding TWAs.
However, the continued use of TWAs can hardly be seen as an expression
of changed attitudes towards them among trade unions or members of the
confederation of employers in the engineering industry in general. The norma-
tive foundation of the permanent, bilateral employment relationship remained
intact during most of the 1970s. An important expression of this was an agree-
ment between the confederation of employers in the engineering industry and
the Iron and Metal Workers Union, which was signed in 1975. The pur-
pose of the agreement was to make the ban on the hiring out of labour work
as intended. According to the agreement, contracting and exceptional use of
TWAs had to be discussed and approved by union representatives. An impor-
tant reason for the employers to accept the involvement of trade unions was
the imminent threat of industrial action related to the use of TWAs. In other
words, the resistance of the employers, and thus the normative foundation of
the SER, seemed dependent on the ability of trade unions to mobilize workers
at their workplaces (Hansen, 2018a, pp. 187–198).
Cracks form in the normative and economic

foundations (1981–1998)
The early 1980s heralded a new phase, as the SER ceased to strengthen and
expand. In the following years, the unambiguous trend towards increased gov-
ernment control of access to labour and employment came to an end. This trend
had included the introduction of protection against unfair dismissals in 1936, the
prohibition of private intermediation of labour in 1947, the expansion of protec-
tion against dismissals in 1956, the universalization of protection against dismissals
in 1975, the Working Environment Act of 1977 and the bans on hiring out and
hiring in labour, in 1971 and 1980 respectively. However, the legal foundation
of the SER was not dismantled. As a legal phenomenon, the SER survived dur-
ing the 1980s and 1990s in most sectors (Hansen, 2018a, pp. 264ff, 337), despite
significant political changes in Norway that stemmed from pressures of liberaliza-
tion (cf. Peck & Tickell, 1994). Before liberalization struck labour institutions,
other sectors of the economy, such as housing and credit markets, were subject
to deregulation during the 1980s (Furre, 2000; Sørvoll, 2014).
However, the SER eventually also became subject to the same pressures.
One reason was rising unemployment from the late 1980s, and there were also
normative changes regarding the recognition of temporary employment as an
acceptable, or even necessary, supplement to the SER. The first steps in this
direction were cautious. Yet they were important, as they were taken in the
engineering industry i.e. the sector that had played a leading role in the strict
regulation of TWAs and, thus, in the making of the SER.
In 1980, the Iron and Metal Workers Union and the confederation of
employers in the engineering industry made a joint proposal regarding the
legal regulation of TWAs. According to the two organizations, it was necessary

to “strike a better balance between the need for stability in the labour market,
on the one hand, and the need for mobility, on the other” in the engineering
industry.10 In short, the need for stability would be met by regulations that
would keep the TWAs under control. The solution to the need for mobil-
ity was to allow general exceptions to the rules on hiring in labour for both
TWAs and regular firms. The joint proposal must be seen in the light of a more
insecure situation due to structural changes in the engineering industry, as well
as normative changes regarding the need for mobility in the labour market
(Hansen, 2018a, pp. 220–230).
Later, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise put the question of flex-
ibility high on the agenda. It was, according to the CEO in 1988, necessary to
“slaughter some sacred cows”. The CEO invited the members of the central
board to critically evaluate the existing restrictions on TWAs and the protec-
tion against dismissals.11
During the first half of the 1990s, employers mobilized for increased access
to temporary employment. An important contextual factor was the crisis in
the Norwegian economy that intensified at the beginning of the decade. The
Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise advised its members to use the oppor-
tunities that existed in legislation to achieve the required flexibility. Among
the advice was to consider the use of zero-hour contracts, implying permanent
employment without specifying the number of working hours.12
To what extent did this call for flexible labour represent a weakening of
normative support for the existing SER? On the one hand, the advice was
a response to a number of legislative changes. In 1990, layoffs became less
favourable for employers as they became obliged to pay wages for a given
number of days after the dismissal. In 1994, it was decided that work that was
part of the core activities of a firm should only be performed by employees in
permanent positions. On the other hand, the mobilization for flexibilization
in the 1990s was a definite break with the past and significantly weakened
the normative foundation of the SER. The decision in 1994, which made it
illegal to hire temporary workers to carry out the core work of the firm, was
an attempt to bring the use of temporary workers in line with the intentions
of the existing legislation. More than a legal tightening of the access to use
temporary workers, the decision confirmed that temporary employment as a
general rule should be limited to temporary work. As a legal principle, it was
established in the Working Environment Act of 1977, but it was at that point
already established as practice and norm. At least in the engineering industry
there was a common understanding, shared by both trade unions and employ-
ers, that the majority of employees should have permanent jobs, but not too
many. Certain types of employees should be more loosely tied to the labour
market, and the borderline between the core of permanent workers and the
periphery of temporary workers was largely decided by the “nature” of the
work. Permanent work assignments should imply permanent employment.
The employers’ demand for temporary employment in the 1990s went beyond
this enduring organizational principle. Thus, the demand represented a weak-
ening of the normative support for the SER, compared to the period prior to
the 1990s (Hansen, 2018a, pp. 276ff).
Internal discussions in LO show that the mobilization for flexibilization went
hand in hand with a change in the balance of the two sides of the labour market
and the creation of a new normative standard for the use of temporary employ-
ment. One expression of this was the design of a strategy to cope with what
were called “new developments in the labour market” in the early 1990s.13
The LO’s possible strategy to defend standards of working life in Norway was
to accept some unfavourable changes in order to gain the necessary strength to
counteract the deterioration of these standards in general. More specifically, the
LO agreed to accept some increase in the use of TWAs if certain conditions
were met (Hansen, 2018a, pp. 288ff).
The response of the LO, which may be called a way of strategic and condi-
tional resignation, was a clear sign that the relative balance had changed but still
not dissolved. If the employers were on the back foot when they accepted the
protection against unfair dismissal during the preliminary negotiations over the
Working Environment Act of 1977, the tables had turned in the early 1990s.
The consequence was that the normative foundation of the SER was weakened,
paving the way for a liberalization of temporary agency work.
The SER undermined or still going strong?

(2000–2018)
In 2000, the general ban on temporary agency work was lifted. But did the
legal foundation of the SER begin to crumble? In many respects it did. When
the formal legal boundary to labour hire was lifted, this challenged the distinc-
tion between work and other economic commodities. Labour as a commodity
became subject to trade on a larger scale as the lifting of the general prohibi-
tion against labour hire made the service universally available. However, even
though it is fair to state that the legal foundation of the SER was weakened,
many restrictions were retained in Norwegian labour law. The most important
provision following the liberalization in 2000 was that labour hire was to be
permitted as a response to a temporary need. As such, national legislation still gave
considerable privilege to the SER. However, the conditional provisions under
the Norwegian Labour Act were not accompanied by a strong enforcement
mechanism, as the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet)
no longer had universal authority to prohibit the use of illegal labour hire.
Instead, the regulations on illegal labour hire were to be enforced through the
legal system.
What were the immediate effects of liberalization on Norwegian work-
ing life? In the period 2000–2008, labour hire expanded rapidly in absolute
and relative numbers (Jordhus-Lier et al., 2015), peaking at around 1.5% of
total employment in Norway in 2008. During this period, the deregulation

of labour hire coincided with the EU expansion of 2004, and a large part of
the influx of workers from Eastern Europe consisted of hired workers through
various forms of TWAs. A majority of these workers operated in industries
that would have prohibited labour hire prior to the year 2000, including seg-
ments such as construction, hospitality, transport and health services. Many of
these workers were not covered by collective agreements. Because there was
no minimum wage in Norway, many workers were paid well below negoti-
ated wage levels in Norway (Dølvik et al., 2006). It was therefore not only
the legal foundation of the SER that was threatened in the aftermath of the
liberalization. The normative foundation of the SER also came to the fore in
debates about the many cases of social dumping associated with hiring Eastern
European agency workers in Norway. Moreover, the low wages of posted
workers threatened the competitive position of firms that did pay negotiated
wages and offer permanent employment, and this challenged workers in SERs.
It thus seemed impossible to reconcile the liberalization of labour hire with the
liberal space of labour migration.
The potential for wage dumping associated with the posting of workers
within the EU/EEA area had been recognized by the Norwegian govern-
ment even before Norway joined the EEA in 1994 (Alsos & Eldring, 2008).
In September 1993, Norway adopted an act on the general applicability of
collective agreements but with very limited extensions (Norwegian Law Data,
2006). EEA membership did not imply a major influx of European workers
for the first decade but became highly relevant when a large number of Eastern
European workers entered the Norwegian labour market from 2004 onwards.
LO made a request in 2003 that the act on the general applicability of col-
lective agreements should include statutory extension of collective agreements
for construction and metal workers. Through the tripartite advisory board
on wage matters (Tariffnemda), Norway established that the act was to be
extended to construction workers, metal workers and electricians from 2005
onwards. For the construction industry, this implied regional provisions from
2005 and national provisions from 2007. Other industries followed suit, such as
mechanical engineering and shipyards (2008), agriculture (2010) and cleaning
(2011). From 2017, transport services, hospitality services, fisheries and electri-
cians were also covered by the extension act at the national level.
In one way, the extension of collective agreements to a de facto minimum
wage legislation can be interpreted as an SER-centred reaction because it
decreased the wage gap between workers in an SER and those outside, thus
protecting the SER as well as improving the working conditions of those in
a non-standard employment relationship. Alsos and Eldring (2008) point out
that the purpose of extending the scope of the act varied somewhat between
Norway and other European countries. In Europe, the most important reason
for wanting extension acts was to ensure the diffusion of collective agree-
ments, because labour migration was seen as undermining organized labour.
In Norway, Alsos and Eldring argue that it was more to do with ensuring
wage levels and working conditions similar to Norwegian levels, given that
foreign workers’ wages and working conditions were inferior. In this way,
the struggle for statutory extensions of collective agreements and thus the
strengthening of the legal foundation of the SER was firmly based on the par-
ticularly strong normative foundation of the SER in Norway.
The disparity between workers in an SER and hired workers was not only
a matter of concern in Norway. The issue was raised by many EU countries
after the 2004 EU expansion, and in 2008 the EU launched its directive on
temporary agency work (Vosko, 2009). One of the most important provisions
in the directive was to ensure the equal treatment of temporary agency workers
with workers recruited directly to the client company (Countouris & Horton,
2009), which was prompted by a concern about a growing core and periphery
among European workers. The directive therefore included provisions related
to equal pay for the equivalent position that the agency worker was replacing,
equal working conditions and equal access to workplace amenities. The direc-
tive has nevertheless been implemented differently across Europe, reflecting
the variation of labour regulation in national contexts and the controversy
of labour hire as a challenge to the SER (Thelen, 2001; Bergene & Ewing,
2015). In Norway, the directive came into force on 1 January 2013, when new
provisions on the equal treatment of temporary agency workers and perma-
nent staff entered the Norwegian Working Environment Act (The Norwegian
Government, 2012; The Norwegian Working Environment Act, 2015). In
addition to these provisions, the implementation implied that the client or
hiring company was seen as responsible for discussing the extent and opera-
tion of hiring practices with union representatives. The client company is also
responsible for ensuring that the principle of equal treatment is respected by
the de facto employer of hired workers i.e. the TWA. However, as Eriksen
and Nesheim (2016) point out, the implementation of this regulation through
legislative provisions does not guarantee that actual hiring practices adhere to
the principles outlined here.
In some respects, the EU directive mirrored SER-centrism (Vosko, 2008)
because of the principle of equal treatment between agency workers and
the workers they were meant to (temporarily) replace. Combined with the
statutory extension of collective agreements in selected client industries, the
directive and its implementation through amendments to the Norwegian
Labour Act (Lovdata, 2012) would, in theory, minimize the gap in wages and
working conditions between workers in and outside an SER.
However, the directive also signalled a legitimization and strengthening of
the status of temporary agency work across the EU. The directive was partly
put in place to liberalize the TWA industry in terms of removing regulations
that prevented their operation in national contexts (Bergene & Ewing, 2015).
Although the normative foundation of the SER seems important in these
policy developments, the legal and economic status of the SER may in fact
have been weakened through the implementation of the EU Directive on

Temporary Agency Work. After all, another intention of the directive was to
improve general access to labour hire.
Although the statutory extension of collective agreements was put in place
to combat social dumping more than a decade ago, there are still reports of
considerable wage dumping and inferior working conditions among hired
workers operating in Norway. A major difference from the period just after
the EU expansion is that growing segments of the TWA industry are reported
to be involved in illegal labour hire or operating with wages well below those
of the general collective agreement. While the organized part of the TWA
industry has seen less growth since the financial crisis of 2008–2009, these
more unorganized segments of the industry are reported to have become more
important, particularly within the construction industry. In a report commis-
sioned by the Norwegian union Fellesforbundet (Elstad, 2017), findings in the
Oslo area show that the share of labour hire in construction work grew from
17% in 2013 to 36% in 2017, and according to investigations on building sites
in Oslo, about 85% of the labour hire can be considered to be illegal. The
reports led to mobilization across the political spectrum and across indus-
trial interests to regain control of “fragmented industries”. Even the Federation
of Norwegian Construction Industries (Byggenæringens Landsforening) has
been critical to recent developments and highlights fragmentation and loss
of control as detrimental to the industry, both in terms of work quality and
how inferior working conditions hamper future recruitment to construction-
related professions (cf. Haakestad & Friberg, 2017). Interestingly, this reported
loss of control of labour hire undermines the intended growing status of labour
intermediation as a functional answer to the declining importance of the eco-
nomic foundation of the SER. The question is whether the reaction from the
organized class of employers in construction can spark a recapitalization of the
normative foundation of the SER as an organizing and ordering principle that
serves capital interests as well as worker interests. This is an interesting histori-
cal parallel to the situation in the engineering industry in the 1950s, 1960s
and 1970s. In this period, individual firms in the engineering industry could
profit from engaging TWAs, due to the labour shortage and the need to hire
workers on a temporary basis. At the same time, the use of TWAs intensi-
fied staff turnover and more or less forced employers to outbid each other in
a game situation reminiscent of a “tragedy of the commons”. The situation
for construction firms today is similar, yet with the important distinction that
the precarization of (particularly immigrant) labour is a more pronounced
part of the tragedy than the loss of control by employers. Nevertheless, the
situation has prompted action across the political spectrum, culminating in
a parliamentary majority in May 2018 to permit labour hire only in client
workplaces where collective agreements apply (The Norwegian Parliament,
2018). Interestingly, the parliamentary majority also intends to enhance the
legal foundation of the SER within the TWAs, as employment through an
agency in principle will be expected to conform to many aspects of permanent,

full-time and open-ended contracts.
Concluding remarks
This chapter has discussed historical changes in the status of the SER in Norway
with a focus on the controversies surrounding the use of TWAs. In a period of
serious labour shortages in the 1950s and 1960s, the emergence of TWAs was
seen as a threat to labour stability by both employers and unions in the engi-
neering industry. As a result of joint campaigns, the mediation of workers by
third parties such as TWAs was prohibited by law in 1971 and was seen as an
alien phenomenon during the heyday of the SER in the 1970s. The prohibi-
tion of TWAs was grounded in a strong coalition that influenced the making of
the Norwegian variant of the SER. In simple terms, the need for job security
coincided with the need for control of the labour force. As a result, the eco-
nomic, normative and legal foundations of the SER were strengthened during
the first three decades or so after World War II. However, the SER was never
extended to include all workers, and the boundaries between permanent and
temporary employment were never removed. Due to pressure to allow more
flexibility in an economy marked by the crisis of Fordist production and a more
fluctuating demand for labour, the prohibition was contested in the 1980s and
1990s and finally lifted in 2000. In this way, organized employers mobilized
to reduce their share of the risk associated with operating in an unpredictable
market economy.
Lifting the ban was controversial at the time and became even more con-
troversial with the EU expansion in 2004. This sparked a debate about the
rapid precarization of the Norwegian and European labour markets, where
the TWA industry was a central part of the discussions as it was instrumental
in opening up European labour flows with limited regulation. Even after the
EU Directive on Temporary Agency Work was implemented as an attempt to
alleviate the polarizing effects (wages, working conditions) of labour hire and
labour externalization, the debate in Norway lingers to this day, particularly
due to the the fragmentation and precarization of the construction industry.
Prior to the 2017 general election, the opposition parties and the major labour
union confederation called for a new prohibition, and in 2018 a parliamentary
majority voted for stricter regulation of the right to hire in labour and for
obliging TWAs to adhere to the SER principles of permanent, full-time and
open-ended contracts.
The period since 2000 may be interpreted as a transformative phase in the
history of the SER. Attempts have been made to reconcile employers with
their access to and control of labour with renewed control of employment by
the labour movement in a new regime or “institutional fix” (Peck & Tickell,
1994), where TWAs have been legalized. However, the political developments
since 2016 suggest that the normative strength of the SER has demonstrated
its magnitude in parliamentary processes, and that the contestation of TWA

employment continues to play a vital role in shaping and reshaping the
Norwegian version of the SER.
Notes
1 This is especially the case for Norway, with some exceptions. For example, Seierstad
(1982, 1986); Bull (1986). Internationally the situation is diferent. Some recent
contributions focus on precarious labour and the standard employment relationship
in a historical perspective. Examples include:Vosko (2010);Van Der Linden (2014);
Betti (2016); De Vito (2016).
2 This is particularly evident in the Norwegian context but is also debated in interna-
tional contributions such as Stone (1974) and Jacoby (2004).
3 The following paragraphs are based on Hansen (2018a, pp. 31–33).
4 The periods 1, 2 and 3 are based on Hansen (2018a). In this chapter, we only refer
to a small selection of relevant documents.
5 National Archives of Norway, PA-0886 Norwegian Confederation of Employers,
series Fdc. Box 47. Minutes from meeting, Central Board of the Norwegian
Confederation of Employers, 1.4.1970, pp. 62–63. Our translation.
6 National Archives of Norway, PA-1700 Federation of Norwegian Manufacturing
Industries, Series Dci (hereafter TBL). Box 6. Letter from Drammen Slip & Verksted
to the Confederation of Employers in the Engineering Industry, 9 September 1955.
Our translation.
7 TBL. Box 6.Transcript of circular letter from the Confederation of Employers in the
Engineering Industry to its members, 3.9.1955.
8 The Norwegian Labor Movement Archives and Library, ARK-1659, Norwegian
Iron and Metal Workers Union (NJ&MF), case archive, 1955–1988, File 50-44,
1965. Letter from NJ&MF, Branch 34 Sandefjord to NJ&MF, 12. januar 1965 (sic).
9 Ot. prp. nr. 53. (1970–71); Innstilling om arbeidsutleiefrmaenes virksomhet, vedlegg
til Ot. prp. nr. 53 (1970–71); Innst. O. nr. 61 (1970–71).
10 National Archives of Norway, PA-1700 Federation of Norwegian Manufacturing
Industries. Series F – Case Archive X. Box 512. Letter from NJ&MF og M.V.L. to
Kommunal- og arbeidsdepartementet, dated 15. oktober 1980. Our translation.
11 Minutes from meeting, Central Board of the Norwegian Confederation of
Employers, 26 October 1988, transcript of recording tape. Our translation.
12 Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), case archive 1994–1999. File
261.0 Working Environment Act 1994. Circular letter from NHO to county and
national associations, dated 22 December 1994.
13 Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, case archive 1988–2000, archive code.
414. Memo from Department for social policy (Samfunnspolitisk avdeling), Ny
trend i arbeidsmarkedet i regulerte former i LOs strategi, dated 25 January 1993.
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Chapter 17
Working life on Nordic

labour platforms
Søren Salling Weber
The emergence of the platform economy

This chapter engages with a set of phenomena that have been subject to
increasing public scrutiny in the Nordic states in recent years, collectively
known as the ‘platform economy’. The platform economy denotes a class of
business models utilizing internet-based digital infrastructure for private par-
ties’ decentralized, marketized organization of short-term work. Perhaps the
most debated case in a Nordic context has been the taxi platform Uber, but the
Airbnb platform is also commonly known, and several Nordic platforms arrang-
ing everything from household labour to specialized translation work are now
in use (Dølvik & Jesnes, 2017; Rasmussen et al., 2017). There is disagreement
on how to conceptualize and thus delineate the use of digital, internet-based
platforms to organize societal interaction. The term platform economy is a
critical term adopted by unions, politicians and researchers to describe working
life implications of what has frequently been called the sharing economy. The
debates about the Uber platform, both in the Nordic countries and in the rest
of Europe, have been crucial in this change of terminology. Uber claimed to be
a ‘sharing platform’ by utilizing existing private goods in the form of cars and
phones to ‘create use value’. But the platform developers rely on the drivers’
wage labour to ensure the functionality and profit of their platform. As such,
the new platform companies are not just characterized by their use of digital,
internet-based technologies to utilize idle resources through free work but
by their reorganization of labour. If successful with their business models, the
operators of the platforms become mediators and thus impose a reorganization
of the labour in the affected sectors of work. At the same time, they bypass
the institutionalized employment relationship and thus their responsibility as
employers. They create growth in ‘jobless’ wage labour where it is unclear
who has responsibility both for the work itself and the wages, organization and
working time. However, the consequences for working life are still somewhat
unclear in a Nordic context.
This chapter aims to introduce, illustrate and examine the development
trajectory and working life issues of Nordic labour platforms. Firstly, the con-
troversies surrounding the use of internet-based platforms for the organization
340 Søren Salling Weber
of work are introduced, which forms a basis for the interest in the development
in the Nordic countries. Next, a case study of the relation between the devel-
opment of a labour platform and workers’ lives in the Nordic welfare regimes
is presented. The platform is studied in three interrelated analytical dimensions:
the technological development of the platform as a production system, the
organization of work on the platform and the workers’ attempts to manage the
work and their working lives. Following this, it is argued that the working life
problems depicted in the case study can be understood as an interplay between
the development of the labour platforms as a production system and the work-
ers’ relatively precarious positions in the Nordic labour markets. Finally, the
structural constraints and/or possibilities to address the presented problems in
the development trajectory of Nordic labour platforms are discussed.
Sharing, collaborative or platform economy?

Some conceptual remarks
The international research on digital platforms to organize interaction is
growing but diverse in scope and interest. In short, these platforms replace the
conventional employment relationship with a three-party interaction between
customer, platform and worker. Some, such as Rifkin (2015), envision a com-
plete dissolution of wage labour as the dominant institutionalization of work
in contemporary capitalism. The convergence of consumer and producer
roles in the relations on the platforms poses potentials for a freer organiza-
tion of work but also a loss of clearly defined career prospects and security
(Antonio, 2015; Ritzer, 2015; Sundararajan, 2016). These uncertainties about
the developments are reflected in the literature.
On the one hand, considerable attention has been given to the platforms
under the labels of the ‘sharing’ or ‘collaborative’ economy. These terms
highlight the potential for technologies to create and support the autono-
mous organization of work, freed from the rigid boundaries and restraints
of wage labour. They imply an interest in the social qualities and normative
functionality of the new technologies (for excellent conceptual overviews,
see Dredge & Gyimóthy, 2015; Cheng, 2016). For instance, it has been
shown that the development of technologies can strengthen alternative
‘moral landscapes’, which transcend the market as the dominant principle
of interaction (Molz, 2013). Even when new technologies are developed
by companies exclusively for profit, strong communities can utilize them to
increase their scope of action to pursue their values and goals (Barta & Neff,
2016). Values can thus be embedded in the use of technologies in unforesee-
able ways. There has therefore been discussion of the potentials for enhanced
utilization of resources (Botsman & Rogers, 2010) and the building and use
of platforms as capital for a new cooperative movement (Scholz & Schneider,
2016). Taken together, the literature on the sharing and collaborative econ-
omy highlights the potential to use the technologies to humanize work and
Working life on Nordic labour platforms 341
further sustainability by ensuring autonomy and control in the work and the
quality of the work.
On the other hand, much empirical research highlights the abundant
contradictions between the ideals and practices connected to the use of the
technologies. As Dianne Dredge and Szilvia Gyimóthy succinctly note about
the ‘collaborative economy’, the development of platforms is often strongly
embedded in the competition of a market economy: ‘Exchange is most often
monetized, systematized in a business model and facilitated by technology’
(Dredge & Gyimóthy, 2015, p. 292). In continuation, many authors point out
how the developers of the platforms leverage the positive associations of the
sharing economy to legitimize competitive advantages (e.g. Hill, 2015; Rogers,
2016; Scholz, 2016). Some authors have suggested the adoption of the term
platform capitalism to highlight the fact that although the employment relation-
ship disappears, the capital aspect of the labour market remains. New forms of
exploitation are made possible through an erosion of the standard employment
relationship (Srnicek, 2017). In continuation, a growing body of international
literature points out the risk that the platforms will shift the balance of forces
in the labour market by accumulating capital to enforce a customer-oriented
profit extraction with highly precarious conditions for labour: low wages,
extremely flexibly organized one-off tasks and a lack of social benefits and
union representation (Huws et al., 2016; Standing, 2016; Schor et al., 2017).
The conceptual contrast between platform capitalism and sharing highlights
how the promising technologies can lead to a crisis in the labour market by dis-
continuing the existing institutionalized separation of labour and work. Overall,
these findings provoke scepticism of the concept of sharing as a designation of
the business models without an analytical differentiation between various forms
and functions of the technology-mediated interaction (Belk, 2013; Dredge &
Gyimóthy, 2015, 2017). Richardson (2015, p. 122) argues that the technologies
in the sharing economy are inherently paradoxical in that its new positive perfor-
mances are concurrently ‘masking new forms of inequality and polarisations of
ownership’. She argues that a continued critical engagement is in fact necessary
to support the potentials for alternative economies (Richardson, 2015).
In the Nordic countries, research on labour platforms mostly provides an
overview through descriptive categorizations of the developing platforms,
whereas engagement with subjective experiences of work on the platforms is
sparse. One important finding about work on the platforms is that economically
motivated, practical service labour might not provide the same work identity
and sociocultural gratification as knowledge-intensive work in the tourism
industry: there is a big difference between the ‘social lifestyle entrepreneurs’
establishing local businesses and Airbnb’s individualized ‘micro-competitive
platform capitalism’ (Meged & Christensen, 2017). But the conceptual field is
still open. The current controversies in the international literature can perhaps
be summarized in an ideal-typical conceptual contrast to categorize the use of
platforms in the Nordic countries (see Table 17.1).
Table 17.1 Ideal-typical continua for use of platforms (author’s product)

Ideal-typical comparison Platform capitalism Sharing
Regulating idea The market The commons
Goal of development Proft (extraction: Use value (local
‘rent’ for use of platform) development)
Ownership of technology Patented Open source
Organization Centrally controlled, Decentralized,
homogenous differentiated
Object Labour Goods (physical/digital)
Asset transaction Money Reputation (‘trust’)
Interaction Asymmetrical: defned by Reciprocal:
demand ‘prosumers’
Function for involved Livelihood Pastime
workers
Access to technology Restricted Unrestricted
Platform responsibility Yes No
for quality of work
Worker control over No Yes
working time
Character of work Instrumental: tasks as Meaningful: work as
labour work
Embedded in local No Yes
communities
Both platform capitalism and the sharing economy challenge the institu-
tionalized class compromise in the form of the employment relationship in
the Nordic countries. But the development of the platforms will most likely
be both exploitative and altruistic, and the conceptual contrast serves both as
an indication of the complexities of the development and a delimitation of the
following discussion of a case study (Yin, 2003) of Nordic platform capital-
ism. The case study was conducted to explore and understand the working life
ramifications of the digitized organization of labour without an employment
relationship in a Nordic context.
A case study of working life on a Nordic labour

platform
The case presented in the following section is a patented, closed-off website and
app developed to create and extract profit from transactions in a niche labour
market. The case study combines an analysis of the ‘standards’ for the labour with
theoretically themed semi-structured interviews with five workers, the director
and operations manager on the platform (Weber, 2017). I present it here in
order to engage with the experience of working life in Nordic labour platforms.
Given the limited empirical material, the case does not provide conclusive
answers to the questions raised here, but it offers a useful empirical starting point
to illustrate and discuss the development trajectory of platforms in the Nordic
countries. It also serves as a useful delimitation of the following discussion to
platforms utilized for the organization of wage labour, as it is an example of the
ideal-typical criteria for platform capitalism presented in Table 17.1. It appears to
be typical when compared to the developing platforms in the Nordic countries.
Most platforms organize service labour, provide a minimum wage, attempt to
standardize the work and do not recognize an employment relationship (Dølvik
& Jesnes, 2017; Rasmussen et al., 2017).
Workers on the case platform register on the platform to take on standard-
ized service tasks, mostly ‘regular’ or ‘extensive’ cleaning but also ‘handyman’
work or gardening. Spatio-temporally, the tasks are organized to meet cus-
tomers’ demands. Tasks typically take two to five hours, but in principle can
take up to eight hours and might be repeated if necessary. Prices are fixed,
and workers receive a minimum hourly wage of DKK120. Some workers
have obtained a higher salary due to their consistently good customer reviews.
The platform provides conflict mediation and security for the transaction. It
also protects workers from obvious discrimination by customers. As competing
platforms are not willing to provide transparency, and statistics are sparse, it is
difficult to tell whether the platform is a market leader. But the company has
undergone rapid growth in use, technological development, geographic cover-
age and financial investments, establishing itself in both Denmark and Sweden.
The development of the platform began in 2015 and the organization of work
in early 2016. At the time of the study (Weber, 2017), the platform offered
exclusively cleaning and handyman work for private persons, but today it also
provides cleaning to companies. In early autumn 2016, around 125 workers
were active on the platform, and the number had almost doubled by December
2016. By May 2017, the platform claimed to have registered around 3,000
workers. This indicates both the rapid growth and temporary engagement of
the workers.
Technological acceleration: the rule of

constant change
According to the developers of the case platform, such platforms are a ration-
alization of the societal organization of labour. The director refers to the rapid
growth of platforms such as Uber to illustrate how platforms make new soci-
etal connections possible and thereby ‘create value’. The ‘value proposition’
(Gyimóthy, 2017, p. 34) seems to be to utilize the space–time compression
of modern communication technologies to design or create a market where
people can effectively delegate small tasks, whether cleaning, buying grocer-
ies, getting help for elderly family members or practical handyman work. By
providing the necessary infrastructure, the platform creates the conditions for
an efficient exchange. The platform developers charge 20% of the cost of each
task arranged on the platform to extract value. According to the developers, the
low entry barriers optimize the use of time and will therefore prevail as a more
rational and efficient mode of organization of labour. This reflects a cultural
understanding that the institutional restrictions of the employment relationship
will inevitably be bypassed if they act as a barrier to acceleration (Rosa, 2013,
p. 192). Or, as expressed by the operations manager on the platform: ‘wouldn’t
you like to spend your time on something else?’
Their strategy is to rationalize the distribution and organization of labour
by accumulating capital in a digital tool with automated management of the
tasks. To do so, they attempt to realize a second value proposition: the platform
manages tasks automatically instead of through direct (human) supervision,
replacing management with an IT system.
The more manual processes we can bypass, the better it is . . . So we spend

a lot of time developing, planning, designing and . . . testing. Testing,
testing, testing.
So, we constantly measure our efciency in . . . everything.
(Operations manager)
This dynamic can be conceptualized as an expression of technological acceleration.
The most evident and consequential shape that modern acceleration takes
is the intentional, technical, and above all technological (i.e. machine-
based) acceleration of goal-directed processes.
(Rosa, 2013, p. 71)
Technological acceleration furthers productivity but must continuously be

reinvented due to the ‘economic motor of competition’, which creates the
preconditions for continued change in the organization of both labour and
working life (Rosa & Scheuerman, 2009, p. 189; Rosa, 2013, pp. 161–163).
This creates constant changes in the production system of the platform, even
for the ‘core’ workers employed to manage the platform:
So now another investment is coming in the new year. And that investment
is going to be somewhat bigger, because in the meantime the company has
already increased in value. So the next investment will be used to develop
even more, you see? And again, Uber is constantly developing [their plat-
form]. Airbnb is too. So, you could say . . . I don’t ever think – and God
forbid we might even say! – that we’ll make it to a point where you think:
‘Oh, now everything’s working the way it’s supposed to’. That’s not how
it works, because if you sit down and think: ‘Oh, well then, that’s fne’,
then you’ll be overtaken on the inside, really.
This quote illustrates how the ‘economic motor of competition’ drives invest-
ments in the development of the patented platforms. The developers plan to
establish an efcient monopoly, but they are constantly forced to attract capi-
tal to develop their platform. The production system is referred to as their
‘core output’. There is a built-in aspiration for monopoly which is not unique
to, but is particularly pronounced in, the development of the ‘lean platforms’
(Srnicek, 2017). The developed technology is decisive for the functionality
and competitive position of the platform, which makes it possible to take on
entire markets by mobilizing external, ‘idle’ resources or users (Demary, 2014;
Standing, 2016, pp. 61, 216–217; Gyimóthy, 2017, p. 34). This pushes the
developers into continued investment in their digital tools and changes in the
organization of labour.
This is the way in which we, anyone, starts up a new company today: You
throw yourself of the edge of a clif.
However, the automation of the organization and management of the labour

necessitates continued (fnancial) investment in technological development.
A worker describes the platform development:
This stage goes on and on. It is never ending. Technology changes day by
day, so if you want to exist in a market, you must change. As a rule, you
could say.
(Worker)
The competitive relationship to other platforms and the possibilities of invest-

ment foster continued attempts to maximize the functionality and productivity
of the platform.
The organization of tasks: automated, standardized

and individualizing
As indicated, the development of an efficient market for tasks between inter-
changeable parties employed in the development of the platform reorganizes
the work. The developers strategically chose ‘these few areas’ of cleaning
and service labour typical of emerging platforms. This enables the platform
developers to reinforce an already highly customer-oriented and frag-
mented organization of undeclared labour to accommodate the rationality of
continued acceleration.
The developers must necessarily develop organizational capacity for this
separation of work into smaller tasks arranged among strangers. Apart from the
incentives of customers’ rating of work, the developers’ strategy for ‘establishing
trust’ or ‘matching expectations’ is a new Taylorization: labour is pre-defined
as tasks organized by an IT system. Workers are allocated a certain amount of

time to go through certain pre-defined steps, which are described for them on
a digital learning platform. The developers standardize the labour to make this
transaction work, to ‘ensure that the suppliers [workers] appreciate the standard
we want to give’ (Operations manager).
The standards for the work are highlighted as ‘easy’ by the developers, but
the idea of automated interchangeability clashes with the quality achieved with
continuity in and contextualization of the labour: ‘It’s not any standard job.
People don’t have standard expectations’ (Worker). Whereas the ability to
meet the demands of the customers is a source of positive affirmation for one
of the workers, the transient relation to the customers is a source of uncertainty
for others:
You know . . . I didn’t have any feedback . . . And one of my clients,

the company, the person who I’m in contact with, told me that that
person didn’t want it any more. I don’t know if I did something wrong,
or he didn’t want the system at all. Or he didn’t want, you know. I don’t
know. But maybe I did something badly. I’m not sure.
(Worker)
This refects that it is difcult to ensure the quality of the work without
embedding the labour into a relationship which permits an intersubjective
validation. The director notes that this might even be the reason that they
have the most success organizing cleaning, relative to other work: compared
to other forms of ‘gig work’, it favours ‘trust’ in the relation between customer
and worker. Paradoxically, the developers must undermine the embedding of
the labour into a continuous relationship between customers and workers to
maintain their monopoly to arrange the tasks. This entails a lack of control
and changes the organization of the work, not only for the workers but also
for the company:
For me, no, it’s not possible. And for these systems, it’s also difcult for the
company to change.
(Worker)
The ‘trust’ of recurring tasks in continuous relationships is difcult to embed

in the automated matches between customers and workers on the platform.
The spatio-temporal flexibilization of work

The fragmentation of work into tasks is not only substantial and relational
but also spatio-temporal (Rosa, 2013, pp. 110, 168, 172). The platform cre-
ates a ‘technical standard’ (cf. Rosa, 2013, p. 235) of immediate engagement
with the organization of tasks on the platform. This ‘annihilation of space’ is
a central mechanism in social acceleration and points towards a form of dis-

embedded market on the platform (cf. Rosa, 2013, pp. 40, 216). The workers
must take on various tasks for various customers at various places and times.
But in contrast with fully digitized ‘crowd labour’, the physical services of the
gig economy remain geographically bound (Ilsøe & Madsen, 2017, p. 44).
This creates an everyday working life problem for the engaged workers to
‘stack’ the tasks into a closely knit, coherent and efficient schedule, using the
platform’s coordination mechanisms. One of the interviewees manages to do
this, creating an intensification of her everyday life, where she takes on more
activities with fewer breaks. For the others, the unpaid planning and coordina-
tion becomes an everyday working life problem.
It’s not . . . completely . . . you know, programmable. I cannot make a

plan because there are some jobs I have to choose between, so my options
are not . . . unlimited.
(Worker)
For the two workers who rely solely on labour on the platform, they must
engage immediately when they appear on the platform.
Worker: Maybe sometimes you didn’t see the phone, and two hours passed . . .
Interviewer: . . . and it’s gone?
Worker: It’s gone.
The technical standard of immediate engagement with the ‘just-in-time’

organization of tasks in the gig economy leaves workers in a reactive state
(De Stefano, 2016). The awareness of the possibility of obtaining tasks poten-
tially replaces the stable rhythm of repetitive actions over time by the anxious,
but enduring and profound indeterminacy (Holt et al., 2013, p. 64; Rosa,
2015, p. 80).
Labour platforms as social acceleration?

The greatest problem for workers was the lack of control over their time with
the concurrent individualized competition for the extremely flexibly organ-
ized tasks on the platform. This was experienced as a problem for the workers,
even though they managed it very differently in their working lives. These
problems cannot be understood without considering the specificities of plat-
forms as production systems. Employers are replaced by a digital system. The
workers find that: ‘it’s somehow impossible to have co-workers’ (Worker).
Their relationship with customers is the only, fragile, source of an intersubjec-
tive validation of their work. This creates uncertainty in their work experience
and in the planning of their everyday life. The following quote from a worker
summarizes the most difficult aspects of life with labour on the platforms:
‘Travelling time, filling up your time and feedback. And the money is not too
much’ (Worker).
When workers take on tasks on the platforms, they establish a fragile com-
mon interest with the platform developers around the emerging technologies:
that of making the transaction work. But the case illustrates the risk that this
ideal of an efficient market for tasks between interchangeable parties employed
in the development of the platform, creates a new standard to meet an extreme
IT-mediated flexibility in the organization of everyday life. This tendency can
be contrasted with a normative ideal of the organization of work founded
in Nordic working life research: that the work must help to build sustain-
able rhythms in the workers’ working lives (Hvid, 2006; Kamp et al., 2011).
The extremely flexible spatio-temporal organization of what is nevertheless
extremely standardized labour is a management-controlled new Taylorization
which undermines control of the work and disrupts the formation of working
life rhythms (Hvid, 2006, p. 146). Despite their best intentions, the platform
developers cannot realize the accelerative effects of the technical innovation in
a competitive market without compromising the sustainability of the organiza-
tion of work for the involved workers.
Workers’ experiences of the poor quality of working time on the platforms
can thus be understood as an extreme case of broader societal development
trends towards changed temporality and heightened flexibility in the use of
modern technologies for the organization of work (Rosa & Scheuerman, 2009;
Rosa, 2013, 2015; Rosa et al., 2017). In the workers’ working lives, it creates
a ‘desynchronization’ of the rhythmic coordination between labour and other
spheres of activity in working life (Rosa, 2013, p. 186). This latently leads to
a loss of anticipatory power, a proliferation of time conflicts and introduces
a ‘situational logic’, both in everyday life and over a lifetime (Rosa, 2013,
pp. 76, 113, 231ff). Following Standing (2014) and Rosa (2013, pp. 144ff), it
seems pertinent to question whether this has consequences for the development
of one’s coherent work identity embedded in one’s long-term life aspirations.
Nordic labour platforms: a case of precarity?

The working life problems clustered in the interviewed workers’ experi-
ences with work on the platform can be interpreted as expressions of precarity
(cf. Standing, 2014; see also the introduction to precarity, Chapter 14). The
cause of the problems expressed by the interviewees is probably that those
engaging in the interviews of the case study are those experiencing depend-
ency on and problems with the labour on the platforms. All the interviewees
took on the tasks to make money, but they all perceived it as supplementary
or transitory, even if the tasks were indeed their primary source of income at
the time of the interviews. Two workers combined the tasks with part-time
employment, and one was supporting his studies. Two relied solely on income
from the platform but considered it unsustainable. Four of the five workers felt
overqualified, knew no others engaged on the platform and were subjectively

unsatisfied with the quality of the work. The interviews seem to demonstrate
the situation for workers in relatively precarious positions on the Danish labour
market for whom the offer of fragmented, unreliable labour is better than none.
At the same time, when compared with secondary information, the dif-
ferences in the working lives of the interviewed workers seem to illustrate a
broader pattern of differentiation among the workers, both on the case plat-
form and on the Nordic labour platforms generally. Firstly, according to the
operations manager of the case platform, the ‘middle-aged unemployed’ are
‘indisputably the largest group’ active on the platform, followed by students.
Secondly, two of the five were migrant workers who did not expect to stay
long term in the country, and at the time of the case study, approximately
one-fifth of the workers on the platform were foreigners, indicated by lan-
guage. Thirdly, the workers did not rely on social security, and the platform
developers criticized the fact that the lack of an employment relationship
means that work on platforms is not institutionally recognized. If work on
the platform is not recognized as active participation in the labour market, it
might lead to a loss of state-financed social benefits in the Nordic countries
(Mailand & Larsen, 2011, p. 27; Dølvik & Jesnes, 2017, pp. 36–37). The
case presented thus fuels the suspicion presented elsewhere that some work-
ers engaged on labour platforms in Denmark do not rely on welfare benefits
and are not part of the welfare system (Meged & Christensen, 2017). When
compared with a recent quantitative examination of Danish labour platforms,
the group seems exemplary: along with immigrants and students, unemployed
are the most prevalent category of people in the 42,000 that are estimated to
have earned money through websites or apps in Denmark (Ilsøe & Madsen,
2017, p. 40). As such, there is probably a differentiation of the workers on the
platform, where the interviewees as migrants and unemployed are among the
more vulnerable workers.
Furthermore, the transient relationship between platform developers,
customers and workers fragments the logical basis for the development of
worker collectives and associative power resources for unions. As expressed
by a union representative: ‘Nobody sees each other, nobody talks to each
other . . . So where do we . . . What is our role?’ (Union representative).
The platforms form a transient, individualizing and de-personalizing basis
for improvement of their situation. This might undermine the recognition
of common problems with work on the platform. More generally, the
platforms’ side-stepping of established industrial relations risks removing one
pillar of work regulation: the employment relationship. The platforms can be
argued to have the character of what has been called ‘bogus self-employment’
(Rasmussen & Kongshøj Madsen, 2017). Especially in Denmark, ‘social
partners’ position is key in explaining incidences of precarious employment’
(Rasmussen et al., 2016, p. 102). In general, the labour market parties find
the platforms drive ‘unfair competition’, and employers are thus sympathetic,
although not actively contributing, towards attempts to standardize the conditions

(interview with representative of sector organization). This gives parties in
the labour market some common ground on the issue of unfair competition.
But they have not yet developed common strategies for action, especially not
in Denmark (Rasmussen et al., 2016; Dølvik & Jesnes, 2017; Ilsøe, 2017). As
such, the platforms are effectively bypassing the collective bargaining system
and the associated forms of regulation.
Overall then, the experience of the transient organization of tasks on the
platform seems a case of precarious labour (Standing, 2016, pp. 219–221, 229).
The depicted economic dependency on work on the platforms and the low
‘social income’ seems decisive for the experience of precarity on the platforms
in the international literature (Berg, 2016; Huws et al., 2016, p. 15; Ravenelle,
2017; Schor et al., 2017). Guy Standing (2014, p. 121) calls the necessary but
unpaid work to coordinate and organize labour in everyday life a precarious
‘work-for-labour’. Although the hourly wage on the platforms is decent, and the
income is indicated as ‘supplemental’ in quantitative surveys, the workers, ‘may
take on several jobs at the same time, partly because wages are falling, partly
for insurance or risk management’ (Standing, 2014, p. 119). Rosa highlights
how the institutions that ensure sustainable coordination of different spheres
of activity are increasingly challenged by the norm of acceleration which creates
increasing flexibilization and precarity of employment (Rosa, 2013, pp. 112, 220).
The job, labour and income insecurity are expressed as the individualized
experience of lack of rhythm, validation and control in the organization of labour
in the gig economy. This might in turn reinforce a transient, insecure or indeed
precarious working life. As Rosa highlights:
For the less privileged, temporary work, precarious forms of employment and
fxed-term labour contracts both indicate and enforce this accommodation
to performance criteria and thus to permanent competition and existential
uncertainty.
(Rosa, 2015, p. 87, my italics)
For the workers who are in precarious positions in the Nordic labour markets,
the platforms lower the barriers of entry to labour but also change the condi-
tions for coordinating labour with working life. It therefore seems pertinent
to consider institutional resources that could create a divergent development
trajectory of Nordic labour platforms relative to the gloomy picture depicted
in the international literature and illustrated in the case study.
The development trajectory of Nordic labour

platforms?
A number of mechanisms might restrict or indeed reshape the platforms in
the Nordic countries. While the relative precarity of the engaged workers can
perhaps in part explain their engagement with the platforms, it also suggests a
differentiated impact of the platforms rather than the sweeping ‘disruption’ of
many already well-organized sectors of employment. An extrapolation from
the case study suggests that the societal division of labour will constrain the
platforms to impose a reorganization of labour in vulnerable sectors where
short-term engagement is viable and/or for workers in precarious situations.
In Denmark, private service labour, the strategic choice of the developers, is a
comparatively underorganized sector with both a higher prevalence of marginal
part-timers, students and labour migrants, and more regulation gaps reflect-
ing more undeclared and informal employment (Andersen & Felbo-Kolding,
2013; Rasmussen et al., 2016; Ilsøe et al., 2017; cf. Weber, 2017, p. 22). To
realize their envisioned market for standardizable tasks among interchangeable
parties, the platform developers must choose a sector of labour where workers
are willing to engage.
The containment to vulnerable sectors of work reflects the structural
features of the Nordic labour markets. Although data are sparse, the use of
platforms appears to be slightly less prevalent in the Nordic countries than in
comparable Western labour markets. The most extensive quantitative studies
of the Nordic countries indicate that only 1–2% of the population regularly
use digital platforms to find labour, and that many of these work on the plat-
forms as a supplement to other activities (Jesnes et al., 2016, pp. 22, 27; Ilsøe
& Madsen, 2017, pp. 40–42). This cannot only be understood in terms of the
low job quality of the platforms. For many workers, the low unemployment,
high organizational level, opportunities for education and relatively generous
social benefits of the Nordic welfare regimes provide the structural and institu-
tional power resources to disengage with the platforms. The lack of public and
institutional recognition of work on the platforms also means that organized
workers perceive the loss of employment benefits as insecure (Redder, 2016).
It is thus questionable whether the platforms will unilaterally create a large-
scale shift towards precarious work without an employment relationship in the
Nordic labour markets.
This also poses a dilemma for unions and regulators in the Nordic countries
as to whether to recognize the platforms’ business models. Whereas a quali-
tative improvement of the depicted problems would depend on some form
of recognition of the new platforms and probably increase their prevalence,
continued exclusion is likely to delimit the platforms but risks retaining the
relatively precarious working conditions.
Initially, in Denmark, the unions succeeded in utilizing communicative
power and the ideal of ‘the Danish model’ to delegitimize and thus exclude
the new business models which did not participate in organized negotiations
as employers. This strategy led to the rejection and exclusion of the Uber
platform, where the unions highlighted its incommensurability with the laws
for taxi fares and undermined public acceptability of the platform. Further,
the rejection of Uber is not limited to Nordic countries. It was also a result of
the developers’ lack of will or ability to comply with national legislation. This
strategy of delegitimization has been effective but might be specific to the Uber
platform and dependent on a remobilization with regard to each new platform
for state regulation and/or political consumption to become more generally
effective. Most importantly, it did not rely on a mobilization nor improve the
situation of the workers engaged on the platform. Furthermore, although other
platforms have also suffered from the polemics, they are still in business.
Another strategy increasingly used by labour market parties is to begin
organizing and cooperating with the platforms. This is in line with the institu-
tionalized class compromises of the Nordic countries and could potentially lead
to qualitatively different platforms that take on responsibilities as employers. As
recognized by the director of the case platform presented earlier, ‘you can make
some setbacks, some limitations, you can make it illegal, but it WILL emerge,
either in a new form or a limited or regulated form’. The case presented here
seems to exemplify a broader trend where the Nordic platforms take on more
responsibilities as employers to improve their brand by taking out insurance
schemes, setting minimum wages, setting standards for the work, establishing
long-term relationships with workers and mediating between customers and
workers (cf. also Dølvik & Jesnes, 2017, p. 30).
Within the sectors involved, the ‘capital arms race’ in the development of
technological infrastructure with effective management of labour will lead to
the selection of relatively few and well-known companies and position them as
‘gatekeepers’ for both workers and customers (Srnicek, 2017, p. 98). To illus-
trate this, two out of eight of the Danish platforms for task labour identified
as background research for this case study in 2016 have already closed (cf. also
Rasmussen et al., 2017, pp. 8–9). The selection of the few most competitive
platforms bodes for a politicization, where not only consumers and regulators but
also the labour market parties can influence their development by cooperating
with them as employers. The competitive advantage of capital concentration and
the rationality of systematization in the development of the digital infrastructure
illustrated in the case study could pave the way for transparency and homogeni-
zation of the working conditions for workers engaged on the platforms.
Under much public attention, the Danish unions have recently made a col-
lective agreement with the Hilfr platform. This provides a voluntary option
to join the agreement for workers active on the platform. In this way, Hilfr
is attempting to create a good brand for their platform to attract consumers.
Furthermore, unions not only point consumers towards the platforms with
relatively better working conditions but also attempt to demonstrate the con-
tinued ability of the labour market parties to regulate work through negotiated
cooperation. This could suggest an integration and an improvement of work-
ing conditions on the platforms. The agreement with Hilfr could be the first
of many to come.
However, if the unions do not in fact organize the workers engaged on
the platforms, it is a fragile agreement. The question is whether workers have
a long-term orientation towards work on the platforms which makes them

willing to enter into these agreements. The shift in orientation of the plat-
forms towards creating fairer working conditions reflects the change in public
opinion of the platforms. But the unions here depend on public understanding
of the need for ‘political consumption’ to pressurize platforms into creat-
ing the brand value of fair working conditions. The public is fraught with
a deep-seated ambiguity between respect for proper working conditions and
orientation towards the flexibility and acceleration of the platforms. This is not
just about wage competition. Even if wages are decent, the platforms must be
pressurized to prevent workers competing on flexibility to take on tasks, as
depicted in the case study. The workers are vulnerable to shifts in public opin-
ion to pressure the platforms to set high standards.
The core issue is whether workers have opportunities to develop the work or
whether they are continuously subject to management-controlled, marketized
production systems. The Danish union HK reports increasing willingness to
organize among translators, who experience many of the same problems of
immediate engagement with tasks on the platforms that were presented in
the case study. This points towards the most radical reaction to the emerging
platforms, as unions could then build both structural and associational power
by developing their own platform. But this too poses dilemmas considering the
institutionalized mode of cooperation with employers; it is unclear who will
then have to take on the responsibility as employers. And although the unions
can then negotiate their degree of profit more directly, they risk depending on
platform developers’ ability to make a profit from the development in any case.
Furthermore, the development of a platform gives legitimacy to the models,
and it is thus latently in conflict with the strategy to delegitimize existing, trans-
national platforms making their way into the Nordic countries, which has been
so successful in rejecting the bad working conditions of Uber.
Another illustrative case is how a Danish–Swedish platform has taken even
more initiatives than the case platform to legitimize their business model,
attempt cooperation with unions and yet failed to establish a collective agree-
ment. It illustrates the tension between existing institutionalized regulation in
the form of collective agreements and the flexibility of platforms. The platform
has tried to let workers procure creative, non-standardized and specialized
tasks, lowering the profit per transaction and most importantly having a limit
on the income and automatic tax registration to demonstrate that the work is
supposed to be supplementary to other activities. But, most importantly, the
flexibility of the type, time and organization of the work has hindered a col-
lective agreement. Furthermore, the limited hours and non-standardized tasks
make it difficult to scale up activity on the platform in the standardized manner
of the case platform. This is due to the structural economic conditions in the
form of the existing societal division of labour. Firstly, the structural differen-
tiation constrains the development of platforms as technological acceleration
is a continuous challenge to let workers shape the digital infrastructure at a
rate of development that matches the financialized technical innovation of the

competitors, which might better meet customers’ demands for efficiency and
accountability within a certain sector of work. Secondly, the different sectors
form a basis for the institutionalized modes of agreement between unions and
employers in the labour market, and this is a challenge for platforms that do not
want to adhere to this division of labour in their definition of the tasks.
There are thus several structural features which might provide for a diver-
gent development of Nordic labour platforms. The low unemployment rate,
the extensive social security system and the political mobilization of unions,
both in the public domain and through organization of workers, might exclude
platforms as legitimate actors and limit their expansion. The pressure to create
fair working conditions might pave the way for an incorporation of platforms
into existing modes of negotiated cooperation between the parties in the labour
market. On the other hand, the structural conditions for the development of
platforms in the form of dependence on finance capital, the existing mode of
institutionalization in the labour market and the dominance of the cultural
norms of efficiency, flexibility and spatio-temporal acceleration illustrated in
the case challenge the development of alternative models in a form consist-
ent with the existing regulation on the labour market. Future developments
will depend on the labour market parties’ handling of these dilemmas, public
attention to issues surrounding work on the platforms, the platform developers’
strategies and the continued social benefits for the workers ensured through
political development of the welfare regimes.
Conclusion
I have here engaged with the development of Nordic labour platforms. The
rationale has been twofold. Firstly, it is pertinent to explore the development
and working life consequences of the labour platforms in a Nordic context.
Secondly, problems related to labour platforms in the relatively well-functioning
Nordic labour markets can highlight global problems with such platforms and
potential institutional mechanisms to address them.
What makes the discussion of labour platforms difficult is both that the
phenomena are dynamic and politicized and that empirical knowledge is vul-
nerable to conceptual inconsistencies. In political discourse, the platforms are
often considered an opportunity to ensure taxation of undeclared labour and
national competitiveness through employment, better resource utilization
and economic growth (Danish Ministry of Taxation, 2016; Danish Ministry
of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs, 2017). To amplify the sensitivity
towards both risks and potentials of the technologies, I have drawn on inter-
national literature to separate the profit-oriented development of patented
labour platforms from the ideals and values advanced with open technologies
developed for sharing. An emerging literature highlights how the strategy of
platform capitalism is to accumulate capital in a technically superior solution,
attract demand and establish a monopoly for managing the conditions for
agreements on tasks in the relevant sectors. The risk is that this shifts the bal-
ance of power in the labour market.
Although empirically limited, the case study presented here illustrates the
emergence of platform capitalism in the Nordic labour markets. With an inter-
est in the characteristics of working life in Nordic platform capitalism, we can
interpret the case study as an illustration of the presence of the working life
problems depicted in the international literature. Even in Denmark, we can
find platforms where: ‘The rules of product and service development, as well as
marketplace interactions, are set by the platform owner’ (Srnicek, 2017, p. 29).
Taken together with the existing literature on platforms in the Nordic coun-
tries, the findings indicate that workers on the Nordic platforms rely neither on
the structural power of indispensable qualifications nor on the institutionalized
cooperation of the labour market parties. Further, not only do the platforms
disregard their responsibilities as employers, they potentially compartmental-
ize work into ‘gigs’ organized ‘just-in-time’ to meet customer demands. This
can have profound implications for the quality of working life, as it robs the
workers of control and undermines sustainable rhythms in their working lives.
The platforms’ utilization of a ‘well-known judicial grey-zone’ (Rasmussen
& Kongshøj Madsen, 2017, p. 56) with respect to the conditions of employ-
ment are also a substantive problem of the extreme flexibility in their everyday
organization of labour.
It is, however, important to emphasize that the low overall unemployment
and the relatively extensive welfare benefits seem to limit workers’ engagement
with the platforms in a Nordic context. They are thus unlikely to create a large
shift towards precarious working conditions in the Nordic labour markets.
Rather, the platforms seem to reinforce invisible working life problems of work-
ers who are already in precarious positions. These groups are supplemented by
a group that use it out of convenience and are not engaged in the development
of the platforms. The most likely result of the interplay between the platforms
and the welfare regimes thus seems to be a polarization. At this point, the
stronger position of workers in Nordic countries suggests a disengagement
with the platforms, rather than a completely different mode of organization of
labour on the platforms. But the extent of the platforms is likely to depend on
overall developments in the welfare regimes.
Therefore, the problems of working life in platform capitalism demand con-
tinuous innovation in the regulation of the labour market to ensure that the
rationalization of the organization of work with the technologies not only leads to
business models that are viable but also are sustainable for the workers. The uncer-
tainties of unions, politicians and employers reflect what Rosa (2013, pp. 251ff)
calls the ‘steering problems’ introduced by the accelerated rate of social change. As
the history of the Nordic labour markets shows, sustainability can be created not
only by changing the organization of work but also by improving the complex
interrelation of cooperation in the labour market and state-provided social security.
The enduring specificities of Nordic platforms have yet to appear clearly, and given
the limited data, they are difficult to foresee. In any case, it is imperative to engage
with the working life experience of the platforms, as this is key to understanding
and developing the broader institutional mediation of technological changes in
work. With an interest in the international development of platform capitalism,
we can perhaps understand the case studied here as a critical case of the working
life issues of the flexible organization of labour on the platforms (Flyvbjerg, 2006,
p. 230). Although the institutionalized regulation of the Nordic welfare regimes
provides comparatively more power resources to the workers, the problems of
unsustainable working life rhythms remain on a Danish platform. If these prob-
lems prove to persist in this context, we can hypothesize that they are a globally
prevalent consequence for workers in precarious positions engaging with the
customer-oriented flexibility in the organization of labour on the ‘just-in-time’
platforms. Depending on perspective and future developments, we might come
to emphasize the ‘threat’ of transnational business models backed by financialized
technological development or how their limited scope and differing character
illustrate the continued development in the provision of institutional power
resources to workers in the Nordic welfare regimes. In principle, the Nordic
countries’ high wages, low unemployment and extensive social security could
further the development of the sharing economy, which remains a potential for
work on the platforms.
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Closure
The end of the story?
Nothing lasts forever. One day, each and every one of us will agree: the Nordic
model, or the Nordic approach, as we prefer to call it, is not with us anymore.
Will it be ten years before it passes away? 50 years? 100 years? Or longer? Will
we at that time still find enduring remnants from the Nordic approach, or
will it have all died out? Will the Nordic experience be relevant to work and
production in the future?
Will collective organization around common interests still be perceived as
relevant?
Will working life in the Nordics still be characterized by relatively high
levels of:
• equality
• employee infuence on management
• autonomy
• learning
• employment security.
Or are European and global trends so comprehensive, irresistible and invincible

that everything we see today as typically Nordic will have disappeared?
There are certainly many issues that can undermine the Nordic approach
and delete all traces of it. Here we will highlight some of them.
From interest-based management to expert-based

management
Well-educated, humanistic-oriented HR experts, production engineers and IT
developers can undermine the essence of the Nordic approach: the safeguarding
of collective interests.
A study (Dyreborg, 2011) on working environment activities in the con-
struction sector concluded that the working environment had become too
important to involve employees and their representatives. To obtain contracts,
companies were dependent on their ability to demonstrate a high level of secu-
rity. Therefore, they recruited security experts. The experts managed the security
work through extensive bureaucratic procedures and by imposing a wide range

of managerial requirements on the workers. It is now no longer the workers who
co-create their working environment; instead, the workers have become objects
of security management. Similar trends are found in a variety of other areas:
• The psychological working environment is handled by psychologists

employed in HR departments and not through negotiations of workload,
work organization and infuence of the employees.
• Management has become very explicit in many jobs regarding expectations
for the individual employee, e.g. by setting Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs). There may be a dialogue between the individual employee and his
or her leader about the KPIs, but in most jobs, the KPIs are not the object
of collective bargaining.
• IT developments in many cases shape the workplace in completely new
ways. Employees may be consulted in the creative processes of IT devel-
opers. However, often they have very little infuence on the fnal result of
the design process.
It is a huge challenge for collective organizations to make the new trends in

working life a collective matter and not just an issue for experts. This issue is
already being addressed in organizations.
Falling union density

The level of employers’ organization is relatively constant, but for the unions,
the level of organization has been declining since the mid-1990s. If this devel-
opment continues, it will at some stage be an obstacle to the collective approach
to working life issues.
Perhaps the difficulty in getting young people to organize themselves is
diminishing. There are signs of this in both Denmark and Norway (Caraker
et al., 2015; Steen et al., 2017). Young people are more positively oriented
towards the unions and collective solutions than they were in previous decades.
The move towards individualization may have stopped.
However, new approaches to organizing employees and employers need to
be developed. One of the challenges is to make unions relevant to temporary
employees in low-paid and insecure service jobs. Another challenge is that the
conditions for organizational work have changed. Membership of an organiza-
tion is now less perceived as a lifelong commitment and more as a means for
solving acute issues.
Sustainable development
Humanity and the planet as a whole face enormous challenges. NGOs, business
organizations, politicians and companies are oriented towards sustainability.
Where do the collective labour organizations stand in that game?
Closure 361
Are organizations built on specific collective interests an obstacle to devel-

opments towards sustainability? Interest organizations pursue the interests of
their members and may therefore not be in a position to take responsibility for
our common future. Interest organizations can be united in a common agenda
on growth and progress in employment and income. However, does that har-
monize with the sustainability agenda? Do we need a moral economy, beyond
interest-based organizations, where growth and employment are not ends in
themselves, but means of achieving sustainability?
Conversely, it can be argued that the collective organizations in the labour
market have already gained experience in pursuing common interests beyond
those of individual employees and individual companies. Collective organiza-
tions have contributed significantly to the development of the welfare societies.
Perhaps these experiences can be productive in creating a sustainable society?
Perhaps employers’ organizations can contribute to the development of sus-
tainability by creating links between companies, environmental organizations
and humanitarian organizations? Perhaps employer and labour associations can
help employees to take an active part in the development towards sustainability
by allowing them to apply their knowledge and experience in everyday inno-
vations to make production and work more sustainable? Perhaps the labour
organizations can actively support a green business policy? There have been a
number of initiatives over the years in this direction (Hvid, 2006). However,
the sustainability agenda has not yet created major changes in the expression of
collective interest in the labour market.
Beyond wage work

The robots are coming. Social scientists believe that a very large part of the
work we know today will disappear over the next 20 to 30 years (Greve,
2017). In their assessment, employment will fall sharply.
We do not know whether the predictions of the decline in wage work are
correct, but it seems not entirely unlikely that wage labour will shrink in scale
due to technology and a global division of labour and perhaps also because
we will witness changes in people’s wishes and expectations for their lives.
However, an eventual decrease in the amount of wage work does not neces-
sarily mean that work as a whole will decrease. There is already almost as much
work done outside wage labour as within it, such as work in families and vol-
untary work. Incidentally, levels of volunteering are very high in the Nordic
countries (EUROFOUND, 2011).
Perhaps this is a new and important role for the collective organizations?
Perhaps it is possible to continue the experience from the Nordic approach
to the labour market by including unpaid workers in organizations. In the
voluntary field, there are problems of unfair use of free labour. Bad leadership.
Difficulty in finding ‘the right job’. A collective organization of voluntary work
could help create an attractive alternative to wage work, and perhaps produc-
tive competition between paid work and voluntary work could be established?
Is the Nordic approach an obstacle to the

‘necessary changes’?
There are public debates on the liberal right, who believe that the Nordic
approach stands in the way of the necessary transformation to the relentless
global competition. There are not so many of these voices because, as we have
pointed out in several places in this book, the Nordic countries are performing
relatively well in global competition. Furthermore, in many areas, the Nordic
countries are already liberal ideals.
Although there may be few liberalists who are sceptical to collective organ-
ization, the basic liberal understanding of what is necessary may become a
serious threat to collective organization. Public discourses have already been
penetrated by ideas of economic and market necessities. It is common not to
understand the ‘good life’ as an end in itself. However, the ‘good life’ can be a
useful means for creating growth and employment. Influence and involvement
in work contribute to a good life. However, today, the decisive argument for
involvement is that it contributes to innovation and growth. Previously, influ-
ence, involvement and democracy at work were values in themselves. Education
and learning are good because they contribute to growth. Enlightenment is not
an end in itself. Wellbeing is good because it also contributes to growth.
If the unions are to remain legitimized, they have

to orient themselves to perspectives that are
beyond growth
On the traditional left, there is also tough criticism of the Nordic approach.
Acceptance of employers’ rights to direct and distribute work, an acceptance
of the market and an acceptance of employers’ needs to generate profit are all
obstructions in the necessary confrontation with wage work and capitalism.
However, this is not a point of view that has a particular appeal at present. Most
of the left is now prepared for a long future with wage work and capitalism.
Aspirations are now more about regulating wage work and capitalism. Here, in
some areas, the Nordic countries are ahead of most other countries.
Finally, we have the greens, who are likely to think that collective organi-
zations belong to the era of the industrial society. Collective organizations
tend to maintain the outdated institutions of industrial society. Instead of the
collective organization of interests, we all need to take an independent respon-
sibility for the future. Organizations help to maintain people in paid work and
traditional jobs, although there is a need for greater diversity in forms of life,
working methods and organizational forms.
However, we do not doubt that in the green society there will also be a
need for organizing collective interests, while access to power and resources
will still not be equally distributed in the green society. However, as we have
already mentioned, it is also necessary for the collective organizations in the
labour market to orient themselves towards the green agenda.
Closure 363
How will the Nordic approach end its life?

Nothing lasts forever. Neither will the Nordic approach. At one point or
another, it will die, but how?
In an ethnocentric perspective, the ideal death of the approach will be caused
by its success. If the Nordic approach should spread to the whole world, there
would be no specific Nordic approach. The former Nordic approach would
simply be the approach.
In the best possible world of the liberals, labour unions have been taken over
by organizational psychologists and graduates from business schools specialized
in Human Resources Management. They are in charge of hiring, employee
assessment, wage formation, competence development and development of the
work organization – all of this with smart productivity development in mind.
In the green ideal world, trade unions and employers’ organizations have been
absorbed into a much larger project than the project of the old welfare society.
Trade unions have returned to the guild system, where the guild sets the norms
for quality and accountability in a sustainable perspective. Employers’ associations
have been infiltrated by a myriad of stakeholder organizations that help to run the
business in a green and socially responsible direction.
The future of the Nordic approach is unclear. We all hope for a beautiful
end to the story, but we probably do not fully agree on what that means.
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EUROFOUND (2011) Second European Quality of Life Survey Participation in Volunteering
and Unpaid Work, Luxembourg.
Greve, B. (2017) Technology and the Future of Work: The Impact on Labour Markets and
Welfare States, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Hvid, H. (2006) Arbejde og Bæredygtighed [Work and Sustainability], Copenhagen: Frydenlund.
Steen, A., Ellingsen, D. & Nygaard, M. O. (2017) Norsk arbeidsliv 2017 [Norwegian
Working Life 2017], Oslo: YS Arbeidslivsbarometer.
Index
Aagestad, C. 119–120 concepts 95, 96, 97, 99, 101; new

absenteeism 4, 43, 59, 94, 105 public management 217, 232, 233, 236,
acceleration: norm of 350; social 347–348; 243, 253, 255; Nordic Working life
technological 344, 353–354; of time Model 109; police ofcers 219, 220,
140, 142, 150, 347–348 271; privatization of state enterprises 83;
accidents 59, 121, 131 responsible 236, 250, 251, 254; survey
active labour market policies (ALMPs) on 74–75; teachers 143; vocational
18, 159, 194, 195–197, 199, education and training 156; working
203, 209 environment 119; working time 134,
Addisco 186–187, 188 137, 139, 149, 150
Ahrenkiel, A. 231
Airbnb 339, 341, 344 Bamforth, Ken 94
Allen, D. 235 banking 78–79
Allmendinger, Jutta 157 bargaining: basic agreements 35;
Alsos, K. 289–290, 331–332 lifelong learning 179, 180, 184, 189,
ambivalence 308, 309, 313, 315–316 190; wages 18, 158; see also
Andersen, S. K. 290 collective bargaining
Andreassen, T. A. 198 Barth, E. 24
Anker, N. 233 basic agreements: democracy at work
apprenticeships 157–158, 160–161, 39, 53, 55–56, 58, 61, 67, 70, 72, 75;
167–168, 172; construction sector 163, foreign or domestic ownership 81–82;
166; Danish training centres 170–171; historical developments 31, 33, 34, 35;
health-care sector 164–165; Norwegian lifelong learning 180, 182–183, 186,
local training agencies 169–170; Swedish 190; political issues 50; see also collective
vocational colleges 171 agreements
Armano, E. 307 Beck, U. 285
audits 277n1 Becker, G. S. 180
Australia 51 Becker-Schmidt, Regina 307–308
Austria 41 Belgium 16, 55
authoritarianism 75, 84–85, 89 Berg, A. M. 57
automation 344, 345, 346 Bergene, A. C. 187, 293
autonomy 16–17, 63, 70, 153, 359; coal Betti, E. 288
mine studies 94; construction sector 165; Björkman, T. 101
decline in 88; democracy at work 39, Blair, Tony 82–83
49, 50, 51, 53, 58, 59, 61, 67; elderly boards of directors 60, 75; privatization
care 219, 230, 244, 249–251, 252, 254, of state enterprises 83; workers’
255; fexible production 136; foreign or representatives on 51, 52, 56, 67, 94
domestic ownership 82; management Bond, G. R. 200
Index 365
Bordewich, I. O. 103 333; lifelong learning 184, 185, 186;

Bowman, J. 184 neo-liberalism 42; pensions 43; platforms
Boychuk, T. 158 353; precarious work 296; standard
Brix, Harald 31 employment relationship 324, 331–332;
Brzinsky-Fay, C. 161 wages 17; working time 134, 135, 138,
Bull, Edvard 37 143–144; see also basic agreements
bullying 122 collective bargaining 61, 75, 102; basic
Busch, R. 71 agreements 35; foreign or domestic
business climate 2 ownership 81–82; lifelong learning 189;
Bygdås, A. 105–106 new public management 236; platforms
Byrkjefot, H. 95 350; public sector 224; teachers 144;
see also bargaining
Canada 51, 102 collective organization 2, 3, 7, 9–10, 44,
capitalism 136, 321, 340, 362; golden 361, 362; see also unions
age of 323, 324; platform 341, 342, communication 70
354–355, 356; precarious work 285, communities of practice 11
286, 288, 295 community policing 219, 262–263,
case study 85–88 265–266, 267, 275, 277
Castel, Robert 286 company model 124, 125
Caswell, D. 230 competition 2; ‘competition state’
CE see continuing education 295, 305, 320, 321; global 25, 30,
Chan, S. 307 41–42, 62, 362; neo-liberalism 41,
child care 231 43, 44; new public management 224;
child labour 115 platforms 349–350; precarious work
Christensen, T. 265 312; standardization and control 69;
Christiansen, J. M. 249 technological acceleration 344
citizenship 167, 172, 194, 195, 200, 323 ‘competitive solidarity’ 41–42
civil society 14 compromise 3, 11, 13, 22, 144, 189
Clegg, S. R. 96 conficts 7, 9–13, 30, 31, 44, 75, 81; basic
co-determination 47, 50, 57, 58, 67, 88–89; agreements 67; confict mediation 122;
corporations and non-corporations 80; institutionalization of 31–35; social-
FLT 185; foreign or domestic ownership democratic era 36–40; teachers 144;
81–82; formal democratic structures working environment 17;
75–76; governance models 68, 72–73; working hours 15
multinational corporation case study conservatives 51
85, 86, 87, 88; new public management construction industry 62, 120–121, 323;
218; privatization of state enterprises democracy at work 78–79; expert-based
83–84; sectors and industries 77–78; management 359; labour hire 331, 333,
survey on 73–74, 80 334; standardization 69; training centres
co-production 228, 244 170; young people’s transition to work
coalition building 181, 184, 189 163, 165–167, 173
collaboration 31, 52, 60, 159; decline in continuing education (CE) 179, 180,
88; experiments 51, 53–54, 55, 57, 182–190; see also lifelong learning
58–59, 70, 117; governance models continuous improvement 100, 106, 118, 131
68, 70; inclusion 209–210; New Public contracting 226, 229–230, 243
Governance 228; partnerships 181; cooperation 12–13, 38, 53, 117, 355–356;
political issues 56; rationalization 38; cooperation boards 15–16; Nordic
vocational education and training 171; tradition of 316, 317; platforms 352,
see also cooperation 353; support-side approach to inclusion
collective agreements 12, 13, 16, 291–292; 209–210; see also collaboration
Denmark 32, 33; fexicurity 294, 295; corporate governance 43, 79, 81, 83,
general applicability 331; labour hire 86–87, 88, 89; see also governance
366 Index
corporate pluralism 13–14, 37 290; neo-liberalism 41–43; new public

corporate social responsibility 199 management 217, 218, 219, 221–242;
corporations 80–81, 85–88, 90 OECD Job Quality Framework 1;
cultural context 98, 99 part-time work 289; pension funds
culture 7, 22–23 52; platforms 343, 349–350, 351–352,
Czarniawska, B. 98 353, 355, 356; police work 261, 264;
precarious work 283, 290, 291, 294–295,
Dahl, Hanne Marlene 234, 247, 296, 302–319, 349; psychosocial
251, 253 working environment 122–123; quality
Dahl, Robert 50 of daily work 14–15; regulation 2–3, 13,
de-professionalization 217–218, 221–222, 115–126, 127–128, 130–131, 291–292;
230–231, 243, 253, 287 social-democratic era 36–37, 38–39, 40;
decentralization 42, 159, 161, 266; sociotechnical tradition 55; tax burden
collective bargaining 224, 236; 20; vocational education and training
‘competitive solidarity’ 42; health-care 155–158, 160–161, 163–169, 170–171,
policies 245; police work 262 172–173; wages 17–18; welfare state 22;
decision-making 54, 72, 121, 273–274 workfare model 305; working conditions
decommodifcation 20–21, 22 5; working time 135, 137–139, 141,
demand-side approaches 195, 196–197, 142–149, 150; World Happiness Report 1;
199, 201, 209 young people 162, 360
democracy 11, 13–14, 44, 47, 49–66, deregulation 40, 155, 159, 174, 328; labour
67–91, 362; challenges for 61–63; hire 331; precarious work 286, 287,
cooperation experiments 117; 291, 305; supranational 322; see also
corporations and non-corporations privatization
80–81; difusion of 55–58; ‘empty’ 129; digital platforms 284, 339–358
formal democratic structures 75–76, digitalization 14, 15, 273
80, 85, 88; governance models 67–74, dignity 44
75–76; management concepts 99, disability 154, 194–195, 198–199; active
101; Nordic Working life Model 109; labour market policies 195–196;
practice of 58–61; regulation of working disclosure of 208; Supported
hours 115; scientifc approaches 53–55; Employment 200
sectors and industries 77–79; social- discretion: elderly care 219, 249, 251; new
democratic era 37, 39, 40; three public management 217, 263; police
levels of 49–52 ofcers 219, 220, 262, 264, 266, 269,
democratization 5, 17, 47, 51–53; 271, 273, 274; vocational education and
productivity 50; social-democratic era training 158, 159
37, 39, 40, 44 dismissals 2, 322, 323, 324, 327, 328,
Denmark 3–4; active labour market policies 329, 330
197, 206; collective agreements 12; diversity 198–199
democracy at work 49, 52, 60–61, Dobbin, F. 158
67; The Developmental Work concept downsizing 59, 84
95; dismissals 2; economic success Drange, Ida 47, 67–91, 153–154, 178–193
23–24; elderly care 219, 244, 245–254; Dredge, Dianne 341
employee representation 13, 25; Due, J. 42
employers’ associations 12; employment Durkheim, Emile 50
security 3, 18–19, 26n8; fexicurity Dybbroe, B. 232
18–19, 136, 294–295, 302; inclusion
194, 197–198, 206; industrialization The Economist 2
31; institutionalization of class conficts economy 7, 23–24
31–33; job satisfaction 26n6; Lean education 5–6, 18, 42, 78–79; access to
management concept 103, 104, higher 178; contribution to growth 362;
106–109; Marshall Plan 93; migrants Denmark 223; elderly care 245–246;
Index 367
human capital theory 180; lifelong Esping-Andersen, G. 2, 20–21, 22

learning 19; new public management European Union (EU) 11, 49, 294;
218; Nordic model 172; police employee involvement 16; expansion
ofcers 260–261; privatization 83, 84; of the 331, 334; job satisfaction 26n6;
professionalization 224–225; school learning 16; migrants 62; part-time
reform 225, 235; social-democratic era work 289; temporary work 293, 324,
37; teachers’ working time 142–149, 332–333, 334; working environment
150; vocational 153, 155–177; see also directive 130; working environment
lifelong learning; training indicators 119–120; working time 137
efciency 26, 248, 354 European Working Conditions Survey 119, 141
Ejersbo, N. 228 expert-based management 359–360
elderly care 63, 218–219, 220, 243–259; expertise 63
free choice 226; marketization 228; exports 24
new care relationships 251–253; new
public management 230, 235, 246–255; Fafo 12
professional autonomy 249–251; Falkum, Eivind 1–6, 9–29, 47–48, 153–154,
transformation of core task 247–249 359–363; democracy at work 47, 49–66,
Eldring, L. 289–290, 331–332 67–91; disabled employees 198; history
Emery, F. E. 54, 69–70, 89, 94, 121–122 of Nordic working life 7–8, 30–46; Lean
employability 42, 62, 167; autonomy Operations project 105–106; precarious
linked to 16; lifelong learning 154, 178, work 283–284
179–180, 183–184, 186, 187–188, 190; Feldbo-Kolding, J. 290
supply-side approaches 196 fnance sector 78–79
employers’ associations 2–3, 12, 30; fnancial crisis 42, 162, 227, 295, 333
‘competitive solidarity’ 41; democracy fnancial management 267
at work 49; Denmark 31, 32, 33; green Findlay, P. 181–182
agenda 363; Norway 33–35, 39, 40, 117; Finland: exports 24; general agreements 33;
social-democratic era 38, 39; sustainable Lean production 102; regulation 2–3;
development 361; working time 134, social-democratic era 36; sociotechnical
135, 143 tradition 16, 55; trust and social capital
employment 1; decline in wage labour 361; 23; working time 137, 150; World
high 2, 5, 153; security 18–19, 26n8; Happiness Report 1
social-democratic era 36, 44; women Finstad, L. 266, 267
194; youth 172; see also labour market fexibility 2; collective bargaining 236;
employment relationship 4; fexibility 287; ‘competitive solidarity’ 41, 42;
non-standard 293, 321; platforms 342, fexibilization 285, 288, 296, 297,
343, 344, 349; standard 43–44, 285–286, 320, 329–330, 346–347, 350; lifelong
289, 292, 293, 297, 320–338, 341 learning 190; platforms 348, 353, 354,
employment specialists 202–204, 205, 209 355, 356; precarious work 287–288,
Enehaug, Heidi 47, 49–66, 67–91 296, 306; standard employment
Engels, Friedrich 305 relationship 329, 334; work/life balance
engineering industry 324, 325–326, 327, 119; working time 48, 134, 136–142,
328–329, 333 143, 149–150
equality 1, 7, 20, 31, 261, 359; ‘competitive fexicurity 18, 136, 221, 292, 294–295, 302
solidarity’ 41; gender 19, 20, 186, 221; fexitime 137–138
income 17–18; social-democratic era 37; FLT see Norwegian Engineers and
socialist vision 2; temporary work 332; Managers Association
vocational education and training 172 follow-up 203, 208
Eriksen, B. 332 Fordism 37, 38, 181, 305, 306, 321, 334
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland 140 foreign ownership 62, 75, 81–82
Ernst, J. 231–232 Foucault, M. 68
Eskelinen, L. 252 France 12
368 Index
free choice 226, 251–252 Gustavsen, Bjørn 53, 57, 58, 95, 97
freedom 2 Gyimóthy, Szilvia 341
Frege, C. M. 181
Freidson, E. 271 Haakesad, H. 290
Friberg, J. H. 290 Habermas, J. 54
Frøyland, Kjetil 154, 194–215 Hagedorn-Rasmussen, Peter 48, 92–114
funding 183, 185–186 Hagen, A. 182
Hagen, I. M. 67, 75
Gelef, Paul 31 Hågensen, Yngve 183
gender: elderly care 245; equality 221; Hall, P. 41
inequality 26; lifelong learning 186; Hammerschmid, G. 276
segregation 4, 19–20, 165, 223; standard Hansen, Agnete Meldgaard 217–220
employment relationship 323; working Hansen, J. A. 290
conditions 120; see also women Hansen, N. W. 290
Germany: democracy at work 53–54; GDP Hansen, Per Bonde 7, 30–46, 221–242,
23; neo-liberalism 41; union density 12; 243–259, 283, 285–301, 320–338
working time 137 happiness 1
gig economy 346, 347, 350, 355; see also harassment 122
platform economy Hartnett, H. P. 199
Gilbride, D. 198–199 Hasle, P. 102
Gleerup, Janne 283, 285–301, 302–319 hazards, exposure to 120
globalization 25, 58, 82, 155, 322; health 1, 14, 43, 102, 115, 138; see also
‘competitive solidarity’ 41–42; mental health problems; Occupational
democracy at work 60, 62; impact on Health and Safety
low-skilled jobs 156; insecurity 159; Health Colleges 171–172
precarious work 285, 296, 304 health, environment and safety (HES)
Gooderham, P. 292 59, 60, 77–78; co-determination 72;
governance 67–74, 75–76, 88–90; foreign or domestic ownership 81–82;
corporations and non-corporations multinational corporation case study 86;
80–81; elderly care 244; foreign regulation 124, 127, 128–130; working
or domestic ownership 81–82; environment 119; see also Occupational
multinational corporation case study Health and Safety; safety representatives
85–88; New Public Governance 218, health services: decentralization 245;
219, 228, 237, 244, 246–247, 255; democracy at work 77, 78–79; Denmark
new public management 232; 223; migrant workers 331; new public
privatization of state enterprises 83–85; management 218, 231–232, 235;
sectors and industries 77–79; ‘soft’ privatization 83, 84; professionalization
forms of 227 224–225; young people’s transition to
government enterprises 76–77, 78–79; work 163–165, 173
see also state-owned enterprises Heien, V.-A. A. 103
government intervention 13, 144 Heiret, J. 39
graduates 283, 302, 304–305, 306–316 Henriksen, Rein 325
grants 185–186 Herbst, P. G. 54
Graver, H. P. 124, 125 HES see health, environment and safety
green agenda 362, 363 Hilfr 352
Greve, C. 228 Hjort, K. 224
grey labour market 120–121 Høigård, C. 261
growth 362 holidays 15, 17, 135
Grundtvig, G. 233 Holt, H. 197, 198
guilt 314, 316, 317 Holter, H. 54
Gustafsson, J. 203 hotel and restaurant sector 120–121
Index 369
human capital theory 180 involvement 11, 16, 88–89, 362;

human resource management (HRM) 50, corporations and non-corporations
225, 226–227, 232, 363 80; foreign or domestic ownership 82;
Hungary 137 formal democratic structures 75–76;
Hvid, Helge 1–6, 9–29, 47–48, 153–154, governance models 68, 69–70, 73–74;
359–363; democracy at work 47, 49–66; human resource management 227; Lean
history of Nordic working life 7–8, management concept 105, 106, 108;
30–46; precarious work 283–284 multinational corporation case study
85, 88; privatization of state enterprises
identity: care workers 251–253, 254–255; 83–84; sectors and industries 77–78;
police ofcers 275–277; precarious work user involvement 228, 237; see also
306, 310, 312–314, 316 participation
illegal labour hire 333 IPS see Individual Placement and Support
ILO see International Labour Organization IU see Industriens Uddannelser
immigration 25, 26, 58; see also migrants
inclusion 1, 154, 194–215; demand-side Jakobsen, Anders 283, 285–301, 302–319
approaches 196–197, 199, 201, 209; Jakobsen, V. 198
employers’ attitudes and experiences Japan 41, 97, 100, 101
197–199; inclusion skills competence Jensen, Eiler 39
195, 206–208; supply-side approaches Jensen, P. L. 127, 128
196, 201, 208, 209; support-side Jessop, B. 320
approaches 199–208, 209–210 job content 121
income 1; equality 17–18; inequality 22; job development 203–204, 206, 207, 209
security 14; social-democratic era 37; job matching 204, 205, 206, 207
see also wages job ownership 322–323
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) 200 Job Quality Framework 1
Industrial Democracy research programme job satisfaction 14, 15–16, 26n6, 119,
94–95, 97 122, 234
industrialization 31, 136, 137, 138 job security 1, 3, 14, 18–19, 26n8, 178,
Industriens Uddannelser (IU) 107–109 359; precarious work 286; standard
inequality: active labour market policies employment relationship 322, 323, 334
194; educational 157; gender 26; income Jørgensen, Christian Helms 153, 155–177
22; increase in 26, 43, 155, 159, 286; Juul, J. S. 20, 26n10
lifelong learning 178, 186; precarious
work 310–311, 312; temporary work 316 Kalleberg, A. L. 285, 286, 287, 290
Ingelsrud, Mari Holm 283, 285–301 Kamp, Annette 217–220, 221–242,
Ingold, J. 197 243–259
innovation 25, 362 Karlsen, Jan Erik 48, 115–133
insecurity 159, 286–288, 291, 296, 302, Kelly, J. 181
305–306, 314, 320; see also precarious Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 360
work; uncertainty Klethagen, Pål 48, 92–114
inspections 124–125, 126, 131 knowledge 10; evidence-based 264, 274,
institutional logics 261–262, 275, 276–277 277; new public management 227;
institutions 23, 30, 44, 45; democracy police ofcers 260–261, 264,
at work 61; Denmark 33; new public 273–274, 277
management 226; vocational education knowledge workers 10–11, 305, 317
and training 168–172, 173–174 Knudsen, Gunnar 34–35
internal control 126–127, 129–130, 131 KPIs see Key Performance Indicators
International Labour Organization Krafcik, John 100
(ILO) 116 Kristensen, Hull 42
international links 181, 184, 189 Kuvaas, B. 71
370 Index
labour market 4; active labour market formal democratic structures 75–76;

policies 18, 159, 194, 195–197, 199, multinational corporation case study 88;
203, 209; conficts 7, 31; construction privatization of state enterprises 83–84;
sector 166; cooperation 355–356; sectors and industries 77–79
fexibility 2; grey 120–121; neo- LTAs see local training agencies
liberalism 41; organization of the 12–14; Lukes, S. 68
precarious work 306; public sector as a Lund, Henrik Lambrecht 48, 134–152
223; regulation 2–3; welfare state 20–22; Lundqvist, K. 101
young people 155; see also employment Luxembourg 23
labour protection laws 115, 116, 158, Lysgaard, Sverre 9, 10, 11, 54
161, 294
Landsbergis, P. A. 102 Madsen, J. S. 42
Larsen, F. 230 management 23, 62–63, 92–114; critical
Lauveng, A. 198 perspectives 96–97; democratization of
leadership 227 52; elderly care 249; expert-based
Lean management 92, 97, 100–110, 130 359–360; governance models 89;
Lean Operations project 104–106 human resource management 227;
Lean production 69 international concepts 25, 48, 92–93,
learning 14, 16–17, 101, 153, 359; 110; Lean 92, 97, 100–110, 130; new
contribution to growth 362; democracy at public management 232; Norwegian
work 49, 51, 54, 61; inclusion collaboration experiments 54; by
201–202, 204; lifelong 19, 153–154, objectives 263, 264, 272, 274, 275–276,
178–193; Nordic Working life Model 277; police ofcers 269–270, 272,
109; psychosocial working environment 274, 275–276; precarious work
121, 122; union revitalization 181–182; 311–312; transfer of concepts 92, 96,
work-based 167, 168 99; translation of concepts 92, 98–99,
learning disabilities 154, 200 103–109, 110
Lefebvre, Henri 139, 308 Mäntylä, Hans 141
legislation: Denmark 115, 294; Norway manufacturing 62, 69, 78–79
17, 34, 39–40, 57, 115, 292–293; marginalization 4, 194–195, 196,
Occupational Health and Safety 116–118, 199–200, 291
124, 127; Police Act 266; standard market model 124–125
employment relationship 327, 330; marketization: elderly care 219, 246, 248,
temporary work 332; working hours 252; neo-liberal reforms 159; new
14–15, 115–116, 143, 145–149, 150; public management 217, 220, 221, 225,
see also regulation; Working 228–229, 236, 243, 255
Environment Act Marshall Plan 53, 93
liberalism 2, 40, 49–50, 362 Marx, Karl 305
Liebst, L. S. 250 maternity leave 19, 135, 295
lifelong learning 19, 153–154, 178–193 Maurice, M. 156
LO see Norwegian Confederation of meaning/meaninglessness 308–310
Trade Unions Meidner, Rudolf 24
local training agencies (LTAs) 169–170 mental health problems 4, 154, 194–195,
lockouts 32, 34, 75, 144 199; inclusion 197–198; Supported
Lorey, Isabell 285, 288 Employment 200
low-skilled labour 156, 158, 159, 162; Meyer, R. E. 276
construction sector 166; fexibility Midtbø, Magnus 185
288; graduates 312–313; migrants 62; migrants 25, 62, 130, 331; active labour
precarious work 302; wages 18 market policies 195–196; construction
loyalty 68, 70–71, 73, 87, 88–89; sector 166–167, 173; impact on
corporations and non-corporations low-skilled jobs 156; platforms 349,
80; foreign or domestic ownership 82; 351; precarious work 289–290, 296
Index 371
minimum wage 24, 153, 292–293, 331; Nordic approach 2–3, 44–45, 47, 359,
platforms 343, 352; vocational education 362, 363
and training 158, 161 Nordic model 2, 10, 194, 359; conficts 30,
mobility 18, 21, 22, 153, 180 44; constructive confict partnership 12;
Moene, K. O. 24 education 172; fundamental narrative 11;
Monrad, M. 250 governance 76; neo-liberalism 43; new
‘moral stress’ 236 public management 236–237; under
motivation 50, 71, 194; new public pressure 26; support-side approach to
management 232; police ofcers 270–271, inclusion 209; working time 134, 149
276; social support 122; working Nordic Working life Model (NWM)
environment 119, 121 76, 78–80, 89, 93–95, 101, 109–110;
Moum, J. V. 103 co-determination 72; compromise and
Murgia, A. 307 consensus 144; democracy at work 58;
mutual dependency 9–10 international management concepts 92;
Lean management concept 103,
NAV see Norwegian Labour and Welfare 104–105; under pressure 87–88;
Service vocational education and training 107,
‘negotiated modernization’ 222, 223–224, 158–159
225, 236, 254 Nordrik, Bitten 47, 67–91
negotiation 13, 181; democracy at work Norway 3–4; basic agreements 33, 35,
56; new public management 236; 50, 55–56, 58, 67, 72, 180, 182–183;
participation and involvement 70; collective agreements 12; competence
social-democratic era 37 reform 182–184; democracy at work
neo-institutional approach 98 49, 51, 52–60, 61, 67, 72, 73–85;
neo-liberalism 7, 30–31, 40–44, 88, 89, economic success 23–24; employers’
320; deregulation 155, 174, 287, 305; associations 12; employment security 3,
New Public Governance 218; new 18–19, 26n8; governance models 88–89;
public management 224, 227–228, 237; inclusion 194, 196–197, 198, 199, 200,
precarious work 288, 291, 305, 306; 203, 204–206; Industrial Democracy
reforms 159, 162; social work 230 research programme 94–95, 97;
neo-Taylorization 63, 166, 226, 230, 250, industrialization 31; institutionalization
345–346, 348 of class conficts 33–35; job satisfaction
Nesheim, T. 332 26n6; knowledge workers 11; Lean
Netherlands 16, 55, 119 management concept 101, 103,
New Public Governance (NPG) 218, 219, 104–106; lifelong learning 178, 179,
228, 237, 244, 246–247, 255 182–190; Marshall Plan 93; migrants
new public management (NPM) 4–5, 6, 43, 289–290; multinational corporation case
79, 81, 217–220, 221–242; elderly care study 85–88; neo-liberalism 43–44; new
219, 246–255; health-care sector 164; public management 82–85, 217; OECD
human resource management 226–227; Job Quality Framework 1; part-time
impact on working life 229–236, 237; work 289; pension funds 52; police
limited success 228–229; police ofcers ofcers 219, 260–282; political issues 50;
219, 262, 263–265, 267, 269, 272–277; precarious work 291, 296; psychosocial
principal-agent model 205; privatization working environment 121–122, 130;
of state enterprises 82–85; resistance to quality of daily work 14–17; regulation
233–235, 237; standardization 69 2, 13, 115–127, 130–131, 291–293;
NHO see Norwegian Confederation of social-democratic era 36, 38, 39–40;
Enterprise standard employment relationship 322,
Nielsen, B. S. 307 323–335; tax burden 20; temporary
Nielsen, Klaus T. 48, 115–133 work 283–284, 293; ‘top level
Nielsen, Peter 25 partnership’ 37; union density 12;
non-corporations 80–81, 90 vocational education and training
372 Index
155–157, 160–161, 163–170, 172–174; 312; health-care sector 164; involuntary

wages 17–18, 42; welfare state 22; 290; platform economy 351; regulation
working conditions 5; working time 294; work/life balance 119; young
137; World Happiness Report 1; young people 162
people 162, 360 participation 54–55, 60, 69–70, 72–73,
Norwegian Confederation of Enterprise 88–89, 117; corporations and non-
(NHO) 179, 180, 183–186, 187–188, corporations 80; decline in 88; foreign
189–190, 324, 329 or domestic ownership 82; formal
Norwegian Confederation of Trade democratic structures 75–76; governance
Unions (LO) 52, 57, 180, 182, 183–186, models 68, 73–74; multinational
190, 324, 330, 331 corporation case study 85, 86, 88;
Norwegian Engineers and Managers Nordic Working life Model 109;
Association (FLT) 179, 183, 184–188, precarious work 310–311; privatization
189–190 of state enterprises 83–84; sectors and
Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service industries 77–78; self-governing work
(NAV) 204–206 groups 59; working environment
NPG see New Public Governance regulation 118; see also democracy;
nurses 163–165, 218, 231–232, 235 involvement
nursing 78–79 partnerships 181, 184, 185, 189; see also
public-private partnerships
obedience 68, 70–71, 73, 87, 88–89; Pateman, C. 50
corporations and non-corporations paternity leave 19, 295
80; foreign or domestic ownership 82; Payne, J. 181, 184, 190
formal democratic structures 75–76; Pearson, Mark 1
multinational corporation case study 88; Peck, J. 320
privatization of state enterprises 83–84; pensions 43, 52, 295
sectors and industries 77–79 performance measurement 71, 86–87
Ocasios, H. 261 Perlman, Selig 322
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) permanent employment 306, 322, 323,
116–118, 124, 126–127, 128, 130; see 325, 327, 329
also health, environment and safety Pio, Louis 31–32
OECD see Organization for Economic platform economy 284, 304, 339–358
Cooperation and Development Polanyi, Karl 285
Ohno, Taiichi 100 polarization 285, 286, 289, 296
OHS see Occupational Health and Safety police ofcers 219, 220, 260–282;
oil industry 23–24, 27n11, 62, 69, 77–79, changes in public contact 267–268,
84, 126 272–273; changing knowledge base
Olsén, P. 307 273–274; fnancial management 267;
Organization for Economic Cooperation historical reform perspective 262–266;
and Development (OECD) 1, 20, 22, institutional logics 261–262, 275,
24, 195 276–277; outsourcing of tasks 268–269;
organizational model 124, 125 prioritization of tasks 269–271;
organizational restructuring 181, 186, professional identity 275–277;
189, 190 standardization of front-line work
overtime 15, 135 271–272; transformation of core tasks
ownership 79, 81–82 266–267
political action 181, 184, 189
Paolucci, Gabriella 139 political discourse 354
Parent-Thirion, A. 119–120 political issues 50, 56
parliament model 124, 125 post-Fordism 287, 291, 306, 320, 321
part-time work 15, 194, 289; fexibility pragmatic neo-institutional approach 98
287; gender segregation 20; graduates precariat 286–287
Index 373
precarious work 4–5, 6, 62, 283, 285–301, recruitment 203

302–319, 320, 334; construction sector Refslund, B. 290
166; graduates 302, 304–305, 306–316; regulation 2–3, 13, 21, 48, 115–133,
labour hire 334; notion of precarity 291–295; democracy at work 57; models
305–306; platforms 341, 348–350, 351, 124–126; Occupational Health and
355; regulation of work arrangements Safety 116–118, 124, 126–127, 128,
291–295; research on 303–304; standard 130; platforms 350, 351–352, 353, 355,
employment relationship 323; see also 356; standard employment relationship
temporary work 324, 327; temporary work 283–284,
principal-agent theory 243 293, 296, 320–321, 324, 327–330,
privatization 2, 43, 82–85, 90, 226, 228, 332–334; see also legislation
286; see also deregulation rehabilitation 246–247, 248–249, 250–251,
productivity 21, 43, 44, 53; autonomy 252–253, 254
linked to 16; competition 69; Rehn, Gösta 24
cooperation experiments 117; resistance: elderly care 254; new public
democracy at work 50, 59; new public management 233–235, 237; police
management 222, 226, 229–230; ofcers 277
regulation of working hours 115; respect 44
self-governing work groups 59, 70; responsibilization 232, 247
solidarity wage policy 24; supply-side responsible autonomy 236, 250, 251, 254
approaches 196; work organization 94 rhythms 139–141, 145–149, 150; platforms
professional communities 11 348, 355, 356; precarious work 308
professional identities: care workers 251–253, Richardson, L. 341
254–255; police ofcers 275–277; Rifkin, J. 340
precarious work 306, 310, 312–314, 316 Riis, A. H. 127, 128
professionalism 231, 237; elderly care risk assessment 126, 127
243–244, 254, 255; police ofcers 262–263 risk factors 119–120
professionalization: elderly care 243, 244, Robens, Lord 116
247, 248, 251, 252, 254; new public Rokkan, Stein 13–14, 37
management 224–225, 233, 234, 236, Rosa, Hartmut 140, 348, 350, 355
237; vocational education and Røvik, Kjell Arne 98, 99
training 156 Rubenson, K. 178
psychological factors 118 Rudstam, H. 199
public-private partnerships 228 Ryberg, M. 232
public sector 2, 19, 25, 261; cuts 227;
democracy at work 50, 56, 60; safety 7, 130, 131; see also health,
employers’ associations 12; gender environment and safety; Occupational
segregation 20; as a labour market 223; Health and Safety
new public management 4–5, 217, safety representatives 40, 52, 57, 67, 85, 86
221–242, 263, 264; temporary work Salomon, Robert H. 48, 115–133
304; see also state-owned enterprises; Sandberg, Å. 101
welfare professionals Sander, N. 307
purchaser-provider model 246, 248, 249 Schaft, Angelika 154, 194–215
Schulten, T. 289
quality 11, 14–17, 119, 286 SE see Supported Employment
security experts 359–360
Rainbird, H. 182 self-employment 309–310, 349
Rasmussen, Jens 131 self-governing work groups 58–59, 70, 117
Rasmussen, M. B. 123 Sennett, R. 286, 287
Rasmussen, S. 290, 294 ‘September Agreement’ (1899) 33
rationalization 38–39, 93, 217 SER see standard employment relationship
REC Herøya 105–106, 110n1 service sector 120–121
374 Index
shame 314, 316, 317 standard employment relationship (SER)

shareholder values 62, 168 43–44, 285–286, 289, 292, 293, 297,
shareholders 79, 81 320–338, 341
‘sharing economy’ 339, 340–341, standard operating procedures 62–63, 69,
342, 356 85–86
shift work 138, 140 standardization 4, 26, 53, 58, 62–63;
shop stewards 13, 15, 37, 51, 52, 59, elderly care 219, 220, 235, 246, 249,
81–82; see also workers’ representatives 252, 254; new public management
sickness absence 4, 43, 59, 94, 317 217–218, 220, 222, 229–231, 232, 236,
Siemens AG 58–59 243; oil and gas industry 85; platforms
skilled labour: fexibility 288; precarious 343, 345–346, 351, 353; police work
work 302; vocational education and 219, 220, 271–272, 274, 277; social-
training 158, 160, 172, 173–174; wages democratic era 40; vocational education
18; see also graduates and training 157, 172
skills: collective skill formation 156–157, standardization and control governance
172; inclusion skills competence 195, model 68, 69, 73, 88–89; corporations
206–208; Lean management concept and non-corporations 80; foreign
108; polarization 286, 296; regulation of or domestic ownership 82; formal
working hours 115; upgrading 153, 159, democratic structures 75–76;
178–179, 182; vocational education and privatization of state enterprises 83–84,
training 157–158, 159–160, 172 90; sectors and industries 77–79
Skorstad, E. J. 99 Standing, Guy 286–287, 304, 305, 308,
Skule, S. 182 348, 350
social acceleration 347–348 state 13, 17, 22, 89; ‘competition state’
social capital 22–23 295, 305, 320, 321; social-democratic
social care/social work 218, 221, 223, era 36, 38; see also government
224–225, 230–231; see also intervention; welfare state
elderly care state-owned enterprises 76–77, 89; new
social-democratic era 30, 36–40, 44, 89 public management 226; privatization of
Social Democrats 30, 36–38, 43, 52 82–85, 228, 286; see also public sector
social identity 275, 276 Steen, Arild Henrik 7, 9–29
social mobility 2, 153, 155, 185, 187 Storsveen, M. 103
social parties 3, 11, 12–13; see also stratifcation 157
employers’ associations; unions Streeck, Wolfgang 41
social policy 21, 22, 40, 230, 283 stress 5, 121, 317; knowledge workers
social security 1, 31, 158, 194, 354, 10–11; moral 236; new public
355–356; ‘competitive solidarity’ 41; management 233, 236; precarious work
fexicurity 302; migrants 290; platform 314; teachers 146
workers 349; social-democratic strikes: care workers 250; Denmark 32, 33,
era 36; young people 161; see also 39; Norway 34, 35, 75, 183; resistance
unemployment benefts; welfare state to NPM 233–234
social support 122, 140, 200 Stuart, M. 182, 183
socialism 2, 34, 35, 50, 51 supply economics 23
sociotechnical tradition 16, 51, 53, 55, supply-side approaches 195, 196, 201,
57; management concepts 93, 101; 208, 209
responsible autonomy 236; working support-side approaches 195, 199–208,
time 137 209–210
solidarity wage policy 24 Supported Employment (SE) 18, 200–201,
Sørhaug, Tian 97 202, 205
Soskice, D. 41 sustainable development 360–361
Spjelkavik, Øystein 154, 194–215 Sweden: democracy at work 49, 61;
Srnicek, N. 355 The Developmental Work concept 95;
Index 375
employee involvement 16; employment ‘top level partnership’ 37

security 3; exports 24; GDP 23; general Toyoda, Sakichi 100
agreements 33; inclusion 203; industrial Toyota 100
reform 117; Lean management concept trade unions see unions
103; migrants 290; pension funds 52; training 19, 21, 42, 59; costs of 180;
platforms 343, 353; regulation 2, 126; human resource management 227;
social-democratic era 36; sociotechnical Lean management 104, 107–109;
tradition 16, 55; vocational education police ofcers 260–261; precarious
and training 155–158, 160–161, work 295; training centres 170–171;
163–169, 171–174; working time 137; vocational 104, 153, 155–177; welfare
young people 162 professionals 222; see also education;
Switzerland 119 lifelong learning
system theory 9 transformation management 70, 71, 85, 87
transition systems/regimes 161, 162
Tamesberger, D. 161 Trist, Eric 94
Tavistock Institute 51, 53, 55, 94 trust 7, 22–23, 31, 70; new public
taxes 20, 22, 26n10, 354 management 232, 234; platforms 346
Taylorism 38–39, 116, 136, 173; new truth regimes 68, 89
public management 226, 243; Nordic Trydegård, G.-B. 230
Working life Model 93, 95; see also Tufte, P. 235, 250
neo-Taylorization Tufts, S. 181
teachers 142–149, 150, 218, 225, 235 Tweedie, D. 307
Technical Colleges 171
technical system 9, 10, 11 Uber 339, 343, 344, 351–352, 353
technology: competition 344; elderly care uncertainty 10–11, 285, 294, 317, 347,
63, 248–249, 253; IT developments 350; see also insecurity; precarious work
360; platforms 284, 304, 339–358; Underthun, Anders 153–154, 178–193,
police work 271, 272, 277; precarious 283, 285–301, 320–338
work 304; technological development unemployment 1, 136, 210n3; fexicurity
58, 155; technology industry 294, 302; low 19, 158, 195, 351, 354,
78–79 355, 356; platforms 349; rise in 42, 289,
Teige, B. K. 182, 183 328; youth 161, 162, 166–167, 172
temporality 48, 134, 139–142, 145–146, unemployment benefts 3, 13, 18, 136,
148, 150, 348; see also rhythms 292, 294, 295, 305; see also social
temporary work 19, 121, 283–284, 289, security
290; fexibility 287; graduates 302, unfair dismissal 322, 327, 328, 330
304, 310–312, 313, 314–315, 316; unions 2–3, 13, 30, 159, 363;
regulation 292, 294, 296, 320–321, co-determination 67, 72; ‘competitive
324, 327–330, 332–334; relationships solidarity’ 41; construction sector 165,
with management 311–312; relevance 166; democracy at work 49, 51–52,
of unions to 360; standard employment 54–56, 59–60, 75; Denmark 31–33,
relationship 324–335; uncertainty 350 38–39; density 12, 26, 62, 292, 323,
Terjesen, Einar 35 360; foreign or domestic ownership
Thelen, Kathleen 41 81–82; green agenda 362, 363;
Thompson, E. P. 136 knowledge workers 11; lifelong learning
Thörnquist, A. 290 153–154, 179, 180–182, 183–184,
Thornton, P. H. 261 187–188, 189–190; local training
Thorsrud, Einar 53–55, 57–58, 69–70, 89, agencies 170; multinational corporation
94, 121–122 case study 86–87; neo-liberalism 43;
Tickell, A. 320 new public management 229; Norway
time pressure 233, 236, 249–250 33–35, 37, 39, 40, 117; organizing and
Toivanen, S. 102 service models of unionism 180–182,
376 Index
187, 189; pension funds 52; platforms 36; solidarity wage policy 24; standard
351, 352–353, 354, 355; precarious employment relationship 332; wage drift
work 295, 296, 304, 315, 316–317; 325, 327; see also minimum wage
privatization of state enterprises 83; Warhurst, C. 181–182
professionalization 225; public sector Warring, Niels 283, 285–301, 302–319
217, 223, 224; skill upgrading 178–179; Wathne, Christin Thea 217–220, 260–282
social-democratic era 36, 38–39, 40; Weber, Søren Salling 283, 284, 285–301,
standard employment relationship 322, 339–358
323, 324; teachers 144; temporary work Wehman, P. 200
293, 324–325, 326, 328; wages 17, 18; welfare professionals 217–218, 222,
weakening of infuence 286; workfare 224–225, 229; adaptation of NPM by
42–43; working time 15, 134, 135, 136, 235, 237; elderly care 219, 244, 254;
143, 292; workplace assessment 127 police ofcers 219, 260–282; resistance
United Kingdom: coal mine studies 93–94; by 233–234, 237; responsible
democracy at work 53–54; elderly care autonomy 236
250; human resource management 227; welfare state 2, 7, 11, 17, 20–22, 30,
Lean production 102; lifelong learning 221; education 155; elderly care 245;
182; neo-liberalism 41; new public encouragement of labour market
management 82; police work 267; participation 194, 195; expansion of the
sociotechnical studies 93; union density 223; neo-liberal turn 305; new public
12; working time 136 management 218, 222, 226; platform
United States: democracy at work 51; workers 349, 355; retrenchment 253; shift
Lean production 102; management to competition state 320; support-side
consultants 97; neo-liberalism 41 approach to inclusion 209; uncertainty
universal social rights 20–21, 22 317; weakening of the 159; see also social
user involvement 228, 237 security; unemployment benefts
wellbeing 57, 116–117, 362
Vabø, M. 249 Wilhelmsen, L. S. 185, 187
Valizade, D. 197 Womack, J. P. 100, 106
values 70–71, 149, 340 women: active labour market policies
Van Berkel, R. 204, 206 195–196; education 155; elderly care
Vartiainen, Juha 24 245, 251; employment 194; gender
Vocational Colleges 171–172 segregation 19–20; health-care sector
vocational education and training (VET) 163; labour market participation 22;
104, 107–109, 153, 155–177 police ofcers 260; public sector workers
Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) 195, 196 223; work/life balance 119; see also
voluntary work 361 gender
Volvo 117 work experience placements 201–202
Vornholt, K. 199 work/life balance 48, 119, 138, 142, 147
Vosko, Leah 286, 289, 322, 323 Work Life Barometer 11, 26n1
VR see Vocational Rehabilitation Work Research Institute 53, 54, 95, 97
workers’ representatives 13, 15, 23, 25;
wages 1, 4, 9, 17–18; basic agreements autonomy 16–17; boards of directors 51,
35; co-determination 72; collective 52, 56, 67, 94; democracy at work 49,
agreements 12, 13, 42; concessions for 60–61, 75; global competition 42; Lean
lifelong learning 188; fexibility 287; Operations project 105; multinational
foreign or domestic ownership 82; high corporation case study 85, 86; workplace
23, 158, 356; impact of migration on assessment 126, 128
25, 166, 289–290; labour hire 331, workfare 21, 40, 42–43, 230, 295, 305
333, 334; Norway 34; platforms 341, working conditions 4–5, 10, 20, 21,
343, 350, 353, 356; polarization 286, 25–26; collective agreements 12, 13;
296; security 14; social-democratic era construction sector 166; democracy
Index 377
at work 50, 51, 54; elderly care 244; working hours 14–15, 23, 48, 134–152;
indicators 119–121; migrants 290; diferent forms of fexible 136–137;
neo-liberalism 41; new public knowledge workers 10–11; regulation
management 222, 234; Norway 34; 115–116, 124, 292; teachers’ working
platforms 352–353, 354, 355; precarious time 142–149, 150; temporary work
work 62, 309, 351; social-democratic 326; work/life balance 119; zero-hours
era 36, 40; sustainable 317; contracts 329
temporary work 333 Working Time Act (Denmark, 2013) 143,
working environment 1, 4, 13, 14, 145–149, 150
17, 99; expert-based management workload 4, 11, 233
359–360; indicators 119–121; Lean workplace assessment 126, 127–128, 131
management concept 102, 106–107; works councils 15, 94; co-determination
new public management 233, 237; 72; democracy at work 51, 52, 57, 60;
psychosocial 43, 61, 106, 118–119, foreign or domestic ownership 81–82
121–123, 128, 130–131, 150, World Happiness Report 1
234–235, 237; regulation 48, 57, World War I 34, 51, 52, 135
115–133 World War II 38, 51, 52, 93, 116, 323
Working Environment Act (Denmark,
1975) 118, 123 Ylijoki, Oili-Helena 141
Working Environment Act (Norway, young people: mental health problems
1977) 17, 39–40, 292–293; bullying and 194–195; unions 360; vocational
harassment 122; democracy at work 57; education and training 153, 155–177;
Occupational Health and Safety 116–118; wages 24; work experience
standard employment relationship 327, placements 202
328, 330; temporary work 329 Yugoslavia 53–54
working environment councils 60, 67;
see also works councils zero-hours contracts 329

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Work and Wellbeing in the

• How work organization is formed

Helge Hvid is a professor at Roskilde University of Working Life Studies,

Eivind Falkum is research professor at the University OsloMet. He holds a

Critical Perspectives on the World’s

Edited by Helge Hvid and

ISBN: 978-0-8153-8723-7 (hbk)

1 Nordic working life, shaped through conflicts and

2 The peculiar history of Nordic working life 30

4 Workplace democracy under pressure 67

5 International management concepts meeting Nordic

6 Working environment regulation in Norway and Denmark 115

7 New working time and new temporalities: the erosion of

8 Young people’s access to working life in three Nordic

9 Bargaining for continuing education: a Norwegian case of

10 Tackling increasing marginalization: can support-side

11 Nordic New Public Management: the case of Denmark 221

12 Welfare professionals in transformation: the case of

13 Welfare professionals in transformation: the case of police

14 Precarity in Nordic working life? 285

15 Experiences of precarious work among graduates in the

16 The formation and destabilization of the standard

17 Working life on Nordic labour platforms 339

Closure: the end of the story? 359

Critical Perspectives on the World’s

Edited by Helge Hvid and

Robert Salomon is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Arild Henrik Steen is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Anders Underthun is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Bitten Nordrik is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet, Norway.

Heidi Enehaug is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Ida Drange is Research Professor at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Mari Holm Ingelsrud is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute,

Per Bonde Hansen is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Pål Klethagen is Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet, Norway.

Eivind Falkum HYPERLINK “mailto:[email protected]” is Research Professor

Angelika Schafft is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Øystein Spjelkavik is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Kjetil Frøyland is Senior Researcher at Work Research Institute, OsloMet,

Jan Erik Karlsen is Professor Emeritus HYPERLINK “mailto:jan.e.karlsen@

Helge Søndergaard Hvid is Professor Emeritus at Roskilde University,

Annette Kamp is Associate Professor at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Klaus Tranetoft Nielsen is Senior Associate Professor at Roskilde University,

Janne Gleerup is Associate Professor at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen is Associate Professor at Roskilde University,

Søren Salling Weber is a PhD Fellow at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Niels Warring is Associate Professor Henrik at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Christian Helms Jørgensen is Professor (MSO) at Roskilde University,

Agnete Meldgaard Hansen is Associate Professor at Roskilde University,

Anders Jakobsen is a PhD Fellow at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Whether you look at unemployment, employment, income, equality, social security, or

• How work organization is formed (Part II)

• How work is managed in the public sector (Part IV)

The Nordic approach

through agreements between employers’ associations and unions. In Norway

Why Norway and Denmark?

unfold in Norway and Denmark. In most cases we present experiences from

Critique as fuel for the Nordic approach

• Work organization marked by standardization and individualized control

Content of the book

Nordic working life, shaped

The core of the Nordic model

(Sørensen & Holman 2014). On the contrary, according to the Norwegian