Swedish Workers: Democracy In-Action

Per Ahlstrom, Editor of the Swedish Metal-Workers Union Newspaper, came to Harvard before Christmas during a three-week trip to this country. He delivered a speech at the Kennedy School of Government, part of which is excerpted below.

The Metal-Workers Union, the second largest in Sweden, has been involved in many experiments in "industrial democracy" on the shop-floor during the past decade. These include the famous experiments with both Saab-Scania and Volvo which aimed to abolish the assembly line in favor of group assembly in what have come to be known as "autonomous groups." However, Ahlstrom says that in almost all these experiments, "the companies kept control. I don't know of a single experiment that was initiated by the companies that really changed the work organization in such a way that the workers experienced a true change and so that the organization of the whole company was transformed into a more democratic organization."

Below, Ahlstrom describes a recent experiment that has gone beyond its Swedish predecessors and the role of shop-floor democracy within what he calls a "truly democratic society."

I am, of course, very proud to have been invited to speak here at Harvard. I was even a bit nervous coming here. I have had people come up to me and say that this is a really important speech. Don't foul it up.

Just the name Harvard created respect. They looked upon me with respect not because of knowledge I might possess, but because I was going to Harvard.

These reactions really say a lot about our western culture--how we look for authorities, how we respect academic learning more than learning from real life, how little respect we have for the knowledge we acquire from living and working.

I think this shows what we are up against, trying to create democracy in the industrial workplace--a workplace ruled by a hierarchy ever since industry came into existence.

It is strange--but it is a fact--that once inside the company fence members of the city council, people who are trusted to vote in national elections, responsible fathers and mothers, suddenly are treated as children. They are told by the foreman what to do, how much they are to do and in what time they are to do it. They are told which tools to use, how fast the lathe should be running--and the rate setter decides how hard they are working.

This old authoritarian system creates passive people. People who are treated as if they couldn't think for themselves soon stop to think for themselves--just watch the behavior of otherwise active people when they are on a group tour.

This system causes the workers to lose interest in their job. The academics say that they develop an instrumental attitude toward the work. Which means that they work for the paycheck and nothing else.

This system causes blue collar blues.

And blue collar blues is not good for productivity. So companies started to look for ways to avoid blue collar blues. Autonomous groups became one solution. Job rotation was another. Group assembly was hailed as the revolution that did away with the boredom of assembly lines.

We have one company pointing the way. It is not a big company, it is not very well known, and there is really nothing special about it, except for its democratic work organization and its profitability.

Its name is Almex. It makes ticket machines for public transport, parking meters and ticket markers. Ninety-three per cent of its production is exported. It has about 270 employees.

Let's take a look at the Almex autonomous departments:

In these departments the foreman, appointed by the management, has given way to a contact person, elected by the group of workers itself. The contact person keeps track of what the production manager, planners, engineers and buyers are doing. He (or she) informs the group of what is going on.

The rights and the competence of the group include the following:

*The group takes its own decisions in joint council.

*There has to be cooperation with all parties involved.

*Work supervision and planning is decided by the group.

*The group plans the job rotation within the department.

*The group decides on temporary overtime and can also give some time off. Leave of absence is given by the production manager.

*The group can give the group members a certain education and can also develop its own work methods to a certain extent.

*The group itself appoints a formal contact person.

*The group is collectively responsible for its commitments.

*Consultation with the production manager is to take place when there are production problems which jeopardize monthly deliveries or other plans made.

This is not exactly what the union wanted, but it is a compromise reached in negotiations.

Production planning is primarily done by informal contacts between the production manager, the planning department and the contact people in the various groups. the contact people must approve the production schedule which is drawn up by the planning department.

If unusual orders come up, if overtime seems to be necessary, the group involved must always be contacted before the production schedule is made up. And since the groups have the best knowledge of the actual situation they are sometimes contacted before an order is accepted.

Once this led to the employees accepting an order which the management was prepared to turn down. The groups redistributed work among themselves and made room for this order so as not to risk losing an interesting market.

The organization of the work within the groups varies. In some groups the older people have been reluctant to let go of their old jobs. But in a very short time they have added on tasks that are connected to the job so that they develop their skills without really noticing it. The goal is that everyone in every group should be able to do all the tasks in the group.

The autonomous groups make people develop. Take one guy they had, who was considered to be stupid. He was a bit peculiar, about ten years behind in his mental development, very fixed to his mother. He had been mobbed at school and he didn't have any friends on the job. He was put on simpler and simpler tasks. He worked so slow that he couldn't be considered an ordinary worker, part of his wages were paid by the government.

Now this same guy does one of the most complicated jobs they have at Almex, he builds ticket machines for parking lots. He is still slow, but he is careful, and he never does anything wrong, which compensates for his lack of speed. His self-confidence is better. He is no longer suspicious like he used to be. And he is now accepted as a worker. Even though he still is a bit peculiar and has virtually no personal friends he is an accepted member of the group. "This is wonderful," he said to me. "This is the best thing that ever happened."

Another example: How much faith do you think an employer usually would put in two 18-year-old women and a 26-year-old he thought of firing a couple of months ago? Not much I would say. But during the vacation period, when everybody else in their group was away, these three women assembled three very complicated machines of an unusual model and delivered them on time--even though they had to order new parts for it, as they were sent parts for another model. They were challenged, they met the challenge and now they know that they can do things that nobody really trusted them with.

People have grown into their new responsibilities. In the beginning the contact person had to perform most of the foreman's old job, fill out order forms for parts, distribute the work, etc. Now people fill out their own forms and get themselves the parts they need.

The office of contact person is also to be rotated.

Now you say--what is the difference if I have a contact person or a foreman who tells me what to do. For the people in the autonomous groups there are many differences:

1. A contact person is chosen--and can be dismissed--by the workers. A foreman is appointed by the management and is not easy to get rid of.

2. A supervisor has closer ties to the management, whereas the contact person is a member of the workers collective.

3. The supervisor doesn't take part in the actual production and never really becomes a member of the group.

All the workers I talked to at Almex praised their freedom in the autonomous groups. They told me that they now thought it was fun to go to work, that they had started to talk much more with their colleagues, even about personal matters. Quite a few of them had become very good personal friends, and had started to see each other in their leisure time, too.

In a study made, 91 per cent of the workers, in the autonomous groups stated that they thought the system was good or very good, 9 per cent thought it was neither good nor bad and none of them thought it was a bad system.

I would call that a success. And the board of the Metalworkers local, which is behind it all, certainly calls it a success, even though they are fully aware that they haven't solved all the problems, even at Almex. But the changes they have seen in people have been reward enough, and it makes them continue the fight to develop the autonomous groups even further.

And it really has been a fight.

Just a couple of weeks ago a rumor started among the white collar workers that one of the autonomous groups didn't work, that production had virtually stopped. This was quite untrue. But it shows that the autonomous groups are not so firmly established that they cannot be challenged by the opponents.

The organization at Almex is not protected by legislation or national agreements either. So it is a vulnerable situation.

But the people at Almex have a lot of things going for them. They have proved that workers are capable of running the actual production on their own. Productivity has increased even though they went from piecework rates to hourly wages. Profits are up. The company does not have to pay for foremen, ratesetters and all of this bureaucracy that most companies have created to control their workers.

So at Almex everybody has come out on top.

Almex shows what can be done in the field of industrial democracy within the restrictions of the present economic system.

But it is not a true democracy. The real decision-making still rests with the stockholders.

The proposal that emerged--the Meidner Plan is still a bit sketchy; many problems are still not solved. But the principle is quite simple.

In short the proposal calls for 20 per cent of companies' pre-tax profits to be transmitted into employee funds. This capital should not leave the companies, but stay as collectively owned stock capital, administered by the employees through their representatives.

This scheme does not give any benefit to the individual employee. The benefits come in the form of 1) more secure jobs as the stock capital of the firm is increased, making more investment capital available, 2) more influence on company decision, and 3) a more equal distribution of wealth.

There has been a lively and sometimes fierce debate in Sweden over this proposal, which--if it was adopted by parliament--over a period of about 25 years would turn over the majority of the shares of most companies into the hands of the employees. Whether this plan will come off or not I don't know, but there is a general agreement in Sweden--with the exception of the conservative party and the employers associations--that some scheme has to be put into effect to raise more investment capital, to create a more equal distribution of wealth and influence by spreading the shareholding in some way.

Capitalism limits the political democracy by putting crucial economic decisions into the hands of the large corporations. And the large corporations are certainly not democratic organizations.

According to the views of the Swedish trade union movement true democracy cannot be achieved until all members of the society have real power to influence their total lives.

This means that in addition to the political powers they have through their voting rights and their political organizations, they should also be able to participate in the decision-making in the workplace. They must be able to influence company decisions at all levels, from the shop floor to the board room.

Only then, when all decisions affecting the lives of people, are taken in a democratic manner, can we speak of a truly democratic society.

The political democracy was the first step on the road, social democracy, giving everybody a decent standard of living was the second step. And we are now making our first moves to take the third step: industrial democracy.

I hope I will live long enough to be able to come here and tell the future Harvard students how it all worked out.