Typically, the labour movement of the Nordic countries is regarded as negotiation-oriented, moderate, and homogenous. This is one of the main reasons why, with the dramatic exception of the Finnish Civil War in 1918, the Nordic countries have been characterised by a lack of social and political conflict, especially when compared with other parts of Europe during the twentieth century. However, you only have to scratch the surface of these familiar tales to realise that there is much more to the history of the Nordic labour movements than that. This book not only scratches the surface: it digs deep into the history. This is done through 17 contributions from 18 authors, several of whom are familiar names to anyone interested in Nordic labour history.
The volume has its background in the Nordic labour history conferences, and especially the one planned to be held in 2020 but which had to be postponed to 2022 due to the Covid pandemic. The postponement gave time for a particularly thorough preparation, which resulted in several of the articles that are now being published.
The book opens with two chapters by the editors, which introduce the book's general issues and seek to establish a theoretical framework and an empirical overview of the long lines of the history of the Nordic trade union movement. The other 15 contributions, of which only a sample selection can be discussed here in more detail, range chronologically from the end of the 1800s to the present day. In principle, the entire Nordic region is covered. In reality, the emphasis is on Scandinavia, i.e. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Finland is represented with a couple of studies, while Iceland is only sparsely treated. Some chapters describe individual occupational groups, such as typographers or construction workers, in a single country and a limited time period. Others have the character of a comparison, both between the Nordic countries and in one case also with Germany. As such, the book oscillates between close studies, based on qualitative sources such as interviews, and presentations of the long lines in a sociological perspective, based on mainly quantitative sources; thus illuminating the overall subject from different angles and with different perspectives.
The purpose of the book, as stated on page 1, is to "take a closer look at the mobilization strategies of trade union activists and their organizations, formal or informal, and how they interacted with other major collective actors". In addition, there is a desire to deconstruct the above-mentioned perception of the Nordic trade union movement as a homogeneous unit. The editors start by taking a critical look at previous descriptions of "radicalism" in the Nordic labour movements, which in their view explain this phenomenon primarily as an anomaly and as a result of structural and economic changes. This applies, for example, to the hypothesis that radicalism in Norway in the 1910s and 1920s in particular, but also in other parts of the Nordic countries, was a reaction to forced industrialisation in traditionally rural settings. Instead, the book wants to focus more strongly on actors and interactions. At the same time, it explicitly draws on newer theories of social movements and social mobilization. This approach is positively reflected throughout the book, in the form of a generally more nuanced view and understanding of radicalism and activism in the Nordic trade union movement. However, when you try to break new paths in this way, there are of course also elements that lend themselves to discussion.
In the chapter "Social Movement Unionism in Denmark, 1940–85", co-editor Flemming Mikkelsen introduces the concept of "social movement unionism", which is defined by the American labour scholar Lowell Turner as "an activist mobilization-based unionism that, in contrast to established insider unionism, pushes for substantial social change." (pp. 135–36) It would have been beneficial to add some reflections on the extent to which this definition might mirror an American context. The American trade union movement has historically been characterized by “business unionism” (in the form of the American Federation of Labor, AFL), which excluded any form of radical social criticism, relegating it to the role of external opposition. In contrast, the Nordic trade union movement has grown out of an explicitly socialist tradition, and throughout its history has advocated various visions of social reform. This obviously provides different contexts for the relations between activism and established unionism.
Later in the same chapter, the author sets up a schema of agents of mobilization, stretched between the two poles of “Internal organizing” and “External organizing” (p. 145). Close to the first we find "Informal groups", while "Trade unions" are close to the latter. The question arises whether this construct – perhaps as a reminiscence of an originally American conceptual apparatus – is not too rigid and schematic in its binary opposing of the informal, activist groups to the formally organized trade union movement? Actually, several of the book's empirical studies show how the two in reality affect each other.
For instance, Finn Olstads chapter on trade union opposition and local activism in Norway 1900–1939 highlights both how radical activism challenges the formally organized trade union movement, forcing it to react and develop. But also how the formally organized trade union movement on the other hand creates a space, in a broad sense, to which activism may not only relate but sometimes also function in. Both Olstad, and Jesper Jørgensen in his chapter on mass protests and activism in post-war Copenhagen, furthermore show how one person can take part in activist, informal groups, while at other or even the same times holding positions of trust in the established trade union movement.
Furthermore, in his comparative article on wildcat strikes in Denmark and Germany 1960–1973, Peter Birke explicitly writes, following an illuminating review of the complicated relations between local activism, politicization, and formal organization: "The dispersed, decentered character of these [local] labour struggles is by no means unconnected with state regulation and union bargaining policy, which repeatedly react to them, take up the demands, reinterpret them, etc." (p. 323)
It also seems to me a little bit categorical when the editors justify the desire for a more actor-oriented perspective by the claim that classes do not exist at the empirical level: "classes do not exist as cohesive social collectives, and they do not mobilize on shared common interests." (p. 7) On the contrary, with a slightly more dialectical approach, one could argue that social mobilization around common interests is precisely one of the ways in which classes manifest themselves empirically.
Of course, not only the type and character of radical mobilization, but its political and social context changes profoundly throughout the long time period covered by this volume. The empirical cases presented are themselves evidence of that. Some of them also discuss this in a more systematic way, such as Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir and Silke Neunsinger in their chapter on fighting unequal pay between men and women 1900–1985.
As mentioned before, long term trends and developments are also laid out systematically in the second of the two opening chapters by the editors, on trends and fluctuations in labour market relations 1848–2020. Here, the history of the Nordic labour movement is divided into six periods. Such periodization is helpful in providing an overview, but is of course always debateable. In this case, the editors’ focus has clearly been upon the internal dynamics of the labour movement, and different political and ideological tendencies within it. In contrast, the wider context, affecting the limits and possibilities of national class struggle, is treated somewhat haphazardly. Most remarkably, the rivalry between two distinct economic and political systems during the Cold War, and the possibilities it provided for the labour movement in Western Europe to obtain concessions on material welfare in exchange for social peace, is not even mentioned. The overall result being that the history of Nordic union activism appears somewhat self-contained.
However, despite such criticisms, this book is highly recommended to anyone who is interested in the history of the labour movement in the Nordic countries, or more generally in radicalism and activism in the trade union movement.