Notice of Industrial Action

This project aims to study an important element of the collective bargaining process - notice of industrial action (varsel om stridsåtgärder). Swedish law requires that all strikes and lockouts are preluded by a notice, but far from all notices end in work stoppages, in fact strikes and lockouts are rare but notices are not. While strikes and lockouts have received ample attention from researchers, the threat of work stoppage and its use remains undertheorized. We purpose that notices signify disputes in industrial relations and argue that these could be used as a new measure of labor market conflict. Better understanding of collective bargaining and power relations on the labor market require that we map and investigate these notices.

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