Wage-Earners and/or Co-Workers? Contested Identities

Abstract

When it came to the accumulation of working-class powera resources in the Fordist era, the Swedish labour movement was rightly considered the paradigm exemplar. With the adoption of its new strategy, 'solidaristic work for solidaristic wages', Swedish labour also seemed to have developed its own preferred vision of a post-Fordist future. Whether it will actually have the strength required to shape the terms of restructuring, however, is very much dependent on the outcome of a current struggle over the meaning of a new identity, 'co-worker' (medarbetare). Medarbetare traditionally functioned as a synonym for 'colleague' and thus was used to refer to those with high-status jobs who enjoyed a peer relationship with their co-workers and immediate boss. The term has now become an important element in the struggle over the core identity of the social figures who will shape the parameters of post-Fordist Sweden. Are the new medarbetare to be individuated members of the corporate team, as the leading firms in SAF would have it, or will they be the counterpart in production of the old alliance of lontagare (wage-earners) constituted in the sphere of distribution? That is the question to be explored in this article.