Saltsjöbadsandan
Saltsjöbadsandan, the Saltsjöbaden spirit, names the norm of labour-market self-regulation associated with the 1938 agreement between LO and SAF.
Saltsjöbadsandan refers to the cooperative labour-market norm associated with the 1938 Saltsjöbaden Agreement between LO and SAF. The agreement made organised labour and employers responsible for negotiation procedures, conflict rules and grievance handling with limited direct state intervention.
In the Swedish-model story, the phrase points to more than one document. It names the expectation that large economic conflicts should be contained through central organisations, repeated bargaining and institutional trust. That expectation was powerful during the post-war decades, but it weakened under the stagflation and labour conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s.