Erik Bengtsson

Swedish trade unions and European Union migrant workers

The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 increased the flows of workers across national borders within the unions, making action against social dumping an increased priority for unions. Which factors influence unions’ choices of strategies against wage dumping? Research has shown that in a cross-national perspective, unions with stronger institutional positions, defined as their influence on public policy and extent of collective bargaining coverage, have tended to be less interested in organising migrant workers than unions with weaker institutional positions. This article examines the choices made by three Swedish unions, all three with strong institutional positions, in responding to migrant workers: two have developed extensive organising responses, while the third relies on cooperation with employers and collective bargaining coverage to counteract social dumping. The article shows that intra-national variation can be explained by sectoral-based issues: that is, variation at both a country and sectoral level influences unions’ strategic choices towards migrant workers. The article further highlights the transference of the Anglo-Saxon union revitalisation model in some sectors of the Swedish trade union movement, which faces increasing pressure as a result of labour precariousness in the Swedish labour market.

Labour's share in twentieth-century Sweden: a reinterpretation

The distribution of national income between capital and labour is a classical theme in political economy. This paper takes a long-run perspective to the issue and asks two questions: How did the distribution of income between capital and labour develop in Sweden from 1900 to 2000? And how can this development best be explained? It is shown that labours share in Sweden in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000 saw three important shifts, and the three shifts are analyzed. Around 1920, there was a surge in labours share as workers mobilised in trade unions and universal suffrage and the eight-hour working day in manufacturing strengthened the bargaining power of workers. From 1950 until the late 1970s, there was another period of an increasing labour share, when the welfare state expanded and trade unions were strong. Contra the well-known postwar wage moderation analysis, there was no wage moderation in Sweden during the 1950s and 1960s, but rather the opposite: wages increased faster than productivity which caused a redistribution from capital to labour and reduced income inequality. The third shift occurred around 1980 when labours share started a continuous decrease, beginning with several devaluations intended to increase profitability and competitiveness of Swedish business.

The (International) Political Economy of Falling Wage Shares: Situating Working-Class Agency

This paper relates the financial and monetary dimensions of the contemporary economic crisis to working-class agency via a central concern of classical political economy: the distribution of surplus between the chief factors of production. The fall in the wage share of value added is now accepted as a stylised fact in the empirical economic literature. This paper argues that the punctuated pattern of the development validates the regulation theoretical narrative of an epochal shift from Fordism to finance-led accumulation. Furthermore, synthesising econometric studies supports a class-centred explanation. In the last instance, the falling wage share is due to successful transnational class rule in the form of a neoliberal hegemonic paradigm. Crucially, such class rule restructured the environment of trade unions, rendering increasingly ineffective its relational power resources. The paper concludes by considering the contradictory implications for organised labour of the current financial crisis. On the one hand, the financial crisis offers an opportunity to link its particular interests to the general interest of macroeconomic management since low wage share inhibits growth rates. But how might trade unions assert a higher wage share in the face of the structural power of (financial) capital?

HMG-CoA reductase expression in primary colorectal cancer correlates with favourable clinicopathological characteristics and an improved clinical outcome.

BackgroundAn association between tumor-specific HMG-CoA reductase (HMGCR) expression and good prognosis has previously been demonstrated in breast and ovarian cancer. In this study, the expression, clinicopathological correlates and prognostic value of HMGCR expression in colorectal cancer was examined.FindingsImmunohistochemical expression of HMGCR was assessed in tissue microarrays with primary tumours from 557 incident cases of colorectal cancer in the Malmö Diet and Cancer Study. Pearson’s Chi Square test was applied to explore the associations between HMGCR expression and clinicopathological factors and other investigative biomarkers. Kaplan Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards modeling were used to assess the relationship between HMGCR expression and cancer-specific survival (CSS) according to negative vs positive HMGCR expression.A total number of 535 (96.0%) tumours were suitable for analysis, of which 61 (11.4%) were HMGCR negative. Positive cytoplasmic HMGCR expression was associated with distant metastasis-free disease at diagnosis (p = 0.002), lack of vascular invasion (p = 0.043), microsatellite-instability (p = 0.033), expression of cyclin D1 (p = <0.001) and p21 (p = <0.001). Positive HMGCR expression was significantly associated with a prolonged CSS in unadjusted Cox regression analysis in the entire cohort (HR = 1.79; 95% CI 1.20-2.66) and in Stage III-IV disease (HR = 1.71; 95% CI 1.09-2.68), but not after adjustment for established clinicopathological parameters.ConclusionsFindings from this prospective cohort study demonstrate that HMGCR is differentially expressed in colorectal cancer and that positive expression is associated with favourable tumour characteristics and a prolonged survival in unadjusted analysis. The utility of HMGCR as a predictor of response to neoadjuvant or adjuvant statin treatment in colorectal cancer merits further study.Virtual slidesThe virtual slides for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/2115647072103464.

Performance characterization of a real-time massive MIMO system with LOS mobile channels

The first measured results for massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) performance in a line-of-sight scenario with moderate mobility are presented, with eight users served in real time using a 100-antenna base station at 3.7 GHz. When such a large number of channels dynamically change, the inherent propagation and processing delay has a critical relationship with the rate of change, as the use of outdated channel information can result in severe detection and precoding inaccuracies. For the downlink (DL) in particular, a time-division duplex configuration synonymous with massive MIMO deployments could mean only the uplink (UL) is usable in extreme cases. Therefore, it is of great interest to investigate the impact of mobility on massive MIMO performance and consider ways to combat the potential limitations. In a mobile scenario with moving cars and pedestrians, the massive MIMO channel is sampled across many points in space to build a picture of the overall user orthogonality, and the impact of both azimuth and elevation array configurations are considered. Temporal analysis is also conducted for vehicles moving up to 29 km/h and real-time bit-error rates for both the UL and DL without power control are presented. For a 100-antenna system, it is found that the channel state information update rate requirement may increase by seven times when compared with an eight-antenna system, whilst the power control update rate could be decreased by at least five times relative to a single antenna system.

Social dumping cases in the Swedish Labour Court in the wake of Laval, 2004–2010

This article studies conflicts in the Swedish Labour Court that have occurred between trade unions and companies concerning the pay and working conditions for European Union migrant workers in Sweden during the period 2004–2010. During this period, unions and employers entered into disputes over: unions’ rights in Sweden to be consulted when a company uses a subcontractor, the definition of an employee (the issue of ‘bogus self-employment’), the application of Swedish collective bargaining agreements to and for workers active in Sweden, how to determine wages for temporary staffing agency workers, and workers’ rights to join a trade union. The article discusses the conflicts in the context of a widespread concern about ‘social dumping’ in the European Union, and in the context of weakening trade unions and institutional change in labour markets.

Do Unions Redistribute Income from Capital to Labour? Union Density and Wage Shares Since 1960

The income distribution between capital and labour is understudied within industrial relations. This article investigates the relationship between union density, taken as an indicator of the bargaining power of unions, and the wage share of national income in 16 advanced capitalist economies since 1960. It is shown that overall there is a positive relationship between union density and the wage share, as one would expect. But the relationship is weak or non-existent in the Nordic countries, and in some specifications in Germany and Anglo-Saxon countries, and overall it is weak in the 1980s and early 1990s. The article discusses the differences between countries in relationship to the literature on corporatism and wage moderation, and the decreasing effect over time with reference to increased global competition and conservatism of monetary policy from about 1980 on, increasing unions incentives for wage moderation policies.

Wealth inequality in Sweden 1750–1900

This article examines the evolution of wealth inequality in Sweden from 1750 to 1900, contributing both to the debate on early modern and modern inequality and to the general debate on the pattern of inequality during industrialization. The pre‐industrial period (1750–1850) is for the first time examined for Sweden at the national level. The study uses a random sample of probate inventories from urban and rural areas across the country, adjusted for age and social class. Estimates are provided for the years 1750, 1800, 1850, and 1900. The results show a gradual growth in inequality as early as the mid‐eighteenth century, with the sharpest rise in the late nineteenth century. Whereas the early growth in inequality was connected to changes in the countryside and in agriculture, the later growth was related to industrialization encompassing both compositional effects and strong wealth accumulation among the richest. The level of inequality in Sweden in 1750 was lower than for other western European countries, but by 1900 Sweden was just as unequal.

The economic effects of the 1920 eight-hour working day reform in Sweden

ABSTRACT In 1920, the working day in Swedish manufacturing and services was cut from 10 to 8 hours without wages being cut correspondingly. Since workers demanded and got the same daily wage working 8 hours as they had with 10, real hourly wages increased dramatically; they were about 50% higher in 1921–1922 than they had been in 1919. This is the largest wage push in Swedish history, and this paper studies the consequences for profits, investments, capital intensity and unemployment. In traded manufacturing employers responded by increasing capital intensity and did not compensate for rising wages by raising prices, which led to a combination of jobless growth and low profit rates in the 1920s. Firms in non-traded manufacturing and services could raise prices and conserve profitability to a higher degree. In total, the effects of the reform were pro-labour. We discuss the implications for our understanding of interwar wages and employment, the literature on the decrease in inequality found in most industrial countries around 1920 and the rise of the ‘Swedish model’ in the 1920s and 1930s.

A Simulation Framework for Multiple-Antenna Terminals in 5G Massive MIMO Systems

The recent interest in massive multiple in multiple out (MIMO) has spurred intensive work on massive MIMO channel modeling in the contemporary literature. However, current models fail to take the characteristics of terminal antennas into account. There is no massive MIMO channel model available that can be used for the evaluation of the influence of different antenna characteristics at the terminal side. In this paper, we provide a simulation framework that fills this gap. We evaluate the framework with antennas integrated into Sony Xperia handsets operating at 3.7 GHz as this spectrum is identified for the 5G new radio standard by 3rd Generation Partnership Project. The simulation results are compared with the measured terminal performance when communicating with the Lund University’s massive MIMO testbed under the same loading conditions. Expressions are derived for comparison of the gain obtained from different diversity schemes computed from measured far-field antenna patterns. We conclude that the simulation framework yields the results close to the measured ones and that the framework can be used for antenna evaluation for terminals in a practical precoded massive MIMO system.