Ragnar Hertzberg Næss:
The project «Work Environment and Workers Protection» 1973-74 at the Work Research Institute (preliminary version, because Jan Irgens Karlsen and Ståle Seierstad also were participants and should give their comments and versions ).
Innhold
1.prelude 2
2.Societal and political background of the project. 3
- The Project as envisioned. 3
3.1.The political development and its implications regarding how to talk about work environment.
5 - Comments on the government’s preamble to the proposal of a new law 6
5.The actual work of the five of us, how we divided the tasks between us, the tensions within the
group. 7 - Description of and comments on the resulting project report. 9
6.1. Description 9
6.2. Some cases of firms, constructed in order to give a general picture. 10
6.3.. Presuppositions and research questions. 11
6.4. The formal organization of the work environment activiity. 12
6.5. Radical proposals and limits to their radicalness. 13
6.6. What about the enterprise physician? (Bedriftslege) 14
6.7. Is it possible to measure the interactive results of very different problems? 14 - Follow-up of the Project 15
7.1. WRI’s particular contribution: the para 12 15
7.2 My own contribution in the implementation and follow-up of the law 16 - Summing up. 17
1.prelude
In this paper I give a broad picture of the 1973-75 WRI project on workers’ protection against physical, psychological and social pressures on the job. Orally called «Verneprosjektet» 1 .
2.Societal and political background of the project.
Towards the end of the 1960-ies parts of the Scandinavian social democratic movement took a turn to the left. This was partly triggered by revival of the general socialist ideas prevalent since the founding of the Western labour movement, but apart from this general trends a new emphasis on workenvironment was also a factor.The strike in the Swedish mine at Kiruna (LKAB) from December 9 1969 to february 4, 1970 attracted general attention and displayed a number of the traits that charachterized the coming radicalization of the left parties which took place in the 70-ies in Norway. The former ten years with rationalization had led to a rise of productivity some 260% in LKAB Kiruna compared to the situation 10 yeas earlier, but wages had only increased 68% in the same priod. The work situation was also characterised by noise, gases, psychological stress and increased physical strain 2 . The human aspect of the work load was characterized by one widely cited worker who simply said: «We are not machines!». Human beings need satisfction, variation, respect and hopes for a better future, all these factors emphasized in the Norwegian projects for Industrial Democracy 3 . The strike was «unlawful» in the sense that it was not sanctiioned by the higher echelons in the Swedish Trade Unions. It was the first of the unsanctioned and wild» strikes that characterised the 70-ies in Scandinavia. The Kiruna strike created a sympathy movement in the trade unions all over Scandinavia, and the Norwegian Labur party, then in government, realized that the issue of work environment had to be taken up as a major concern.
3. The Project as envisioned.
The WRI was asked in 1973 to investigate the situation in Norwegian working life with regard to work environment, and the Labour Inspection selected firms they suggested could provide the empirical basis. We were also asked to give advice regarding how to organise efforts in order to better the conditions.
At the Institute I was one of the five researchers who undertook the task of realizing the project. The others were Jan Irgens Karlsen, Øyvind Ryste, Ståle Seierstad and Bjørg Aase Sørensen. The project was initiated with planning early in 1973 and concluded with the publishing of the book «Arbeidsmiljø and vernearbeid»( Work Environment and Workers’ Protection ) in the spring of 1975 4 .
The scope of the project and its suggestions were considerably broadened compared to the existing legislation, the Workers’ Protection Act, originally passed in 1892. It had been preserved in its original form with few changes and had been criticised for being insufficient and out of date in the following years up to the crisis of the 70-ies. But underwent a few ameliorations in the first half of the 1900-eds.
After the conclusion of the project proper with the publication of the report in 1975, the WRI participated in the writing of a new law regarding the social andpsychological aspects of the work environment. This was crystallized in the «paragraph 12» dealing with psycho-social work environment. Its content was to a large extent based on the ideas from the WRI projects in the 60-ies. The psycho-social work environment problems were however not taken up to any considerable extent in our project. The law was followed up by courses for the newly created «verneombud» 5 , workers elected by the employees to register technology, work practizes and procedures that directly or indirectly could endanger the work environment and cause sickness or accidents.I participated in this and did some 20-30 «week-end courses» on «para 12» in various parts of Norway in the years 1978-1982, that is courses with «verneombud» from 10-15 firms. I include some words about this here. The courses consisted in presenting the «paragraph 12», discussing its application in practice, and suggesting how to deal with the issues in the various firms, some 10-15 in each «week end seminar». Presentation was followed by discussion inn the group.
In the early 1980-ies this work petered out as the political climate, also in the Labour Party, turned too the right, and the impetus from the trade unions was weakened.
3.1.The political development and its implications regarding how to talk about work environment.
The «broad left side» in Norway, that is the Communist Party and the more recent party «Socialist Workers’ Party) (SF) held that the workers’ movement with its social democratic governments in postwar Norway had failed in providing a safe and healthy work environment. In the project, we met some of the trade union people who had attacked current work environment practices with harsh words. In the Akers Mek shipbuilding factory we interviewed the «hovedverneombud» Christensen who later in 1974 had made a presentation in the Students Association in Oslo withthe text «The Slow Murder», regarding environmental hazards in Norwegian working life. This was also the time when a leader in the Oslo Iron and Metal Trade Union said in pubic that «We need a revolution».
In the big chemical and metal factories on the Norwegian west coast we met «verneombud» who said things like «They say the chemicals are not dangerous, but we see that the walls are deteriorating in the production hall. So what about us?».
The main impression from the 45 firms was however that there existed personel, both among the workers and the management, who in principle dealt with work environment problems, but in practice adressed very few of the obvious themes suggested by legislation and research. There were of course also exceptions. I remember Bjørg Aase Sørensen made
the following remark after a visit to a small printing shop in the Norwegian countryside with a spotless work environment policy: « The boss had polished the whole working place so that it shone like a jewel! And then he polished the workers, too!». The general societal climate implying realization that work environment had been negleced marked also several of the bosses. In a factory producing dynamite there had recently been an accident that killed one worker, and the boss fairly emotionally declared in his introductory speech to us that «one fatal accident is one too much!».
The critical awareness on the societal level of the human costs of effective and lucrative production thus made itself felt in our project, influenced the actual project both regarding reserch questions proper and personal reactions and relations. We would disagree on many points but managed to work together fairly harmoneously.
4. Comments on the government’s preamble to the proposal of a new law
In the governmental parliamentary proposal no. 3 1975-76 «On Law of Workers Protection and Work Environment» (Ot.prop. nr. 3, 1975-76, «Om lov om arbeidervern og arbeidsmiljø, m.v. ) the political nature of the question is clearly stated:
A number of bodies have expressed criticism of the goal of ‘complete safety’ as the objective of the law. The objections generally concern the fact that the goal is unrealistic, and that it cannot be right to set targets that can never be achieved. However, the vast majority of consultation bodies agree that ‘complete safety’ should be the ideal goal aimed for in protection and environmental work. Some of them, however, argue that this should not be enshrined in law. The Norwegian Employers’Association states that they agree with such a principled starting point, provided it is clarified that it concerns an ideal objective that, unfortunately, can never be fully realized as long as human activity is to take place at all.
In a way this passage displays one of the the most general problematics we encountered in our project work. Should one reach out for that which is ideal and maybe impossible to reach in practice, or should one acquiece in the imperfectness of the actual world? But in the social democratic and bourgeous mind, the world’s inherent imperfection is an important axiom.
In 1977 all the rightist parties in the Norwegian Parliament voted against the law in its totality, arguing that this law proposed totally unrealistic goals and that employers clould not support it because it might result in legal demands that they never could meet and that moreover were completely unpredicable. For the labour movement, on the other hand, this question is one of the quality of life on the job they actually have, includig averting sicness or even death, a job that they in many cases must have in order to be able to feed themselves and their family in a way consistent with human demands.
The workers have an incentive to ask for – even demand and fight for – the realizatiion of the possibly impossible goals – while the employers both think of their own needs, the survival of the firm, and – for various other reasons supply
their world view with a resignation that certain goals may not be reachable in practice.
5.The actual work of the five of us, how we dividedthe tasks between us, the tensions within the group.
The five of us sat down in the spring of 1973 to plan the work. I have a note in my diary at the time mentioning that Bjørg Aase Sørensen asked in one of our first meetings if «we are going to use statistics in the project?». Apparently this was because of her experiences with lone firms in small communities, the «one-sided industrial communities» like her birth-place the small community of Vennesla in which the firm Hunsfos dominated, case studies dominated with their unique constellations of communal and economical, incuding trade union life and the local trade unions’ influence on communal policies. But Jan and Ståle insisted that since it was understood that we were to investigate a number of comparable enterprises, we would have to compare between firms, types of actors and types of problems and this necessitated the use of statistics.
In my notes in my diaries at the time, I mention our discussions on methodological clarifications on the distinction betweene «representative and analytical samples».
I myself as not being a student of siciology found my main role in interviewing periple according to our questionnaires and in the task of producing a list ofthe concrete proposal the workers’ safety representatives, the «verneombud»,workers elected by the workers, introduced in the workers’ protection law in (year).
I collected a number of the smaller and and bigger proposals by the workers toameliorate conditions, be it installation of ventilation in production premises, making a machine more safe for possible hazards to the workers, securing that
ladders and gangways should be free of slippery ice in the winter, putting up placards reminding others of possible hazards, getting better possibilities toleave one’s own work to inspect the working place, talking to workers who did not follow safety rules, securing adequate clothes for work, mapping out physicial reactions of workers indicating effects of harmful substances. I ended up with more than a hundred items with indications of employers’ answers to the demands, whether the problems had been solved, disagreement with the management, and the like.
Very soon we divided our selves in two disagreeing groups, mainly regarding what language we should use in writing about problems we registered in the firms. Bjørg Aase and I, following her, made sketches of – or announced -texts for the coming report – in which we used strong pejorative descriptions as«clearly unsatisfactory», «scandalous», «bad», even «terrible» whereas Ståle, Øyvind and Jan preferred softer words as «not satisfactory», «somewhat problematic», «less good», «not necessarily adequate» and the like. As I remember it, these recurrent disagreements continued during the whole
research period.
Ståle Seierstad 7 , one of the three surviving scholars active in the 1973 project, recalls 8 an incident during our work. The five of us were discussing in a room in one of the 45 firms included in our sample when the director of the firm suddenly entered and asked «who is the project leader?». But at the WRI at this time we apparantly never had project leaders, whereas in other projects in Norway in 2026 I believe it feels natural – even compusory – to have a project leader.
Considerations like this also implies that Ståle and Jan should make their own comments and present their comments in this report, duly identified as such.
6. Description of and comments on the resulting project report.
6.1. Description
The report has 168 pages and 23 chapters. The statistical tables cover 37 firms, while the total number of firms visited was 45.
In the introduction it is explained that our director Bjørn Gustavsen worked out a formulation of an aim for «Work Environment Research» in the WRI focussing in part on «analysis of organization and decision structure and how it affects the effectivity of this activity both regarding the general managemwent of the firm and for the conditions of the day-to-day activity to better the work environment».
The preface starts with the words «Den undersøkelsen vi presenterer her har vel først og fremst sin bakgrunn i den økende opptatthet av arbeidsmiljøspørsmål vi har kunnet observere de siste åra» (The investigation we present here has primarily its background in the increasing interest in questions related to work environment in the later years»
As far as I remember Jan Irgens Karlsen and Ståle Seierstad wrote allmost the whole report. I believe I wrote some lines, but am not sure. Bjørg Aase, who with me represented the «opposition» – more on this later – possiblty also wrote parts of the report, but I am not sure. I remember the long sessions that the two sat together to finish the text, occasionally reporting to Øyvind, Bjørg Aase, me, and the others.
It is explained that the WRI judged that this was a field that fell innside their field of competence ad that a group of the institute’s researchers had started a project on this early in 1973. The text was finished in june 1974, and the book published in september same year.
The two other institutes at the then AFI are thanked for their assistance in doing the project. I remember Tor Nordseth, director of the institute for professional hygiene, came to us early in 1973 and gave an improvised lecture on dangerous substances in Norwegian working life.
It is informed that the selection of firms is not representative in a statistical sense, and that the Labour Inspection had selected – suggested – firms for us to research so as to secure a mix of bigger and smaller enterprises, old and new, different branches and «good and less good» firms.
6.2 Some cases of firms, constructed in order to give a general picture.
The main text starts with seven pages containing five cnstructed «examples of frms» providing a picture of typical forms of work environment problems within the framework of general characteristics of the firms. In a certain sense, these seven pages encompasse and evoke all our emotional reactions during the project. In the «firm A» we at once meet one of the acute contradictions of proletarian life: «there is only one firm in the area». The environment is bad and the pay is lousy but if you move to the city you move away from your home, your relatives, your childhood memories…. But in the next passage we
are told that everyone in firm A judge the place highly: there is variation in the work, people are friendly to each other, the boss is good.
It exhibits the contradictions in working life. The good, «the less good» and «the awful» are combined in one work place.
The description of «firm B» is much longer and contains almost only praise of an effective organization regarding the work to safeguard and better the work environment. It starts with the comment: «It is a ship yard known for its good craftmanship» that «delivers on time» and «embarks on new types of production». The text then comments on the general development of
techniques in modern ship buildiing, implying a fragmentation of the traditional solid craftmanship among the employees, leading to considerable problems.
It is noted that «The good economic situation in the firm has lead to a more extensive practice in the work on safety and other parts of the efforts to better the work environment». It is said that the labour organization is so active in work for better work
environment and accident prevention that it is «almost too much», that the trade union is almost as active as the management who of course in the end has the formal responsibiity.
The text comes close to the politicised language of the capitalist owners about «how far we have come in Norway in creating a much better society for everyone».
However, the report ends this description with a warning that «still you cannot always be safe as a worker. There are still new tasks to perform, problems to overcome.
In contrast, the description of the firm C exhibits a kind of «hell on earth» description. The «chaplinesque» monotony of the work with its «heavy and meaningless operations», the «old and dusty» premises, the piece rate payments system wbich means that all must do their utmost to secure a decent payroll.
The work to better the envinronment consisted mainly of placards on the walls to «remember safety» and «heed the work comrades». And there was no activity to protest the conditions except for «one man» who as «verneombud» raised the various issues but is hindered by the supervisors and management. The formally required «verne» staff was there, but no effects of their work was detectable in the firm.
There is a high reate of sick leave, many of the workers live far away and only go home in the week-ends, the turnover in the work force is high, the work environment dangerous.
The remaining two constructed cases illistrates further variations in the work environment and the efforts to better it.
6.3.. Presuppositions and research questions.
Investigations of work environment has a heath perspective, and health is tiedto a number of factors. It was noted that health apparently had been declining in the Norwegian population for some years, noting that the number of people permently leaving work for healt reasons is growing, that there was a diminishing of life span for males, and certain probems for old employees.
At the same time these facts were judged in a wholistic fashion. The sum of causes affecting health is investigsted. For example, if a firm follows a policy of ascertaining that the the level of possibly dangerous substances one by one is
satisfactory this is inadequate unless one investigates the combined effect of all substances. Apart from this the way work is organised must be assumed to have an effect on well-being and health. Further it is imøortnt to investigate the organization of the internal work aiming at detecting, analysing and ameliorating given possibly dangerous traits in the firm.
It is noted that it was impossible for us to “measure” all these causes and their effects. We had to resort to the statements of those implied, maily those who had an obligastion to deal with the work environment, but also the local trade union if there was one.
Further, how the general characteristics of a given firm impinged on the quality of the work regarding amelioration of work was analysed.
The chapter ends with an admonition that our sample is not a statistically representtive one, however that the possbilities of saying 1) why the work environment activity had better results in some firms than in others and 2) what were the more usual problems one had to encounter in the work to better the conditions, were fairly good and coulde be used by Norwegian firms.
6.4. The formal organization of the work environment activiity.
The idea that the leader and the workers are obliged to collaborate in the efforts to ameliorate working conditions became law in 1956. This collaboration was deemed necessary in order to be able to do the job. A sign of the priority and importance of the work was when the Labour Inspection became a state obligation, not a communal one as earlier.
The apparatus reqired by law: election of workers’ representartives (“verneombud”), both the local ones in a given section and the “main verneombud (“hovedverneombud”) and further a council with representativesboth from the labour and managerial aide (“verneutvalg”).
When looking at the basic presupposition of the legislation an organizational aspects of the work to better work environment I am struck by the inherent contradictions in this and the fact that we as authors did not use our role as “researchers” to discuss these contradictions, possibly not primarily to doubt the possibility of legisation to influence living cconditionens in a private enterprise for which nearly all efforts to better the health and safety situations of the workers implied extra costs fort he enterprise, but rather to discuss the impact of this condition more generally.
How is it possible to legislate that partners who have diverse and in many ways opposite interests should cooperate for he best of one of the parties?
In the six pages of this subchapter the Labour Inspection is not mentioned. This is surprising since it is one of the means the official macbhine has to enforce the law. The resposibilities of the LI is fairly wide today 9
In retrospect it is temptimg to think that the chapter on the formal organization on legal demands on the working places might delve a little into more general sosiological questions. For instance the question of power, the logics of – and limitations on – control systems. One might say that collboration between groups or persons with very different Powers will make it duifficult to reach a common best solution. Thus one might describe class relations indirectly, saying things that the employers also must concede as legitimate points.
The text might also have described the Labour Inspction more in detail and discuss it along with othe state control mechanisms.
This again impinges on the role of the Labour Inspection. But vry little is said about the role of the LC and how it can be strengthened
6.5. Radical proposals and limits to their radicalness.
It is noted that proposals are of two kinds: the types of problems the law must adress and on the other hand reasonable demands to quality of conditions at work
-The law must relate to the sum of inconvieniences (plager), not standards for each of them.
In re-reading the report today, It was a surprise for me to see how radical the proposals of our research group, in practice, I believe, those of Ståle and Jan, were. But here, as “research”, one might have added some remarks on the contradiction between a production apparatus operating in a market where players must minimise costs, including costs for expences that reduces the problems of health and well-being for the workers in order to maximise profit.
But the book ends on the last page in discussing questions of accurate measurements of the problems. Apparently written by Ståle, the last page is devoted to discussion of the statistical reliability of our results regarding work load, to a lesser degree discussion of possible new factors behind even more efficient work to better conditions. To my mind this reflects the Institute’s solutions to the challenges of doing research with its professed and ultimate “pure” knowledge oriented ethos, on the one hand , and the need to acknowledge the compromise driven presuppositions driving the social democrat societal governance on the other hand.
6.6. What about the enterprise physician? (Bedriftslege)
A somewhat surprising omission in the text of the book is that the “enterprise physicion” is only mentioned one place in the book, in an enumerations of all “agencies” in a firm. This is surprising since according to my experiences – in other contacts in my later project on “Foreign Workers in Norwegian Working Life. Collaboration with the Turkish Workers Organization” 10 I found that the pdysicians in the enterprises generally were concerned with the working conditions including the work envoronment, made proposals to the management an deven sometimes contacted the labour inspection.
6.7. Is it possible to measure the interactive results of verydifferent problems?
It is said more or less said that the most important point regarding environmental problems is the combined work load of both physical, psychological, social and “invidual dignity,lack of hope and personal problems”. A question not asked was to what extent such a combination of ptoblems is measurable at all, and if it not is measurable, what wil be the consequences
regarding measures to be undertaken?
But given this premise a natural conclusion is that the achieved consensus achieved by the collectivity in a given segment of a work place will be the important input regarding measures to better the work environment.
- Follow-up of the Project
7.1. WRI’s particular contribution: the para 12
The initial parts of this law text was as far as I know in its entirely written by the WRI, and expresses the main direct contribution of the Institute to the law text:
Paragraph 12
Work adaptation.
1.General requirements.
Technology, work organization,working time systems and pay systems should be so designed that emploees are not exposed to adverse physical and mental stress , or so tht their ability to excercise caution and take safety considerations is impaired
2. The Design of the Work
In the planning and design of the¨work one must have regard for the the individual worker’s possibility of decision making and professional responsibility. Monotonous repetitive work should be avoided and also work controlled bye a machine or assembly line in such a way that workers are prevented from varying their own work pace. The work should otherwise be designed to provide opportunities for variety and interaction with others, for coherence between individual
tasks, and for emplyees to stay informed about production requirements and results.
3. Particularly about steering systems and planning systems
The workers or the trade union representatives must be infomed about the systems used by the planning and running of the work, inccludingplanned changes in these systems. They must be scholled in the systems and must participate in the construction of the systems
4. Particularly about work with security risks.
We have mentioned the fairly broad description of the coming task of the WRI in the preamble to the law. It thus seems natura that the institute was charged with the education of workers’ safety representatives in the socio-pcychological parts of the law. The first and most relevant part of the paragraph no. 12 in the law stipulates the
following:
4.a. Piecerates based pay systems must not be used in work where this may have a substantially effect on safety.
The other parts of the paragraph 12 deal more with details. The results of the early WRI projects on workers’ self determintion, learning on the job and personal development are enshrined in these legal formulations.
All the points in the paragraph no. 12 is kept in today’s law, but the pragraphitself is abolished.
7.2 My own contribution in the implementation and follow-up of the law
This was some 20-30 weekend conferences and workplace sessions for trade union people and workers’ safety representatives in the years 1977-82.
The WRI was one of the instances to be used in the training of verneombud and trade union representatives regarding the paragraph 12 on psycho-social work environment. Several of us participated in this. Other instances alsoparticipates. This turned out to be a fairly extensive part of my work in the institute in the first years after the passing of the new law.
Looking back this was the least demanding and one of the most gratifying works in my 20 years at the WRI. The courses were located at hotels or educational centers, and participants consisted of approximately 20-30 representatives from 10-15 different firms, on the whole two, sometimes three but seldome one representaative from each firm.
The sessions were mostly done over two days with lecture and discussions from the morning of the first day, followed by dinner and social activities in the evening. The next morning were used for summing up discussions and
reiterating the most important points that had emerged the day before. The sessions started with a representative of each present firm telling about the situation in their firm, and what demands they had proposed, to what extent they har succeeded, and disscussion of possible new demands.
After these introductions I outlined the requirements of the paragraph 12, and suggested ways of organiaing work in this field.
In these sessions, the majority of participants were both work environment representatives and trade union officials who also were workers’ work environment representatives. The conversations very often developed into general discussions of trade union strategies in the different firms, and concentrating on issues the groups found most challenging or interesting.
8. Summing up.
The project was clearly one of the most important projects undertaken by the WRI, measured by its importance on the natiional level. Much more might be said about it, but I hope here to have provided an informative overview of the
project and some of its follow-up.