Democratizing Occupational Health: The Scandinavian Experience of Work Reform

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Concepts such as alienation, dissatisfaction, and stress have been in use for several decades to indicate a major field of problems in working life, pertaining to the psychosocial aspects of work. In spite of the fairly broad recognition of the problems, it has proved difficult to create an effective strategy for work reform. The purpose of this article is to indicate some reasons for this difficulty and to attempt to deal with psychosocial issues that emerged as part of the Scandinavian work environment reforms of the 1970s. Although these reforms were only partly successful, they verified the point that efforts should not be limited to the semi-private sphere of the individual enterprise only, but must encompass legislation and other general parameters that arise from larger societal processes. The legislation, however, cannot be of the conventional kind. While it is necessary to bring the regulatory parameters of society to bear on such issues as the organization of work, innovations within the field of legislation are also needed.