Kollektivavtalsrätten : en rättsvetenskaplig berättelse

Sammanfattning: The collective agreement is considered to be the single most important method of regulating the labour market in Sweden. Its importance is emphasised by the fact that there is no legislation concerning wages, and that labour-market legislation often can be derogated from by collective agreements (quasi-mandatory statutes). It is often argued that the position of the collective agreement is threatened, due to the fact that the society within which the collective agreement was developed to regulate is fundamentally changing. This change, described in terms of certain tendencies, (internationalisation, individualization etcetera) and their driving forces appear, as it seems, in society (i.e. outside the law), which makes them somewhat difficult for the legal discourse – and jurisprudence in particular – to handle.In the thesis the author combines a discussion of classical topics concerning the collective agreement (such as closing of collective agreements, the binding force of the collective agreement, interpretation of the collective agreement and principles regarding competing collective agreements) with concepts from the law and literature-genre. The law of the collective agreement is thereby described as a legal field of its own, and since the legal field to a large extent is constructed and withheld by legal doctrine, the author argues that jurisprudence itself have an important role in how the changes in society affects the collective agreement. However, modern legal science has certain problems to acknowledge and, moreover, to reflect upon its influence in this process. It is suggested that the changes, insofar as they are relevant to the collective agreement, is situated within the legal discourse itself, in its own narrative. With this perspective in mind, jurisprudence can, and ought to, reflect upon its own role in the narrative of the collective agreement.