The Restructuring of the Nordic Labour Process and the Variegated Status of Workers in the Labour Market

Abstract

New dynamics of the division of work and employment relations are emerging in the Nordic labour market. The use of flexi-time and agency and posted workers, typically of foreign origin, is becoming more widespread. Simultaneously, certain parts of manufacturing and construction processes are being standardized and relocated abroad. The present analysis reveals that there is a new regime emerging, intertwined with the international disintegration of production, which relies upon the inequality of different parts of the labour process and ‘spaces of exception’ and is rendered possible by European Union provisions of free movement of services. Hence, the Finnish — and the Nordic — consensual labour market model is under attack. Although it is too early to draw conclusions as to whether Finland has turned into a more ‘free-market’ model, the crucial question is the extent to which negotiations on labour relations remain in the grasp of labour unions in the coming years.