4. The company and workers
4.4 Welfare arrangements
director. Besides dealing with purchasing of inputs, pricing and marketing, the investigators explicitly included wage issues in the committee’s area of competence.24 While being quite detailed concerning raw material purchases, the instructions provided no guidance on labour related issues. Nevertheless, it seems like labour related issues were affected by the formalization of the management’s authority since “personnel issues” was a standing item on the board agenda from 1931 onwards. Various types of welfare arrangements for the workers were often treated under this heading.
After the criticism of the investigators, Wallenberg resigned in 1929.25 He was replaced by Gustaf Åkerlindh, who served as managing director until 1939.
The shift in leadership did not mark any radical change with regard to the personnel policies of the company.26 However, it is worth noting that the new managing director, like the managerial body, got formal instructions. The instructions emphasized that he should try to accomplish the greatest possible savings of expenses and the greatest possible rationalization and to constantly be aware of possible ways to concentrate production and introduce labour-saving methods.27 As with the instructions to the board of directors, the instructions to the managing director made no references to the blue-collars.
or simply “factory sisters”. The first two, Herta Svensson and Ester Loftman, had a strong influence on the further development of the company’s welfare activities.30
An important part of that development was the establishment of so-called interest offices at six locations around the country in 1918.31 They were run by the personnel consultants and offered a number of services to the workers. Some of these services were of economic nature. For example, the interest offices operated as banks – took care of savings and payments – and helped workers to get access to plots for the cultivation of potatoes. The offices also supported workers with “advice and information and promoted hygiene and pleasure”.32 In practice this meant that they built libraries, offered courses, sports activities and child care facilities.33
Before nationalization, the tobacco workers had formed their own health insurance fund. The Tobacco Monopoly took over the responsibility for this fund in 1917.34 The company paid an amount, equivalent to about one third of the workers’ membership fees, to provide the health insurance scheme with facilities and a clerk. From then on, all new workers, who were not members of another health insurance, had to join the scheme.35 In addition to health insurance, the tobacco workers also enjoyed free medical care, provided by the company’s doctors.36
Like many other big companies, the Tobacco Monopoly tried to support the workers by offering subsidised consumption goods and meals during the period of rapidly rising prices in connection with World War I.37 Initially, goods
30 af Trolle 1965, p 70.
31 Aktiebolaget Svenska Tobaksmonopolets verksamhet år 1918: Styrelsens förvaltningsberättelse, p 16.
32 Aktiebolaget Svenska Tobaksmonopolets verksamhet år 1919: Styrelsens förvaltningsberättelse, p 12.
33 Vasseur 1940, p 409; Aktiebolaget Svenska Tobaksmonopolets verksamhet år 1919: Styrelsens förvaltningsberättelse; Aktiebolaget Svenska Tobaksmonopolets verksamhet år 1920: Styrelsens förvaltningsberättelse.
34 Vasseur 1940, p 407.
35 Some were, however, excluded from becoming members due to their poor health status or high age.
For those workers, the Tobacco Monopoly promised to provide roughly equivalent benefits as long as they paid their fees. Vasseur 1940, p 407; af Trolle 1965, p 69.
36 Vasseur 1940, p 408.
37 Aktiebolaget Svenska Tobaksmonopolets verksamhet år 1919: Styrelsens förvaltningsberättelse, p 12.
distribution was run by local factory managements or interest offices, but as the situation became worse the activities expanded. The company headquarters started to buy large quantities of food and other necessities directly from producers.38 In 1917 canteens were built, which eventually would serve about 2,000 workers daily.
Some parts of the company’s welfare arrangements were particularly closely related to personnel reductions.
Old age pension was one such example. The higher clerks were insured in 1917 followed by the lower clerks one year later.39 At that point it was clear that the company would eventually provide pensions for blue-collars as well; money had already begun to be put aside for this purpose in 1916. But the launching of the system would not take place until the autumn of 1921, in connection with an extensive personnel reduction. The circumstances around the introduction of the pension scheme, as well as the characteristics of the scheme, are further described in chapter 6.
As mentioned in section 4.2, workers who became unemployed in connection with the nationalization were entitled to compensation. Initially this was thought of as a temporary measure to be applied in the first five years of the company’s existence. In practice, the company also continued to pay compensation to redundant workers after the formal obligation had expired. In the words of af Trolle, it was “[…] a natural obligation for the management of the monopoly to facilitate the situation for the dismissed”.40 Thus, it seems like a custom was established at the company.41
Another interesting way of alleviating the consequences of reductions was to provide retraining courses. In this field the Tobacco Monopoly was probably a pioneer since it actively helped redundant workers to find another occupation.
This was done by sending them to occupational schools and by offering courses under its own auspices.42 The personnel consultants put some effort into figuring
38 Aktiebolaget Svenska Tobaksmonopolets verksamhet år 1917: Styrelsens förvaltningsberättelse, p 14.
39 af Trolle 1965, pp 68-69.
40 Swedish: ”[…] det var en naturlig förpliktelse för monopolets ledning att underlätta de entledigades situation.” af Trolle 1965, p 69.
41 The severance payments are analyzed in greater detail in chapter 10.
42 Material regarding the courses for unemployed tobacco workers has been preserved in the collections of Herta Svensson. GU, KA, Tobaksarbeterskorna, box 47.
out the jobs that would be most promising for young women to pursue.43 It seems like the best prospects for future employment were thought to be found in domestic work occupations; most of the Tobacco Monopoly’s own retraining courses were filled with subjects such as needlework, cooking, cleaning and washing.
The Tobacco Monopoly’s welfare initiatives can be explained by a combination of personal motivations of the board members and a general belief that a monopoly – and particularly a state-owned one – had a responsibility for its workers.44 On some occasions the social responsibility was enforced by immediate problems. It seems like the establishment of welfare activities was carried out ad hoc and was relatively uncontroversial, at least to judge from the minutes of the company board. However, over the years the activities expanded, both in size and diversity, and came to be an issue of dispute at the annual meetings of shareholders.45 When the board was criticized for having granted loans to employees in 1927, its response was to initiate an inquiry into the company’s social activities in general.46 This inquiry led to the decision that the activities should continue with about the same magnitude, though under tighter reins and with increased monitoring of costs and direction.47
There are several explanations in the research literature for why companies engage in welfare programmes for its personnel. Some authors emphasize the employers’ wish to reduce costly personnel turnover, whereas other mainly view corporate welfare as a way of forestalling unionization.48 None of these explanations fit the Tobacco Monopoly. Here, personnel turnover was rather something the management wanted to induce and it made no clear attempts to pursue an anti-union policy. The main motivation given in a letter from the company board to the annual meeting of shareholders in 1928 was that the welfare programmes enhanced the workers’ productivity.49 Interestingly, the point of departure was the high share of married women in the workforce and
43 Herta Svensson’s collections include brochures, small booklets and press cuttings about employment opportunities and existing vocational training programmes. GU, KA, Tobaksarbeterskorna, box 47.
44 af Trolle 1965, p 64.
45 af Trolle 1965, p 12.
46 SM, STM, Styrelsens protokoll, 21 March 1927.
47 SM, STM, Styrelsens protokoll, 17 October 1927.
48 Carlson 2003, pp 44-46; Fishback 1992; Ibsen 1995; Berggren 1991, pp 267-274.
49 SM, STM, Styrelsens protokoll, 19 March 1928, Bilaga G.
many of the welfare programmes aimed to facilitate life for this group.
Childcare could bring about:
[…] more peaceful surroundings conducive to work and [give married women]
the ability to focus all their attention to the work, which of course is of greatest importance, particularly within a mechanized production system as is now the case in the tobacco industry.50
Practical courses with the purpose of making housework more rational were also intended to help married women increase their effort in the factories. In addition to facilitating the workers’ daily lives, the company’s educational programmes had the aim of bringing together and improving cooperation between white-collars and blue-white-collars.