The Danish workers ’ movement in the field of tension between rights and obligations on the labour market

1. The Danish workers’ movement in the field of tension betweenrights and obligations on the labourmarket - A Basic Income Perspective Short Plenary Session 3 ”Workers movement and Basic Income”, BIEN 2010, Sao Paolo 2 July 2010 Christian Ydesen christianydesen@gmail.com Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus

2. Aims of the presentation • To diagnose the Danish historical development in perceptions of rights and obligations on the labor market • To describe the attitude of the Danish workers’ movement towards basic income in the 1980s and 1990s • To present a strategy for transcending the hegemonic discourse hostile to basic income • To apply the strategy in a flexicurity discourse environment

3. The current situation in Denmark • Since the mid-1990s a workfare regime has been installed: • Development according to a framework of activation and away from the earlier basic income trajectory • Normality is closely associated with wage labour • Paid work is the top cultural norm against which people, ideas, and practices are to be measured • Norm of reciprocity - ”quid pro quo” • The Social Democratic party has adopted a distinctly liberal discourse about the individual and the economy • Tendencies towards connecting citizenship with paid work

4. Rights and obligations on the labour market • 1871: ”No rights without obligations, no obligations without rights” - turned against the upper classes lacking obligations • 1930: the right to work and the objective of achieving full employment • 1953 constitution: all citizens have the primary obligation to provide for themselves, and public provision is only a secondary obligation • The workers’ movement defined rights as equal rights for all citizens and equal obligations as joint tax liability

5. Rights and obligations on the labour market – a discursive shift in the 1990s • Rights and obligations have become amalgamated with the individual – a social client now has a right and an obligation to activation in order to receive social benefits • Asymmetric distribution of rights and obligations with labour market status as the guiding principle • A movement from emancipation to discipline cf. Guy Standing: “Right to labour  obligation to labour” • The Danish labour movement originally fought for equal political rights and obligations, but now the movement justifies unequal rights and obligations based on wage labour as the canonized principle

6. Tracing the discursive shift: workers’ movement and Basic Income in the 1980s • Arguments against basic income put forth by the workers’ movement and left wing political parties: • Basic income would cause the unions to lose the unemployment insurance funds and thereby an important role and a source of recruitment • Basic income is naïve and it would hamper technological development • In a situation of great mass unemployment basic income is unrealistic • Basic income subscribes to a completely different value system where wage can be received without giving anything in return • Basic income would create poverty and inequality • Basic income would rob people of their identity • Basic income would conceal societal problems because people would no longer be categorized by a comprehensive social system

7. Tracing the discursive shift: workers’ movement and Basic Income in the 1990s • Arguments against basic income put forth by the workers’ movement and left wing political parties: • Basic income runs counter to the objective of full employment and the right to work • Basic income would cause unemployment to be an individual problem • Basic income would be a disaster for gender equality • Basic income would weaken the workers’ movement • Rights should be accompanied by obligations

8. Reminder • “If we let the value of a human life depend on its contribution to society, then contempt for the weak will guide the organization of our society, if even it stays at that.” Danish theologian and philosopher K.E. Løgstrup

9. Transcending the hegemonic discourse • Inclusion and exclusions strategies • The dichotomous either/or logic is to be replaced by a both/and logic: • Relate to societal problems – constructive perspective – what can be achieved and what can be overcome • Transcending the field – create allies - bridge-building – inclusive debates • Platform of power – reject the choice between short-term demands and long-term perspectives – “do not put all your eggs in one basket” • Rally behind a cause – simultaneously emphasize disagreement and conflict with the establishment but without doing so in all areas - ”pick your fights” – and on the other hand point out similarities

10. Applying the strategy in a flexicurity discourse environment I • Flexicurity a golden triangle consisting of a flexible labour market, generous unemployment benefits, and active labour market policies (+ the Danish system of collective bargaining) • Trade-off between low job protection and high income protection • Undermining of flexicurity after 2001 when a liberal-conservative government took office • A neoliberal environment making Basic Income solutions seemingly impossible

11. Applying the strategy in a flexicurity discourse environment II • What can be achieved: Basic Income can create geniune flexicurity to the benefit of workers and employers • Point to the discursive change described and the undermining of the canonized values of flexicurity • Mobilize people being hit by social service cuts • Potential allies: unions and employers’ associations • Propose concrete initiatives suitable for making concrete political demands • The economic crisis is a good foundation because it creates an upheaval in the labour market  something new can emerge

12. References • Christensen, Erik ”Borgerløn – fortællinger om en politisk idé” Hovedland 2000 • Christensen, Erik ”The Heretical Political Discourse” Aalborg university press 2008 • Christensen, I.L. & Ydesen, C. ”Staten, individet og styringen”, In: Lundkvist, Anders ”Dansk Nyliberalisme” Frydenlund 2009 • Klindt, Mads Peter ”Institutionel komplementaritet mellem velfærdsstat og arbejdsmarked” Aalborg 2009 • Mathiesen, Thomas ”Makt og Motmakt” Drammen: Pax Forlag 1982 • Standing, Guy ”Global Labour Flexibility” Macmillan Press 1999