The culture of skilled work in a Norwegian shipyard, 1945-90

We anatomise the culture of skilled work in the Solheimsviken shipyard in Bergen, Norway, from 1945 to 1990, linking it to democratic impulses within the workforce. This independent culture had strong if bounded democratic elements that were ultimately reflected in the institutions of a workers’ cooperative which operated from1985. However, a shift away from shipbuilding immediately preceded the cooperative’s foundation and eroded the position of the older skilled workers who had carried the culture, undermining it even before the cooperative’s collapse.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Labor History on 30/11/2016, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0023656x.2017.1255533