Måste välfärdstjänstearbetarna offra sig för medborgarna? —argument för en konsekvent medborgarrätt

Abstract

Is it necessary to sacrifice welfare workers in the service of the citizenry? -Towards a coherent set of citizenship rights. This article raises the issue of ”industrial relations” in thepublic sector i.e. how employer-employee relations are conceptualised in liberaldemocratic political theory. The historical and theoretical legacy of this conceptual apparatus help explain why the welfare workers (employed in publicly financed health care, social service, education, elderly care, day care for children) are hardly mentioned in the liberaldemocratic scheme. The liberal-democratic state traditionally focuses on political subjects as they all were citizens-cohabitants (in the civil society), when in fact roughly one fifth of the Swedish electorate at the same time are citizensco- workers (in the local welfare state). The issue of rights and duties in direct and indirect relations between the local state and the citizenry is therefore heavily biased in favour of the citizenas- cohabitant/consumer. If both these roles of the citizenry were adequately handled in political theory, this would possibly cast a new light 396 Abstracts on New Public Management as well as the current Swedish focus on freedom of choice (”exit rights”) for welfare consumers. It is argued that there is nothing inherent in liberal-democratic political theory that block the application of the idea of a neutral and benevolent state to the citizen- as-co-worker. A coherent application of the Marshallian scheme of civil-, political- and social rights therefore means the inclusion of social rights to citizens-as-co-workers.