Road-haulage employers seek to abolish closed-shop agreement

In mid-1998, a closed-shop agreement with the SiD trade union was proving an obstacle on the road towards merger for two employers' organisations in the Danish road transport sector.

The Danish Road Haulage Association (Danske Vognmænd, DV) has been trying to escape a closed-shop agreement with the General Workers' Union in Denmark (Dansk Specialarbejderforbund, SiD). The closed-shop agreement covers 4,300 workers and is the largest in the sectors covered by the affiliates of the Danish Employers' Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA).

In May 1998, DV and the smaller Danish Haulage Contractors' Employers' Association (Vognmandsfagets Arbejdsgiverforening, VA) agreed to merge by 1 January 1999. The new employers' association, to be known as Transport and Logistic Denmark (Arbejdsgiverforeningen for Transport og Logistik), will represent some 5,000 haulage contractors with some 26,600 trucks, employing some 27,000 employees with a total annual paybill of DKK 7 billion.

It is the intention of the two organisations involved in the merger that the new organisation should be free of any close-shop agreements. The method currently being considered is to dissolve DV, the larger of the two organisations (4,300 members and 19,500 employees), and let its members become members of the smaller VA (350 members and 8,000 employees). VA is a member of DA, whose statutes explicitly forbid its member firms and organisations from concluding closed-shop agreements, and it is the intention that the new organisation should conform to DA's statutes.

SiD says that it is well aware of employers' discontent with closed-shop agreements, but does not intend to give up its agreement with DV voluntarily. If necessary, it will bring the case before the industrial tribunal. SiD may have a good case, since there are precedents where new members of employers' associations affiliated to DA have brought their closed-shop agreements with them. The question will be settled during the summer of 1998.

Closed-shop agreements are a means to ensure agreement-based employment conditions for employees working for an employer which does not belong to an employers' organisation and refuses to become organised. The agreements ensure that only workers who are members of a particular union, or who agree to join the union once employed, are recruited. These workers are covered by the collective agreements signed by the union and thus no one is employed in the company concerned on lower terms than those set out in the relevant sector collective agreement. Closed-shop agreements are also the established trade union movement's means of excluding competitive organisations (DK9802153F).