Agreement concluded for municipal/county sector

A new three-year collective agreement for Denmark's 650,000 local government employees was signed after a ballot on 30 April 2002. Trade union members were, for the first time in the sector's history, asked to vote on a proposal for a settlement drawn up by the Official Conciliation Service. Some 150,000 members voted for the proposal, whereas 140,000 voted against.

Negotiations over a new collective agreement for Denmark's municipal/county (local government) sector - between the joint trade union negotiating body, the Association of Local Government Employees' Organisations (Kommunale Tjenestemænd og Overenskomstansatte, KTO), and the employers' organisations, the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark (Kommunernes Landsforening, KL), the Danish Federation of County Councils (Amtsrådsforeningen, ARF) and the Municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg (Københavns og Frederiksbergs Kommuner) - broke down in February 2002. The Official Conciliation Service (Forligsinstitutionen) was thus asked to step in, for the first time in the sector's history (DK0203101N).

After three meetings with both sides, the conciliator, Mette Christensen, issued her proposal for a settlement in March and it was then put to a ballot. The social partners in the central government sector had already concluded agreements at the end of January, which were accepted by the signatories' members in April (DK0204103F).

The new agreement for the municipal/county sector guarantees: a general wage increase of 5.55% over the next three years; a real wage increase over the same period; two additional special holidays per year; improvements in the sector's pension schemes; and additional funding for the new decentralised and flexible wage system ('New pay') being introduced in the public sector. In addition, the agreement provides for a number of improvements for older workers, hourly-paid workers and shop stewards.

It was mainly concerns about the additional funding for the 'New pay' system that initially caused the negotiations to break down, and subsequently caused many members to vote against the conciliator's proposal. 'New pay' implies that employers can negotiate part of the wage sum on an individual basis, thus opening up the possibility of rewarding certain individuals for their work. The Danish Union of Teachers (Danmarks Lærerforening, DLF) and the Danish Nurses' Organisation (Dansk Sygeplejeråd, DSR) were especially disappointed with the conciliator's proposal on thus point, and 95% and 73% respectively of their members voting in the ballot rejected the proposal.

The agreement was thus not welcomed by all 56 member organisations of KTO. In total, a majority in seven KTO member unions voted against the proposal, but despite this they were forced to accept the agreement. The Official Conciliation Service's special voting rules for such ballots mean that the aggregate result overrides any individual union's votes and, since 51.9% of the vote cast were in favour, the proposal was approved. Some 150,000 members voted for the proposal and 140,000 voted against. The new agreement was thus formally concluded on 30 April.

On the other side of the table, the employers' organisations all voted for the proposal and expressed satisfaction with the result.

The day after the results of the ballot were made public, procedural mistakes were revealed, in that 2,000 members of the Danish Trade Union of Public Employees (Forbundet af Offentligt Ansatte, FOA) did not receive a ballot paper, but 8,000 pensioners - who are not eligible to vote - did. Despite increased pressure from the unions and members that had voted against the proposal, the president of FOA, Poul Winckler, rejected the possibility of calling for a new vote. The mistakes did not influence the ballot result in such a way as to tip the balance, he said.