Broadcasting strike settled

In mid-September 2002, journalists at Denmark's DR broadcasting company returned to work after a four-week strike. The key issue in the dispute was the introduction of a new, more individualised pay system.

August-September 2002 saw a four-week strike by journalists at the Danish national broadcasting station, Danmarks Radio (DR). The conflict centred on the introduction of a new wages system called 'New pay' (Ny Løn), due in October 2002. 'New pay' is a more flexible and individualised public sector wages system that has gradually been implemented since 1997 in central state employment and Denmark's 14 counties and 275 municipalities (DK0205102F), and has now finally reached DR.

However, the company's initial proposal for a specific 'DR model' of the new pay system was much more radical and individualised than that introduced elsewhere in the public sector. The proposal virtually excluded any involvement by shop stewards and suggested that management could allocate up to 50% of wage increases on an individual basis through personal increments. The conciliation officer became involved and proposed a draft agreement that was still seen by journalists - represented by the Danish Union of Journalists (Dansk Journalistforbund, DJ) - as an attack on the solidarity principles inherent in the current wages system. Two-thirds of the 900 journalists at DR voted against the conciliator's initial proposal and a strike broke out on 19 August 2002. As a consequence, DR, the leading Danish television channel, broadcast mainly repeats for a month .

The proposed agreement was seen by journalists not only as a blow to the solidaristic approach of the existing collective bargaining system but also as raising the threat of unequal geographical wage distribution across the country, in favour of journalists in Copenhagen. This concern was dismissed by DR’s managing director, Christian Nissen, who argued that the prime purpose of the new system was to allow greater larger variations in pay at individual workplaces, rather than nationally.

The striking journalists returned to work on 11 September, after approving by a three-quarters majority a new two-year collective agreement between DJ and DR, which was made possible by a deal on a revised 'New pay' model, to apply from 1 October 2002. Under the agreed scheme, shop stewards may participate in negotiations with the relevant local manager over the criteria to be used for the allocation of the funds for individual wage increases, though the actual distribution of the individual wage increases is still not an issue for agreement with shop stewards. The original proposal that 50% of wage increases could be distributed in this way was amended, so that this now applies to only 25%-30%. The monthly guaranteed real wage increase for all employees was raised from the original proposal of DKK 660 to DKK 1,160