At a meeting of the organisation's central employee-management cooperation committee on 22 January 2003, the management of the State Car Inspection Service (Statens Bilinspektion, SBI) submitted a plan for radical 'rationalisation' measures in response to government retrenchment requirements, which implied the redundancy of hundreds of members of the SBI's administrative staff. The following day, the administrative staff at 34 of the largest inspection centres stopped work. Two days later, the strike had spread to the whole country and involved both inspection staff and administrative staff at all 64 inspection units.
In late February 2003, employees at the Danish State Car Inspection Service resumed work after a month-long nationwide strike. The strike was caused by the management’s plan to make hundreds of employees redundant as a consequence of government cutbacks. Work was resumed after negotiations opened between trade unions and management, which resulted in agreement to spread an unspecified number of jobs losses over four years.
At a meeting of the organisation's central employee-management cooperation committee on 22 January 2003, the management of the State Car Inspection Service (Statens Bilinspektion, SBI) submitted a plan for radical 'rationalisation' measures in response to government retrenchment requirements, which implied the redundancy of hundreds of members of the SBI's administrative staff. The following day, the administrative staff at 34 of the largest inspection centres stopped work. Two days later, the strike had spread to the whole country and involved both inspection staff and administrative staff at all 64 inspection units.
The cause of the strike was dissatisfaction with announced cuts in the SBI budget of DKK 25 million (EUR 3.3 million). The cuts are a result of the 2003 state budget and, according to SBI management, would imply the redundancy of hundreds of employees, or about one third of the administrative staff at the state car inspection centres. This would mean that technical inspection staff would, in future, be responsible for obtaining payment for services directly from the customers.
A working group was set up and presented a proposal whereby the job losses would be spread over a period of four years, instead of the management’s proposal to implement the cuts immediately. The strike, which had just come to an end, was resumed. At a subsequent major meeting in Odense, the SBI employees decided that the national strike should continue and it was decided to present a motion of no confidence in the managing director.
On 13 February, a new staff meeting was held and it was hoped that a proposed compromise between the management and employee representatives would persuade the strikers to resume work. However, this did not happen, as the new reorganisation plan was rejected by the employees. They sent a letter to the Minister for Traffic in which they called the managing director’s management style high-handed and dictatorial.
After nearly a month of unrest and with about 70,000 cars awaiting inspection, the Minister for Traffic proposed that the SBI should invite the trade unions to negotiations. The unions involved were the state employees' section of the Union of Commercial and Clerical Employees (Handels- og Kontorfuntionærernes Forbund, HK/Stat), the Union of Danish Metal Workers (Dansk Metalarbejderforbund, Dansk Metal) and the State Public Servants’ Trade Union (Statstjenestemændenes Centralorganisation II, CO II). The last-mentioned union organises car inspectors with the status of public servants. The negotiations were thus resumed on 24 February – practically from scratch – and this was a decisive factor in the subsequent resumption of work at the inspection centres at the end of the month.
On 13 March, an agreement emerged between the unions and SBI management, whereby no mass redundancies will take place immediately. A reduction in personnel, with no exact number mentioned, will take place over the next four years.
The strike at the car inspection centres was unlawful and the State Employers’ Authority (Personalestyrelsen) at the Ministry of Finance has thus brought the case before the Industrial Court (Arbejdsretten) with a claim for penalties to be imposed on the workers involved. If a penalty is imposed, it will amount to EUR 6 to EUR 9 per working hour lost.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2003), State Car Inspection Service strike ends, article.
