Social partner involvement in the 2002 NAP

This feature examines social partner involvement in Denmark's 2002 National Action Plan (NAP) for employment. It is one of a set of similar features for all the EU Member States, written in response to a questionnaire.

This feature outlines how Danish social partner organisations have been involved in Denmark's 2002 National Action Plan (NAP) on employment. Under the European employment strategy, each year the EU Member States draw up NAPs in response to the annual Employment Guidelines.

Similar features on social partner involvement in the 2002 NAPs have been drawn up by the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) national centres in all the EU Member States, in response to a questionnaire. Details on the background to this exercise, and the questionnaire used, can be found at TN0206102F. Readers are advised to refer to the questionnaire in conjunction with this feature.

Procedural aspects

The 2002 NAP was subject to significant consultation with a wide range of social partner organisations, as follows:

• private sector employers- the Danish Employers' Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA) and the Danish Confederation of Employers' Associations in Agriculture (Sammenslutningen af Landbrugets Arbejdsgiverforeninger, SALA);

• private sector trade unions- the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen i Danmark, LO) and the Organisation of Managerial and Executive Staff in Denmark (Ledernes Hovedorganisation, LH);

• municipal/county employers- the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark (Kommunernes Landsforening, KL) and the Association of County Authorities (Amtsrådsforeningen, ARF);

• municipal/county trade unions- LO, the Federation of Danish Public Servants' and Salaried Employees' Organisations (Funktionærerne og Tjenestemændenes Fællesråd, FTF) and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (Akademikernes Centralorganisation, AC);

• central government sector employers- the State Employers' Authority (Personalestyrelsen); and

• central government sector trade unions- the Central Federation of State Employees (Centralorganisationrnes Fællesudvalg, CFU).

It is commonly agreed among the social partners that they were informed well in advance in relation to the 2002 NAP, that they had enough time to react, and that their contributions have been incorporated in the final text, where appropriate. Indeed, the NAP states that these contributions have been incorporated 'to the widest possible extent', and they are included at length in annex 3 of the NAP - a practice introduced in 2001 - though the document is not actually signed by the social partners

Matters of policy content

Objective D of the 2002 Employment Guidelines call for a 'comprehensive partnership with the social partners for the implementation, monitoring and follow-up of the employment strategy'. The Danish social partners - which support the overall objectives on full employment of the 'Lisbon strategy' agreed at the March 2000 European Council meeting (EU0004241F) - play a significant role in national employment policy, being represented in relevant councils and committees (eg the local coordination committees responsible for the implementation of employment policy) and participating in the drawing up of education/training and labour market policies at the central and regional levels. The social partners are thus directly involved in the concrete setting of objectives as well as in the implementation of these objectives by means such as NAPs. Monitoring employment policies is also an integrated part of the Danish labour market model, involving the social partners.

In addition, the social partners contribute to employment policy through collective agreements, which cover some 85% of the Danish labour market - for details, see below

To summarise, in relation to NAPs, the Danish social partners play an important part in setting employment policy in accordance with the EU Employment Guidelines, and share responsibilities for the implementation of specific issues, including at local level.

With regard to the social partners' assessment of the government's overall employment policy, the partners have different opinions of its various political proposals regarding labour market issues, though some issues unite them. To take the recent example of legislation implementing the EU Directive (97/81/EC) on part-time work (DK0106123N), the social partners as a whole welcomed the idea of working time flexibility and increased access to part-time work, but they disagreed totally with the idea that this should be an issue for legislation alone. In their view, it is an important part of the 'Danish model' of industrial relations, and of the system of cooperation between the social partners and the government, that conditions of employment, such as working time, are regulated by the partners through the collective bargaining system. Generally speaking, there is tradition of close tripartite cooperation regarding employment policy, although in this case it was the government that played the leading role.

On the question of whether the social partners perceive any gaps or insufficiencies in the 2002 NAP, the social partners' contributions contained in annex 3 of the document make no reference to any such deficiencies.

Bargaining

The 2002 Employment Guidelines promote collective bargaining in the areas of:

• improving the quality of work and employment (in general);

• modernising work organisation (guideline 13);

• lifelong learning in the context of competence and skill development in enterprises (guideline 15);

• 'active ageing' (guideline 3);

• strengthening equal opportunities for men and women (tackling the gender pay gap, desegregating the labour market, reconciling work and family/private life etc) (guidelines 16,17 and 18); and

• social integration by way of better access to the labour market for groups and individuals at risk or at a disadvantage, such as people from ethnic minorities, migrant workers, long-term unemployed people and people with disabilities (guideline 7).

In general, as mentioned above, the Danish social partners implement substantial parts of the Employment Guidelines through collective agreements at national, sectoral and local levels. At national level, this may involve the basic cooperation agreements between trade union and employers' confederations. For example, in 2001 LO and the SALA agricultural employers' organisation signed a new cooperation agreement (DK0109133N), containing new measures of relevance to: improving of the quality of work; achieving an 'inclusive labour market'; and promoting equal treatment of women and men and the integration of refugees and immigrants in the labour market.

In spring 2002, sectoral bargaining in Denmark occurred in the public sector, with agreements concluded in both the municipal/county sector (DK0205102F) and the central government sector (DK0204103F). In both cases, the agreements incorporated provisions of relevance to the Employment Guidelines. Indeed, in annex 3 of the 2002 Danish NAP, the public sector social partners give examples from these agreements which highlight their relevance to the issue of 'adaptability'.

Quality of work and employment

The municipal/county and central government sector agreements concluded in spring 2002 (like the current private sector agreements concluded in 2000 - DK0002167F) all contain measures which can generally be described as relating to improvements in the quality of work and employment, covering matters such as; lifelong learning; working environment and conditions; gender mainstreaming; the inclusive labour market, and working time. Some of their specific provisions are summarised in more detail below.

Modernisation of work organisation

In connection with the collective bargaining round in 1999, the municipal/county social partners concluded a central framework agreement on work organisation for the sector's 650,000 employees. This framework agreement has made it possible for individual workplaces to conclude local agreements on work organisation, so that working hours may be arranged in accordance with the needs of the workplace in question.

As a consequence, the individual counties and municipalities have concluded local agreements or introduced pilot schemes on work organisation with a view to arranging working hours in order to: optimise the performance of tasks; provide for better opportunities for cooperation and teamwork for individual groups of staff; and reconcile work and private life. For instance, in the county of southern Jutland, a comprehensive project on work organisation has been initiated in the hospitals sector on the basis of the central framework agreement. Several municipalities have initiated preparatory work on new rules for work organisation in the field of care of the elderly: pilot projects will be carried out with a model of working time organisation (previously tested in the Swedish municipal care sector) which means that the employees work for three days and then have three days off.

Lifelong learning

In their 2002 collective agreement, the social partners in the municipal/county sector have agreed provisions on the development of competences. One effect of the new agreement is the management and the employees at all county and municipal workplaces will set joint development targets for individual employees or group of employees. There is a mutual obligation to meet these development targets. The policies of the counties and municipalities in the field of lifelong learning are to be discussed annually in the sector's top-level works council body (or cooperation committee), the MED committee. According to the agreement, matters discussed by the MED committee include how work on the development of competencies is to be evaluated.

Lifelong learning and the development of competences are also regarded as decisive factors in the central government sector, both to improve the labour market position of employees and to create attractive workplaces and ensure the recruitment and retention of good employees. In the 2002 collective bargaining round, a 1999 agreement on the 'strategic and systematic development of competences' was renewed and strengthened, introducing requirements for written development plans and the involvement of cooperation committees as a strategic partner. In line with the agreement, the State Employers' Authority will, in 2002, cooperate with the CFU trade union body on drawing up a guide on the strategic and systematic development of competences.

Active ageing

As part of the 2002 bargaining in the municipal/county sector, an existing framework agreement on older workers ('seniors') policy was amended, with the aim of improving conditions for employees so that they can remain in the labour market as long as possible. The parties are conducting a project entitled 'senior policy in practice', aimed at building up experience and developing methods to enable older workers policies to be integrated into personnel policy.

In the central government sector, the State Employers' Authority and CFU have supplemented existing retirement and older workers schemes with staff retention incentives, aimed at encouraging employees to continue to work at least until they reach the age of 62. The incentives include the possibility of up to 12 extra days off per year and a bonus scheme if the employee stays at work beyond the age of 62.

Gender policy

Collective agreements in the municipal/county sector seek to take a 'gender mainstreaming' approach, and have focused especially on the issue of equal pay. In connection with the 2002 bargaining round, the social partners agreed to launch a project to examine wage formation, including earnings gaps between men and women in the private and municipal/county sectors. The research will examine statistics and make 'dynamic' comparisons of wages in a broad sense for comparable groups in the two sectors. Furthermore, it has been agreed that the wage statistics will be broken down by gender in order to make wage gaps between women and men more visible. In the area of helping reconcile work and family life, the sector provides good possibilities for working part time and a scheme providing for days off for parents of small children.

In the central government sector, where new, more flexible and decentralised pay systems have been introduced in recent bargaining rounds, the State Employers' Authority and CFU have agreed to ensure that gender-based inequalities do not develop in the local wage formation process (the sector applies and monitors regularly the equal pay principle). The social partners will take up this issue in their half-term evaluation of the new pay systems. The State Employers' Authority has taken a number of initiatives of its own, focusing on flexibility in relation to work and family life.

Integration

In 2001, the Ministry of Finance and CFU conducted a campaign seeking to change attitudes on the integration of people from ethnic minorities at central government sector workplaces, including publication of a joint guide and a conference. There has also been an ongoing dialogue with state institutions on local initiatives in this area. At the request of the Ministry of Finance, in 2001 all ministries set their own targets for employment of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants. The overall target is that 3.5% of central government sector employees will be immigrants from countries outside Western Europe and North America, or their descendants, by the end of 2003.

Initiatives in this area have also been taken by the social partners in the private sector. In May 2002, LO and DA concluded an agreement on the integration of people from ethnic minorities on the Danish labour market.

Commentary

After the general election in November 2001 (DK0112147F), a new coalition government was formed by the Liberal Party (Venstre) and the Conservative People's Party (Det Konservative Folkeparti). This government does not seem to want to change the practice of involving the social partners to an important degree in national employment policy. The Danish model of regulation of the labour market is built on a high degree of self-regulation by the social partners and a tradition of tripartite negotiation concerning the government's employment policy.

The new government has so far proposed changes aim at creating a more flexible labour market - eg through legislation on part-time work - DK0206102N- and at improving the possibilities for reconciling work and family life - eg through legislation on maternity/childcare leave (DK0202104F) (which some experts believe will, unintentionally, encourage women to stay at home - DK0203102F). In both cases, the social partners felt that they were not sufficiently heard or consulted, and criticised the government for interfering in areas normally covered by collective agreements.

It seems clear that the government is challenging the views and position of the trade union movement in some areas, but it still to early to assess the impact this might have on cooperation between the social partners and the government in drawing up the 2003 NAP. The government has invited the social partners to a discussion in autumn 2002 over a new labour market reform. This reform will undoubtedly refer to the guidelines of the European employment strategy. (Carsten Jørgensen, FAOS)