Jørgensen, Carsten

The current government, headed by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of the Liberal Party (Venstre), is a coalition between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party (Det Konservative Folkeparti) which came into power in November 2001. The most important political event for the government during the year was undoubtedly the Presidency of the European Union, which Denmark held during the second half of 2002. The main question on the agenda was enlargement of the EU, and the Danish Prime Minister received considerable credit for his handling of difficult issues.

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 slogan and main theme of an extraordinary congress [1] of the Confederation of Danish Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen i Danmark, LO) held on 8 February 2003 was a 'New LO' (Nyt LO). This seemed to set the scene for important innovations and changes as regards the confederation’s external image and internal structure. In the event, the congress was seem by observers as neither a total success, nor a total failure. The most drastic changes - ie the abolition of financial support to the Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiet) (DK0210101F [2]) and a solution to the problem of demarcation disputes between member unions (DK0212104F [3]) - were adopted, but not with the enthusiasm which the LO top leadership had wished. The result was seen as a number of good compromises, but with some loose ends. [1] http://www.lo.dk/smcms/Fokus/Nyt_LO/Index.htm?ID=3550 [2] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/lo-presents-concept-for-a-broader-union-organisation [3] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/lo-makes-proposal-on-resolving-demarcation-disputes

At the end of January 2002, the Danish Employers’ Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA) expressed its dissatisfaction with a judgment concerning employment contracts issued by the Eastern Division of the Danish High Court (Østre Landsret). According to DA, employers are deprived of any legal protection if all changes in the employment relationship have to be incorporated into the contract of employment [1], including in cases where the employee was recruited before the adoption of the Act on Employment Contracts 10 years ago (which made written contracts obligatory for all workers for the first time). This is the situation after the Court recently found against an employer for not having incorporated a change in a bonus scheme into an employment contract, although the employee had no right to an employment contract in the opinion of DA, as the person had been recruited before the Act on Employment Contracts came into force on 1 July 1993. [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/efemiredictionary/contract-of-employment-2

In 2001, the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Nærings- og Nydelsesforbundet, NNF) negotiated what was regarded as the best agreement in the union’s history in the meat factory and slaughterhouse sector, where the employers' organisation, the Association of Employers in the Slaughterhouse Sector (Slagteriernes Arbejdsgiverforening, SA), was relatively weak (DK0104117F [1]). The deal included a wage increase of over 9% over two years. The two-year duration of the 2001 accord means that the next bargaining round will occur in early 2003, one year ahead of the renewal of the four-year collective agreements negotiated in 2000 in the major bargaining area covered by the Danish Employers’ Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA) and the Confederation of Danish Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen i Danmark, LO) (DK0002167F [2]). [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined/meat-workers-approve-new-agreement-at-third-attempt [2] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/undefined-working-conditions/2000-bargaining-round-completed-peacefully

On 8 January 2003, the main social partner organisations in the industrial sector, the Confederation of Danish Industries (Dansk Industri, DI) and the trade union bargaining cartel, the Central Organisation of Industrial Employees (CO-industri), concluded an agreement which aims to implement the government's labour market reform plan agreed in October 2002, entitled 'Bringing more people into employment' (Flere i arbejde) (DK0210102F [1]). The agreement is based on the assumption that the legislation to implement this plan - which seeks to create a simplified single system of measures aimed at getting unemployed people back into work - will be presented and implemented in the course of 2003. [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/labour-market-reform-agreed

In connection with its efforts to modernise the trade union movement, the Confederation of Danish Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen i Danmark, LO) has come up with proposals in order to resolve the long-running problem of demarcation disputes among member unions. Notably, for 12 years, the Trade Union of Public Employees (Forbundet af Offentligt Ansatte, FOA) and the General Workers’ Union (Specialarbejderforbundet i Danmark, SiD) have been in dispute about which of them should organise bus drivers in Copenhagen (DK9909146N [1]). Another example of a disputed membership group is hotels and restaurant workers. LO's proposal – which was presented at a meeting of the executive committee on 15 November 2002 – would allow LO to impose heavy fines on unions which cannot, or do not wish to reach agreement, or leave it to the members to decide the issue through a ballot. [1] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/privatisation-leads-to-disputes-between-unions

The use of temporary agency workers in Denmark has been steadily increasing. In 1992, there were 73 registered temporary work agencies with about 3,000 agency workers, which grew to 396 agencies with 21,000 employees BY 1999 (according to figures from Statistics Denmark [Danmarks Statistik]). If the growth rate recorded since 1997 has continued, there are probably about 370 agencies with about 35,000 workers in December 2002. In 2001, the agencies' turnover was more than DKK 3 billion - a 10-fold increase over a decade.

The November 2002 employment survey from Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik), conducted on the basis of employers’ payments into the ATP (labour market supplementary pension) system, shows that 20,200 people lost full-time jobs from the second to the third quarter of 2002. This was 15,500 more people than expected by experts in the labour market field. The situation is worst in the industrial sector, in which employment fell by 6,700, and in the building sector, where 5,100 jobs were lost. In the municipal sector, employment fell by about 3,400. On the whole, public sector employment declined by 6,400, while the private sector suffered a loss of 13,500.

Telecommunications companies, and especially those that are mainly engaged in mobile telephony, are in the midst of a serious crisis in Denmark. In early November 2002, a confidential report from the new top management of the Danish division of Orange, the French-owned mobile telephone company, was leaked to the press. The report recommended large-scale redundancies in connection with a major restructuring process. This leak immediately led to the dismissals of some of the employees who had received the report. Shortly afterwards, management publicly stated that 400 out of 1,000 employees would be made redundant as part of a major economic restructuring process. The employees were informed at a number of meetings, and Orange has taken the initiative to launch negotiations over the job losses with employee representatives, and has informed the Confederation of Danish Industries (Dansk Industri, DI).