The year is kicking off with important negotiations in the Danish labor market that will set the direction for the wages and conditions of more than 600,000 private sector employees in the coming years. The industry's collective agreement - described as a breakthrough settlement and which forms the framework for subsequent agreements - must be in place, and the starting gun was fired on Monday. The main players are, on the one hand, CO-industri, which negotiates for employees, and on the other hand, the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI), which represents the employers.
The former is led by the chairman of Dansk Metals, Claus Jensen, and Mads Andersen, chairman of 3F Industri. For Dansk Dansk Industri, it is DI's CEO, Lars Sandahl Sørensen, and deputy CEO Kim Graugaard, who are leading the charge. All four of them held a press conference on Monday:
- We can be pleased that inflation is under control. It has fallen below two percent. Of course, this also affects many of the things we are talking about when we now sit down at the negotiating table, said Lars Sandahl Sørensen here and added:
- Still, two years later it is quite difficult to look ahead. It is probably a premise that we will have to get used to more and more.
He still called the negotiations "difficult".
Believe in an agreement
Michael Svarer, professor of economics at Aarhus University, now believes that an agreement will be reached - and with a noticeable increase in real wages. He does call the economic situation in Denmark a bit special, because some companies have zero growth and others are booming with really high growth. But in general, there is a prospect of economic progress over the next few years, and inflation is under control.
- I wonder if there is room to give a real wage increase of around one and a half percent, says Michael Svarer.
He mentions that employees can also be accommodated in other areas. For example, with free-choice schemes and pensions. Conversely, employers will probably emphasize that the world is in an uncertain place - for example in the export area, where a new president in the USA entails an increased risk of trade tensions.
- That is a reservation that must be taken into account. But I still believe that we will see that there is economic room to give some nice wage increases, says the economics professor.
Claus Jensen from Dansk Metal also thinks so:
- We have made up for the lost real wage somewhat faster than I predicted last time. We are satisfied with that, he said and elaborated:
- But what is lacking here is the real wage increase that the industry's employees can quite rightly expect to receive year after year, said the metal chairman at the press conference.
The industry has come through the corona and inflation crisis nicely, but more wages need to be on the table. Claus Jensen will "take the specific figures into the negotiation room", it was said. Several researchers have assessed that the risk of conflict is low. This was recently stated by labor market researcher Laust Høgedahl from Aalborg University, among others. The economy is good, and there are no plans for another intervention like the removal of major prayer days in 2023:
- All other things being equal, it will reduce the conflict barometer, said Laust Høgedahl earlier in January.
Conflict can arise when a collective agreement has expired and a new one is not yet in place. As long as the collective agreement is in force, the parties have committed not to strike or lockout.
During the latest collective agreement negotiations in 2023, the parties agreed, among other things, to increase employers' contributions to pensions by two percent, while employees' contributions decreased accordingly. The voluntary account was also increased by two percent. Collective agreements in the private sector were most recently negotiated in the first months of 2023. Most agreements run until March 1 of this year.
jel /ritzau/
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