Collective bargaining on wages in Denmark

Book contribution by Søren Kaj Andersen & Steen E. Navrbjerg

In the introductory chapter of the book Wages and wage bargaining in Europe - Developments since the mid-1990s three main currents of wage developments in Europe are reviewed. In the following 17 country chapters these currents are elaborated.

Firstly there is the tendency to a moderate wage development. This tendency is confirmed by a series of statistical measures, for instance the fact that while productivity in the EU-27 rose by about 20 percent in the period from 1995 to 2007, the wages and employers' social security contributions rose just 14 percent in this period. Secondly there is the tendency towards decentralization of the wage negotiations. In the European debate on the development towards more decentralized wage bargaining, a distinction between organized decentralization, a counterpart to centralized decentralization, and disorganised decentralization is often employed. This distinction also draws a line between coordinated, coherent negotiation-levels and fragmented and thus often deregulated negotiation-systems. Initially it is argued that the European trends are not unequivocal. Subsequently the complex picture is exposed. The third main current concerns the increasing attention on the low-wage-sectors. An increasing proportion of the employees in the EU work in low-wage-sectors. This phenomenon is to some extent linked to an increasing proportion of employees on temporary contracts, like temporary workers, part-time employees, etc. More generally, there is a fear that decentralization of wage negotiations, especially for low-skilled groups, can lead to an erosion of the real wage.

The subsequent 17 chapters treat these main trends in different ways. Also, they include a lot of other information about wage determination in the European labour market.

Contribution in Maarten Keune and Béla Galgóczi (eds.): Wages and wage bargaining in Europe - Developments since the mid-1990s, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), Brussels, 2008.