Negotiated Flexibility - Comparative Perspectives on Danish Employment Relations at Local and National Levels

PhD thesis by Anna Ilsøe

During the last two decades, Danish labour market regulation has received increased recognition internationally, as Denmark has performed comparatively well on labour market indicators such as flexibility of hiring and firing, unemployment, labour market participation, job mobility and job quality.

This PhD thesis argues that there are at least three important reasons to this: 1. The regulation of the Danish labour market rests on extensive negotiations at both national, sector and local level. 2. Labour market flexibility has been renewed, widened and increased without causing significant erosion of Danish employment relations, which are still characterised by a high coverage of collective agreements and by high union densities. 3. Most negotiations on flexibility has resulted in beneficial effects for both sides of industry (e.g. the so-called Danish Flexicurity Model).

The PhD thesis consists of five self-containing papers, each analysing different aspects of this ‘negotiated flexibility' found on the Danish labour market. The first two papers have a macro-level focus and compare Danish, German and American labour market regulation. Paper three and four examine local negotiations on flexible hours drawing on 10 case studies in the Danish and German metal industry. The last paper compares company-level bargaining in large and small companies in the Danish industrial sector based on a large-scale survey.

Although the PhD thesis concludes that negotiations are far more extensive and appear more inclusive at all levels in the Danish case, signs of segmentation are also observed. Some groups on the Danish labour market seem to depend more on ‘hard' forms of flexicurity (external numerical flexibility, unemployment benefits and active labour market policies), whilst others primarily rely on ‘soft' forms of flexicurity (internal numerical flexibility, job security and combination security). This is a challenge to the future reproduction and renewal of Danish employment relations.