[Collective Contracts between Danish employers and unions have…]
Socialist Press1977 1977-04-27Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 3 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 3
Collective Contracts between Danish employers and unions have finally been imposed by government legislation.
After months of negotiations between representatives of the employers and unions had reached deadlock, the official arbitrator stepped in and worked out a compromise.
The compromise was balloted upon by the unions, who accepted it, and employers, who rejected it.
The government then made it into law, with the support of the trade union leaders.
ONLY 6% The new contracts don't give the workers much-a mere 6% including cost of living increments. Employers resistance seemed to centre on the new guaranteed minimum for lower paid workers of 29 crowns an hour (approx. £2.80).
However this is not a basic ratethe employers will be allowed to include bonuses to make up the 29 crowns. And it is a far cry from the minimum of 35 crowns demanded by the rank and file.
The fact that the compromise was a sell-out by the unions was reflected in the low ballot figures: 45.7% of TUC members voted. two-thirds for acceptance and third against.
A considerable number of 'yes' voters do so because they have no confidence that their "leaders" will lead a struggle even if they receive a mandate to do so.
Four unions-among them one of the biggest-the Shop and Office Workers-didn't even give their members the privilege of voting, the union leaderships simply delivered block votes in favour.
The Metalworkers, another big union, sent ballot papers to the members' homes in spite of a conference decision to hold the vote at union i general meetings where discussions could precede the vote In any case union members were deciding to accept or reject an agreement in which their original demands not only didn't figure, but had been dropped at the start by their negotiators who felt bound by the 6% Incomes Policy decided by the government and its right-wing allies the previous August.
The only newspapers appearing since the beginning of April have been those of the workers parties, an independent left paper cooperatively Exchange, (which isn't a memher of the Stock the employers association. and is printed by the Social Democratic