LABOUR MARKET RELATIONS

The labour market in Denmark is generally considered very well organised. Both employees and employers have established strong organisations taking care of the interests of their members. The level of organisation membership exceeds 90 %. From a rather fragmented structure the tendency in recent years developed towards centralisation of the labour market organisations. The tradesmen and semi-skilled workers are traditionally organised by craft in trade unions, which cover questions of for instance wages, working conditions and broader political aspects of the labour relations. The unions also run the unemployment insurance system. This system is partly financed by the employee - the major cost, however, is taken by the state. A group of important employee trade unions have recently formed BAT-kartellet (unified cartel of construction workers) organising skilled tradesmen as well as semi-skilled workers. The white collar workers of the industry are correspondingly organised in their own unions (as architects or engineers etc.). However, for these professions, other types of association dealing jointly with the aspects of employment and general professional matters (in-service training, international developments etc) also play an important role. For historical reasons, both employees and employers (as individuals) become members of these organisations. To reduce the obvious potential for internal conflicts specific matters are typically dealt with inside the frameworks of sub-groupings of the organisations. On the employers side the smaller specialist contractors have established the organisation Byggeriets Arbejdsgivere - BYG (The Danish Master Building Organisation) covering most of the traditional tradesman-based companies. The general contractors, however hold their own organisation Entreprenørforeningen (The Danish Contractors' Association). This division underlines the somewhat different scope of interests of these companies compared to the rest of the employers in the construction industry. Recently the employers have engaged in a round-table organisation named Byggeriets Firkant covering general as well as specialist contractors. This organisation deals with all aspects of the construction industry as seen from the employers point of view in relation to the general political level as well as more building related areas like contractual amendments, fixing of wage rates and the like. Consultants are organised in separate associations for architects (PAR) and engineers (FRI). They serve as employers associations dealing with general political questions, matters related to the employees as well as professional matters on a company level related to other parties in the building process. As an example of their activities these two organisations have elaborated detailed specifications of the activities to be conducted by the different parties in the building process. Furthermore the architects and engineers have formed a joint organisation, AI-rådet (council of architects & engineers) dealing with interface matters of the two parties and representing the architects and engineers in international matters. The producers of building materials are organised in Dansk Industri (Confederation of Danish Industries) in which they have their own section dealing with matters specific to the production of materials and components for the construction industry. The traditional weighty fields of activity for the organisations on both sides are questions related to agreements on wages, working conditions and questions related to education and training. This includes all topics related to the Industrial Relations Court -where disputes concerning wages and working conditions are treated, if a solution cannot be rea-ched at an organisational level. The organisations have a long record of exerting influence on the political decision level in Denmark. In reverse, this strategy confirms the role of the construction industry as a much used tool in the regulation of the overall national economy during the last 50 years. The recent development of stronger and more comprehensive horizontal organisations to some extent implies uniting parties across the traditional boundaries of the production process. In a wider perspective this might hopefully soften the areas of conflict between the different trades and parties and also reintroduce benefits of synergy in the modern fragmented building process.