In June 2000, ambulance workers and firefighters employed by Denmark's Falck private rescue service approved a revised compromise collective agreement in a third ballot, thus ending a three-week strike. The dispute highlighted a problem in the Danish bargaining system: the difficult of reaching agreements with a four-year term (as occurred in the 2000 bargaining round) in the sectors covered by the "normal wage" system - whereby central bargaining sets pay levels and there is no local bargaining during the term of the agreement - where two-year deals are the norm. However, a new wage system introduced in the third version of the Falck agreement may pave the way to a solution of these problems.
The extraordinarily peaceful and rapid conclusion of new collective agreements in Denmark's spring 2000 bargaining round (DK0002167F) had an unpleasant sequel for the social partners, with industrial disputes breaking out in the transport sector. The transport sector operates the "normal wage" system, with pay and conditions negotiated centrally and not generally subject to further negotiations at local level, as occurs in the remainder of the labour market. Collective agreements in transport are thus normally concluded for a period of two years, but in 2000 a four-year agreement was concluded - as in the other sectors covered by the Danish Employers' Confederation (Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, DA) and the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen i Danmark, LO). A number of strikes followed among transport workers unhappy with the new deal, notably bus drivers (DK0003169N), culminating in the rejection by ambulance workers and firefighters employed by Falcks Redningstjeneste, Denmark's largest private rescue service, of a compromise agreement concluded between the transport section of the General Workers' Union (Specialarbejderforbundet i Danmark, SiD) and the Employers' Federation for Trade, Transport and Service (Arbejdsgiverforeningen for Handel, Transport of Service, AHTS).
After twice rejecting compromise deals, Falck employees went on strike on 1 June (DK0006183F). However, after three weeks of industrial action, they finally approved a further compromise in a third ballot, with three-quarters of the staff voting in favour (on a turn-out of 85%). The approval may be partly explained by fatigue after a three-week strike, but the more important factor was probably that a new wage system is now to be introduced as a pilot scheme during the last two years of the four-year agreement period. This has eased acceptance of the four-year agreement period, which was the main problem for employees in the transport sector.
Following the Falck workers' "yes" vote, the strike was brought to an end, thus finally concluding the 2000 Danish collective bargaining round. A continuation of the strike would probably have been fruitless, as it was expected that a third rejection would have led DA to exercise its right to extend the conflict by giving notice of sympathy action in the form of a lock-out. This could have led to a rapid escalation of the dispute to a level where the government would have felt it necessary to ask parliament to step in and end the dispute through legislative intervention.
The new Falck wage system will come into operation on 1 May 2002 and implies a form of "qualification wage" whereby special factors such as education/training background and special work functions will be taken into account - though without taking the form of a completely individualised wage system. It is thus a matter of a more locally based wage system, which may turn out to represent a decisive rejection of the rigid normal wage system, under which the wage is fixed by collective bargaining at the central level. The unrest in the transport sector has highlighted the problem whereby the private sector is divided between the large "minimum wage" system (covering 85% of employees) - where the sectoral agreement sets only minima and the actual wage is fixed through negotiations at company level - and the smaller normal wage system - where the wage is fixed at the central level. However, the outcome of the Falck conflict, by introducing a locally based wage system which fits better with the normal wage system, may be a step on the road towards resolving this problem. If this can be further developed and used to set a standard for other parts of the normal wage area, this may remove the obstacles to the conclusion of longer agreements in the DA/LO field in the 2004 bargaining round. The four-year term of the agreements concluded in 2000 was a condition for ensuring room in the central negotiations for improvements which would ensure majority support for the agreements among employees, without reducing the room for manoeuvre in subsequent local wage negotiations at enterprise level. However, it was with reluctance that the social partners in the normal wage area accepted such a long agreement period.