A new study of local managers and employee representatives in Denmark's municipal/county sector, published in August 2000, indicates that both are being given more tasks, more responsibility and more influence as a result of decentralisation, not least of wage bargaining. Furthermore, employee representatives are becoming increasingly involved in strategic and economic decisions, and this requires more training.
Managers in Denmark's municipal and county sector are becoming more visible and are required to assume greater responsibility, while employee representatives are to an increasing degree seen as "sparring partners" for the managers. These are among the most important findings of a study, entitled New roles and challenges for local management and employee representatives in the municipal/county sector (Nye roller og udfordringer for lokale ledelses- og medarbejderrepræsentanter i den (amts)kommunale sektor), conducted by the Research Centre for Employment Relations (FAOS) at the University of Copenhagen, and published in August 2000.
The study is based on 69 interviews with managers and employees at nine workplaces in the municipal/county sector. It was commissioned and financed by the "staff policy forum" (Det Personalepolitiske Forum), a debate forum set up by the social partners in the sector - the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark (Kommunernes Landsforening, KL), the Danish Federation of County Councils (Amtsrådsforeningen, ARF), the municipality of Copenhagen, the municipality of Frederiksberg and the Association of Local Government Employees' Organisation (Kommunale Tjenestemænd og Overenskomstansatte, KTO).
The study finds that the municipal/county sector has been undergoing radical changes in recent years. The most important development is the decentralisation process which is taking place and which means that both managers and employee representatives are given more tasks, more responsibility and more influence. A number of the tasks which were earlier performed at the central level are today expected to be performed by the actors at the individual workplaces - and not all managers and employee representatives are well equipped for these new tasks. The managers must learn proper management techniques (in addition to their professional qualifications as, for instance, teachers) and the employee representatives must learn how to read accounts and understand strategic decisions at the workplace.
This decentralisation and the new challenges it brings also mean that both managers and employee representatives are becoming more workplace-oriented. They relate to a lesser degree to the municipal/county administration or the trade union; instead, it is the workplace which is at the centre of their concerns, and the trend is that employees at the individual workplace form a "common front" against a competing and demanding outer world.
The study identifies 17 essential fields which are of importance for managers and employee representatives and the role they will be playing in the future. One of the issues which has had the biggest impact upon decentralisation, at least formally, is the introduction of the new wage system (DK9707121N). This new, differentiated and decentralised wage system was the subject of heated discussions when it was first introduced in the sector about five years ago. The study indicates that the system has today been accepted by the two sides. Indeed, the employee representatives at local workplaces are often better prepared than the management when it comes to wage negotiations. However, the report concludes, the major problem today is that there is not much money to negotiate over in local pay bargaining, and this weakens the employees' interest in the system and thus also the backing which the employee representatives receive from the rank and file.