DANISH STRIKE FAILS TO BRING HOME THE BACON

	About 400,000 private sector workers in Denmark went on indefinite
	strike on the 27th April) against a background of employers making
	big profits and workers having shown "restraint" for the last few
	years. Employers had refused to accept any demand that increased
	company costs, despite the fact that the economy is booming and
	workers wanted more time off.

	The unions declared their willingness to re-enter negotiations but
	this offer was rejected. The employers locked out more workers in
	retail and distribution. By the third day of the strike the stock
	exchange fell by around kr34 bn.(about £3b) and foreign investors
	were getting jittery. The Social Democrat government warned that if
	the strike went on longer than 10 days they would be forced to
	intervene.

	As in the big strike of 1985, there was a national meeting of shop
	stewards in Odense to decide on the outcome of the strike. The
	meeting agreed the formation of national and local co-ordinating
	committees to organise the running of the strike. This was also in
	response to the union leaders who were talking about opening
	negotiations where the demands of the strike could be watered down.
	The strike remained solid and the employers started to complain
	about a "workers' dictatorship" as they have to ask permission from
	the unions for any movements they want to make. The unions only
	allow things to happen on the basis of emergency cases. One cannot
	get petrol, cannot get out of some of the islands, without
	permission from the trade unions. During the strike there was a
	unionisation campaign with workers going to non-organised workplaces
	to recruit them.

	On May 7th a special law dictating the terms of the "contracts" of
	the sectors affected by the strike (and lockout) was passed, thus
	making all further industrial action illegal. The striking workers
	returned to work the following Monday, though some held stop-work
	meetings and went home for the day. The new law gives between one
	and three extra days leave, depending on service, but it also cuts
	back on the employers' contributions to pension funds and abolishes
	a special tax paid by employers to cover some of the governments
	expenses for pay during sick leaves.

	According to the government, the terms of the special law will not
	cost the employers any more than the agreement which was rejected by
	the workers and started the strike. We spoke to a Danish union
	activist attending the march for Social Justice in London and asked
	him about the end of the strike. His view was that Danish workers
	were too 'comfortable' to find the will to continue in defiance of
	the law. His union, the Scaffolders club of the general union, had
	instead used their anger and frustration to good effect in the local
	contract bargaining that was going on, and had signed new agreements
	with several previously non-unionised firms, usually after pickets.
	Other groups of workers have decided to stop their financial support
	for the Social Democratic party as a protest, such as the Copenhagen
	airport workers.


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