DENMARK Law and Practice Contributed by: Lise Lauridsen and Sandro Ratkovic, Bech-Bruun
lishing a general framework for informing and consult - ing employees in the EU. The Act sets out a number of minimum requirements for how an employer must establish procedures for informing and consulting employees. However, the Act does not apply if the employer’s duty to inform and consult employees follows from a col - lective agreement or arrangement that contains provi - sions which, at a minimum, are equivalent to those of the directive. As a result, employers who are members of an employers’ organisation under the Confedera - tion of Danish Employers (DA) are not covered by the Act, since the Co-operation Agreement between DA and the Danish Trade Union Confederation applies. In the public sector, employers are similarly covered by framework agreements on employee involvement, and potentially by one of the many co-operation (MED) agreements that exist in the public labour market. 6.3 Collective Bargaining Agreements The respective organisations for employers and employees are, through membership, authorised to conclude collective agreements on behalf of their members, and the members of these organisations are bound by the agreements. Collective agreements are widely concluded between the trade unions operating in the labour market. When employer organisations enter into agreements, those agreements generally apply to all member companies within the relevant sector. The same applies when employee organisations conclude collective agree - ments – the employee organisation thereby binds all its members to the agreement. An employer may also independently enter into a col - lective agreement. However, it is only considered a collective agreement if the counterpart on the employ - ee side represents a collective of employees. This col - lective must be indeterminate, meaning that the coun - terpart on the employee side could, for example, be the employees employed at any given time within the company. If, on the other hand, the company enters into an agreement with one or more specific employ - ees regarding wages and employment conditions, this is not considered a collective agreement. Instead, it
constitutes individual employment contracts, albeit uniform in content. However, it does not take much for an agreement to be classified as a collective agree - ment. Collective agreements are typically initiated either by employees at a company or by a trade union. This usually occurs when the employees or the union approach the company and present a demand for a collective agreement. When a company is presented with such a demand, it should consider a range of options. The company should assess whether to join an employers’ organi - sation, accede to an existing collective agreement, enter into a company-level agreement, or conclude a local agreement. Termination of employment contracts is subject to only limited statutory regulation. All employees are protected from unlawful dismissal on a range of spe - cific grounds. Otherwise only white-collar employees are covered by legislation on issues such as notice periods, unfair dismissal and severance payments. Collective agreements covering white-collar employ - ees may improve on these statutory provisions but cannot reduce them. For blue-collar workers, these matters are regulated only by collective agreements. While collective agreements cover a relatively high proportion of the workforce, there are employees who do not enjoy any protection against unfair dismissal by statute or collective agreement and are covered only by the provisions in their employment contracts (and the rules on anti-discrimination). Collective Redundancies The Danish Act on Collective Redundancies (in Dan - ish: “ Masseafskedigelsesloven ”) requires that employ - ers inform the relevant regional Employment Council and inform and negotiate with the employees’ repre - sentatives before any terminations can be effected in relation to collective redundancies. 7. Termination 7.1 Grounds for Termination Introduction
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