Internationalisation and Danish Trade Unions

By European Industrial Relations Observatory

According to a recent study, three-quarters of the members of HK -Denmark's largest trade union - working in multinational enterprises, with nearly half working for foreign-owned firms.

. This increasing 'internationalisation' of business is seen as posing a number of urgent challenges for the Danish trade union movement.

A recent study carried out by the Union of Commercial and Clerical Employees in Denmark (HK) - Denmark's largest union - and published in February 2003 examines the ownership of its members' workplaces, and finds that 75% of members work for a multinational enterprise. Furthermore, nearly half of the HK members covered by the study (46.1%) work for a multinational that is mainly foreign-owned. The extent of this 'internationalisation' has come as something of a surprise for Danish unions, which until now had not seen concrete statistics showing that globalisation is affecting so many of their members.