FAQ about the OK24 collective bargaining process

Why collective bargaining is important for you

When you are a public sector employee, your collective agreement determines how much you get in salary and pension, your conditions for holiday, parental leave, etc. The collective bargaining negotiations therefore affect many of the most important things in your employment, and that is why they are important to you.

Learn more about collective bargaining in Denmark

Voting on the outcome of negotiations - how do I get notified?

In early 2024, IDA’s negotiating committee will be engaged in negotiations with public sector employers. You will receive an email from IDA when the parties have agreed on a negotiation result, also known as a settlement. Here we describe the content of the result and what it means for you.

Once the settlement is reached, the members of the involved employee organisations have to vote about the proposed changes to the collective agreement. As a publicly employed member of IDA, you will also receive a separate email with a personal link for voting - i.e. whether you want to vote yes or no to the new collective agreement.

Based on the members’ vote, IDA’s political bodies, IDA Public Sector and IDA’s Council of Employees, will either recommend the Board of Akademikerne, the Danish confederation of professional associations, to accept or reject the result.

The vote is open from 20 March and closes 5 April at 8 a.m. If you are qualified to vote, you have received an email with a link to the online voting form. If you didn't get an email, please write ok24@ida.dk for assistance. 

Voting - why is it important that I vote?

It is with your and your colleagues' votes that we show employers that our pay and employment conditions are important to us. The more people who stand behind the agreement, the stronger the signal we send.

The Danish model - what is it about?

In Denmark, there is no legislative framework for what you should get in salary and pension, how many hours you should work, and whether you get full pay when you go on parental leave. On the contrary, it is stipulated in the collective agreements that employers and trade unions negotiate every few years. This is what is referred to as the Danish model.

Improvements and changes – will OK24 affect my salary, pension, working hours and conditions for parental leave, holiday etc.?

Yes. In principle, everything that is described in the collective agreement can come into play in the negotiations. However, it is only the areas for which either the employers or the employees make collective agreement demands that are negotiated and thus can be changed.

All areas of the collective agreement that neither employers nor employees raise demands for will remain unchanged in the new collective agreement.

The parties to the negotiations - who represent the employees and employers?

The trade unions negotiate on behalf of their members - i.e. the employees. The other party in the negotiations is the employers in the state, municipalities and regions.

The unions choose to negotiate together in a bargaining community, as we stand stronger by being many. IDA negotiates together with the other academic unions in Akademikerne (AC), the Danish confederation of professional associations. In the state sector, Akademikerne also negotiate via the cooperation organisation CFU - The Central Federation of State Employees' Organisations.

Here you can see the parties to the negotiations on the employee and employer side:

• The state: The Ministry of Finance's Staff and Competence Agency is an employer in the state sector, with whom IDA negotiates collective agreements and agreements via the umbrella organisation Akademikerne (AC) and the cooperation organisation CFU, The Central Federation of State Employees' Organisations.
• Municipalities: Local Government Denmark (KL) is an employer in the municipal area, with whom IDA negotiates collective agreements and agreements via the umbrella organisation Akademikerne (AC).
• Regions: Danish Regions is an employer in the regional area, with whom IDA negotiates collective agreements and agreements via the umbrella organisation Akademikerne (AC).

Demands - what does IDA bring to the negotiating table?

The negotiations on new collective agreements are based on the demands that the trade unions and employers have each raised.

See what demands IDA has for employers - and their counterclaims for us.

General demands

The general demands cover members of more than one employee organisation. These can be, for example, general salary increases, holidays and parental leave, which include all public employees. It can also be pensions and salary scale steps that only concern all academics on collective agreements.

When general demands are negotiated, it is said that the negotiations take place at the "big table".

Special demands

Special demands affect only one organisation's members, for example IDA's demands regarding allowances for newly qualified technical specialists.

Member influence - do I, as an IDA member, influence the collective agreement negotiations?

Yes. as a publicly employed member of IDA, you have had the opportunity to give your input via member surveys and member meetings:

In August 2022, we sent out a membership survey by email to all public-employee members in IDA. Here we asked about salary and employment conditions and what is most important for the individual member to include in the collective agreement negotiations.

In February 2023, we sent out another survey to all public-employee members about which demands IDA should give the highest priority in the OK24 negotiations.

We have also held member meetings and a webinar about OK24.

Subsequently, the members' input has been processed and prioritised by IDA Public Sector and finally approved by the Council of Employees as IDA's final list of demands for OK24.

New collective agreement - when does it come into force?

The new collective agreement is set to enter into force on 1 April 2024.

When can you see a possible salary increase on your payslip, we can only say when we have a negotiation result. General salary adjustments and when they are implemented are something that the parties agree upon during the collective agreement negotiations.

The regulatory scheme - what is it?

The regulatory scheme (reguleringsordningen) is meant to ensure that salary trends in the public sector follow those in the private sector. The salary is regulated by 80 percent of the difference between the public and private salary development - both upwards and downwards.

Example: If private salaries grow by 4 percent and public salaries only grow by 2 percent, the regulatory scheme ensures a further increase for the public sector of 1.6 percent.

State, municipality, region - is it the same collective agreement or are they different?

The state, municipalities and regions are three different areas of negotiation, and therefore both the employer side and the employee side may have prioritised different demands. The results in the three areas can therefore be different.