Working hours
The length of working hours is as a rule fixed by collective agreement. Working hours today are 37 hours a week at full-time employment.
It is possible to obtain an agreement on part-time employment.
Employees who work more than an average of 37 hours a week over a period of typically one to three months will receive overtime remuneration.
Overtime is compensated for by payment or time off in lieu of payment. In most cases, the overtime pay amounts to 50 per cent.
Employees who themselves plan their work, or whose working time cannot be checked are not entitled to overtime pay. However, the employer may grant overtime remuneration subject to specific assessment if the scope of the additional work has been considerable.
The provisions governing the working time organisation are laid down in the Working Environment Act and based on collective agreement. To some extent, it is a matter of implementation of EU directives.
Under the Working Environment Act, the employee is entitled to a 24-hour rest within each period of seven days. For the vast majority of employees, the working hours are, however, organised as a five-day week.
The Working Environment Act entitles the employee to a period of rest of at least 11 hours within each period of 24 hours. The period of rest may be reduced by collective agreement in special circumstances.
Normally half an hour's paid lunch break is included in the working hours.
At local level, agreements may be concluded on a so-called flexitime scheme. It gives the employee the opportunity of placing some of his/her working hours within a particular period.
Lastly, most employees are entitled to a special allowance for work carried out between the hours of 5 pm to 6 am, at weekends and on public holidays.
Dismissal
The rules governing dismissal depend i.a. on whether the employee terminates his/ her employment or is dismissed by the employer, and whether it is a matter of a civil servant or a person employed under a collective agreement. For staff employed under an individual contract, the contract applies together with the provisions laid down in employment law.
The period of the employer's notice of dismissal differs between the different groups of employees: for the vast majority of staff employed under a collective agreement, the rule is that the notice of dismissal is increased from one month (in the course of the first three months' employment) to six months (after nine years' employment). Employees paid by the hour, who are often less closely connected with the employer, receive no notice of dismissal in the course of the first three months' employment. Normally, however, they will have a gradually increasing notice of dismissal from zero days to three months (after five years' employment).
For civil servants, the notice of dismissal is three months (it is, however, two weeks in the first six months of the probation period).
Prior to dismissal, a consultation is to be held to give the employee and, when it is a matter of dismissal of a civil servant, the employee organisation the opportunity to make a statement concerning the contemplated dismissal. Any dismissal must be based on a reasoned argument relating to the circumstances of the institution (i.e. insufficient funds, restructuring or the like) or to the conduct of the employee (i.e. lack of aptitude, too much absence due to sickness or cooperation problems).
Dismissal of civil servants may be tried before the ordinary courts of law. With respect to staff employed under a collective agreement, their organisation may submit a dismissal to industrial arbitration i.e. a special negotiation institution based on the collective agreement where an arbitrator (normally a judge) can settle the disagreement without the possibility of appeal. Staff employed under a collective agreement may, similarly, have a dismissal tried before the ordinary courts oflaw, if the employee organisation refuses to take the matter further in the dispute settlement system.
An employee may tender his/her resignation at the following notice: a civil servant employed on probation: one month (two weeks, however, regarding the first six months). A permanently employed civil servant and a fixed-term employed civil servant: three months. The majority of staff employed under a collective agreement: one month.
No reasons are required for a resignation. The possibility of civil servants to have their pension paid immediately from the date of resignation depends, however, on the reason for which the person in question has tendered his/her resignation. See Chapter 4 (Pension).
Holiday
All employees in Denmark are entitled to five weeks' holiday. To the extent the employee has been employed in the previous calendar year, it will be a matter of holiday with pay.
For employees in the state sector, the pay will normally include salary + a special holiday allowance that is calculated as 11/2 per cent of the taxable income in the previous calendar year.
Employees in the state sector who are entitled to pay during sickness will, furthermore, earn the right to a 0.42 special holiday with pay per month's employment. It means that an employee who has been employed throughout the previous calendar year has earned the right to one week's special holiday with pay.
The most significant differences between ordinary holiday and special holidays are
- that the employee may choose to convert the special holidays into a cash payment, and
- that the taking of the special holidays is subject to agreement, whereas the employer, after consultation with the employee, decides when the ordinary holiday is to be taken.
Sickness
The majority of central government employees are normally entitled to full pay during sickness. However, a small group of hourly paid employees receive only sickness benefits, which are lower than their normal wages.
Maternity/paternity leave and adoption leave
Under Danish legislation, parents have a joint right to absence from work for a period of 112 weeks in connection with pregnancy and childbirth. Parents are jointly entitled to benefits for 52 out of the total number of weeks.
The mother has a right to take pregnancy leave four weeks before childbirth. After the birth of the child, the mother is entitled to 14 weeks' maternity leave, and the father is within the same period entitled to two weeks' paternity leave.
The mother and the father are jointly entitled to 32 weeks' parental leave on benefits, which they may share as they please. The father may begin to take part of the 32 weeks' leave at the same time as the mother takes her 14 weeks' maternity leave.
The parents may extend the 32 weeks' leave to 40 or 46 weeks, but without a corresponding increase in the benefits.
There is, furthermore, much scope for spending the leave in a flexible manner. Parents may, for example, postpone part of the leave. The only restriction is that it must be taken before the child reaches the age of nine. Furthermore, parents may, subject to agreement with the employer, resume work on a part-time basis during a leave period, which means that the leave will be correspondingly prolonged.
Apart from the biological mother's pregnancy leave, adoptive parents have the same right to flexible planning of absence and benefits in connection with adoption. However, the 14 weeks following the reception of the child are not reserved for one of the parents.
Especially for women salaried employees, there is, in addition, a statutory right to half pay in the period beginning four weeks before to 14 weeks after the birth of the child.
In the state sector, a collective agreement has been concluded which supplements the statutory rules with an additional entitlement to pay and pension etc.
Under this agreement, women employees have a right to maternity leave with pay beginning six weeks before childbirth. In addition, the mother has a right to 14 weeks' pay after the birth of the child, and the father is entitled to two weeks' pay within the same period of time. Moreover, the parents are jointly entitled to ten weeks with pay in the parental leave period, and the father has a special right to two weeks' leave with pay before the child has reached the age of 46 weeks.
The pay entitlement is supplemented with a right for both parents to earn pension rights during leave without pay. This applies to the first 14 weeks of leave without pay.
Apart from the biological mother's pregnancy leave, adoptive parents have the same right to pay and to earn pension rights in connection with adoption. For adoptive parents, none of the leave periods are, however, reserved for one of the parents.
Furthermore, prior to the reception of the child abroad, adoptive parents normally have a right to paid leave in connection with a journey to and a stay in the country in question.
A maternity/paternity fund has been established in the state sector. With a view to equalising the expenses of institutions in connection with childbirth and adoption, the additional expenses of employing substitutes during a leave period will be reimbursed.
Other schemes for families with young children
Under the central government agreement, both a father and a mother are entitled to ten care days with pay per child. No special conditions have been laid down with respect to purpose regarding the application of the days, and there are no deadlines for when they are to be taken.
The mother may, for example, spend her care days in connection with the pregnancy leave as the seventh and eighth weeks before the birth of the child.
Employees in the state sector have, moreover, the right to paid leave on the first sickness day of a child.
Child-care leave
Under Danish legislation, the parents of children born/received before 1 January 2002 have the opportunity of taking up to one year's child care leave as a supplement to the maternity/paternity or adoption leave. During this leave, parents are entitled to a leave benefit of 60 per cent of the maximum unemployment benefit rate. Similarly, against the background of collective agreement, pension rights will be earned during the entire period. The leave must be taken before the child reaches the age of nine.
As a result of the longer and more flexible maternity/paternity leave that came into effect on 1 January 2002, this scheme is being phased out, and will cease to exist in 2011.
Other types of leave
Subject to application, an employee may obtain leave for a limited period of time, for example in connection with a job change. To which extent and for which purposes leave may be granted will depend on the practice of the individual institution and, among other things, on the possibility of reemployment.
However, when working in the service of international organisations that Denmark is a member of or cooperates with as, for example, the UN, the EU and NATO, the employee has a genuine legal claim to leave.
Telework
Increasing technological development has led to a greater need for new ways of working. The technological development, in particular, has made employees less dependent on being physically present at the place of work and has made it possible to work from home.
Therefore, the Ministry of Finance and the CFU concluded a framework agreement on telework in 1997. The agreement comprises work where a special telework place is set up for the employee in addition to his/her main workplace, and where the tasks performed as telework are of a permanently recurrent nature. Other types of home working where the employee for example performs various tasks from time to time may also take place, but are not included in the agreement.
The European social partners' agreement on telework is expected to be implemented in central government in 2005.
Senior schemes
The Danish state sector wishes to develop and retain experienced staff. Therefore, diversity in relation to age is considered an absolute necessity for the purpose of good performance of tasks.
For this reason, it is possible to make an agreement to the effect that employees above the age of 60 (before 1 April 2005: employees above the age of 55) work part- time, while at the same time receiving a higher pension payment, or an agreement that managers transfer to a lower-ranked position, but receive pay and/or pension- related compensation.
In addition, it is possible for employers to grant employees above the age of 62 one day off per month and a severance benefit to be disbursed if the person in questions postpones his/her retirement until a specified date.
In certain situations, it may prove necessary to carry out staff cuts. In this connection, it is possible to conclude agreements on a voluntary redundancy package, which entails that the employee receives extra pension and/or pay.
