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Higher Salaries and Increased Focus on Wellbeing at Work

Kent Petersen, the President of Finansforbundet is delighted that a new collective agreement was signed on 17 February which will give financial sector employees a real salary increase. “It is a collective agreement that is based on common sense and with a salary increase that is exactly where it should be,” he says.

21. Feb 2020
2 min

Salaries will rise by 6% over three years; some of this increase will ultimately need to be negotiated at a local level via the pool system in the company agreements. Employers' pension contributions will rise by 0.65% during this period. The Finanskompetencepuljen (Finance Competence Fund) with free courses will be improved. The popular dental insurance, which was introduced as a temporary scheme in 2017, is being made permanent, and a series of joint initiatives between Finansforbundet and FA (the Danish Employers' Association for the Financial Sector) are being implemented to improve wellbeing at work.

These are some of the key elements of the new collective agreement for 43,000 financial sector employees. If a majority votes in favour of the agreement in the ballot in March, the agreement will come into force on 1 April.

President of Finansforbundet Kent Petersen is pleased with the outcome, which was achieved after many hours of negotiations lasting from Sunday afternoon until early Monday morning.

"This is a collective agreement that is based on common sense and with a salary increase that is exactly where it should be," he says, referring to the challenges faced by financial companies in terms of negative interest rates and increased regulation, which is expected to squeeze earnings over the coming years.

"Compared to the expected rate of inflation, this represents a very nice increase in real salaries for financial sector employees," he points out.

Joint committee on wellbeing at work

Kent Petersen is pleased that the collective agreement also includes concrete measures for improving wellbeing at work. Apart from salary, wellbeing at work was the highest priority for Finansforbundet's members for the new collective agreement.

"I am very happy that the employers also recognise the need to strengthen wellbeing at the workplace. We are now setting up a joint committee on wellbeing at work, which among other things is going to formulate recommendations for wellbeing at work which can be implemented in the companies. In addition, funds have been allocated to establish a team of wellbeing at work counsellors whose services companies and employees can call upon," says Kent Petersen.

Finansforbundet's Assembly of Representatives will decide on the collective agreement on Monday, 2 March. If the Assembly of Representatives approves the outcome of the negotiations, the collective agreement will be sent to the members for an electronic ballot, and in this respect the union will be communicating in more detail about the content of the agreement.

The key elements of the agreement

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