International Employment Relationships: A Comparative Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of international employment relationships, focusing on a comparative study between France and Denmark. It begins with an introduction to employment relationships, highlighting their significance in defining the legal bond between employers and employees, ensuring employee rights and benefits, and determining the application of labor and social security laws. The report emphasizes the importance of employment relationships in protecting workers and ensuring smooth organizational functioning. It then delves into the specific employment relationship models of France and Denmark, examining the role of government, collective bargaining systems, and the influence of trade unions. The report contrasts the French system, characterized by a strong government role and ideological trade unionism, with the Danish model, which emphasizes self-regulation and strong union-employer cooperation. It further explores the impact of mergers within trade unions and presents statistical data on union density in both countries. The report concludes by highlighting the key differences in government involvement, collective bargaining approaches, and the structure of trade unions in France and Denmark, offering insights into the complexities of international employment relations. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools and past assignments for students.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIPS
International employment relationships
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIPS
Introduction
Employment Relationship is said to be a legal bonding between the employee and the
employers. Employment Relationship exists in an organization when the employee receives a
certain amount of remuneration in return of the work and services performed by him. Employee
relationships pave the way for the employees to gain access to the employee rights and benefits
that are involved with the employment in the form of labor laws and social security. The
presence of the employment relationship determines the application of the labor and social
security law in the workplace. The following relationship module serves as the most important
point of reference to determine the provisions and extent of the different labor laws that are to be
provided to the workers.
Importance of Employment Relationship
Employment Relationship has became one of the integral parts for the workers who work
for different organizations but lack protection measures. The main factors that lead to the origins
of Employment Relationship are;
a. The laws that protect the employees do not provide an overall security to them.
b. The scope of the law is narrow which increases the chance of risk for the employees.
c. The employers of the organization have created the image of the relationship in such a
way that it makes the law ambiguous in nature and raises doubts to the existence of the
law.
d. Absence of the compliance and enforcement of the law makes it even more difficult for
the employees.

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e. The clauses of the relationship are not clearly mentioned as to what is the law, what are
the rights that are enjoyed by the employee, who are the actual employers, who are the
enforcers of the law and many more as such.
The smooth functioning of the organization depends on the presence of a smooth
employee and employer relationship. The employee relationship is essential for the
organization because of a number of different factors;
1. Workers cannot take decisions alone and needs expert guidance to make sure that the
decisions are perfect in nature. The workers may miss out on some minute details which
may be pointed out by others in the workplace. Maintaining a perfect relationship with
the fellow workers is utmost important to avoid any complications in the workplace.
2. Productivity increases when the work done by the employees are shared among all.
Decreasing additional load will help the employees within the organization perform
better. A proper employee management helps the employers to segregate different works
within the workers to make sure that the work is completed within a stipulated time
period.
3. Presence of a healthy Employee Relationship discourages problems within the
employees. Employees seem to adjust more easily with each other. The presence of such
a positive environment helps the employees to concentrate totally on work and increase
their productivity.
4. A healthy relation between the employers and the employee helps to establish a good
communication that helps in the smooth functioning of the organization. The main
functioning of the organization depends on a healthy employee relationship.

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Employment Relationship in France
France is the sixth largest economy of the world in terms of Gross Domestic Production.
The country has a high rate of labor market participation of 63%. The employment relationship
in the country is governed by different levels of legislation like employment agreements,
company-level agreements and labor code of the European Union treaties and laws. These
following set of laws applies to all the workers or employees who work under employee
agreements and are based on French laws. The intervention of the Government of France in
Employment Relations highlights the failure of the unions and the employees to use voluntary
collective arguments. French Government is one of the largest employers in the country as it has
a strength of 5 million employees and thus the policies of the government exerts pressure on
different private sector enterprises to change the laws and provide more benefits and security to
the employees. The policy of the French Government has changed since the 1980’s and a number
of measures were taken to reduce unemployment in the country. The introduction of the Aubry
Law is seen as a revolutionary measure for the employers and the unions as they were
encouraged to strike a negotiation between them in view of maintaining the wages and
supporting the cause of recruitment to decrease unemployment. The governments that have
existed in France have created a number of different representative bodies at the enterprise level.
The delegates appointed by the government are involved in dealing with the different grievances
of the employees while the work councils look after the formation of the employee constitution.
Though unions are present and active in large scale industries of France absence of such
bodies in small and medium scale industries is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

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Employment Relationship in Denmark
Denmark is one of the few countries in Europe that has a liberal economic structure. The
Government structure has allowed the formation of trade unions in both the private as well as the
public sector enterprises. According to (Mallett & Wapshott, 2014) Denmark has been slowly
shifting towards a multi level regulated system as the government has adopted the policy of
decentralization. Some of the past conflicts in the industrial sector of Denmark have helped in
the evolution of the regulation of Denmark’s labor market. Denmark strictly follows the
collective Bargaining policy to regulate the pay structure and the working conditions for the
employees. The policies of the market economy are developed by the coordinated efforts of the
Trade Unions, employee associations and the political administration (De Cuyper & Isaksson,
2017). The public sector employment is the highest in the country with strength of 35%.
Denmark has an employment participation rate of 75% which is the highest among the OECD
countries (Saridakis et al. 2016). The Danish IR model is based upon the self regulating
principles of the Unions and the employer associations. The employee relationship
revolutionized only after the intervention of the Government. The unions and enterprises
developed a strong bonding in the enterprise level which ensured the establishment of a large
number of union branches and cooperation committees (Cobb, 2016).
Employee associations in the private sector companies of Denmark were as high as 150
but diminished to a mere 14 after the amalgamation of a large number of such small associations.
In the present scenario 3 of the existing 14 associations have employee strength of 90%. The
public sector of Denmark has a huge importance to the economy of the country as contractual
employment has overthrown the status of civil servants (Tepper & Simon, 2015). Among the
present strength of public sector employees, three fourth of them are engaged in working at

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municipalities and regions while another one fourth is engaged in the national level working. The
role of the government of Denmark is not much bigger than compared to other European
countries but has a significant amount of importance (Kucera & Roncolato, 2014). The
government always consults with the unions and employer associations on forming different
boards or commissions to look into different matters related to employee relationship. The self
regulation of the labor market is threatened by some key pressures;
a. European Union Regulation has been increasing gradually which has posed a serious
threat to the labor market of Denmark.
b. Political parties influencing the labor market.
c. Pressures occurring at the enterprise level.
Comparison between Employment Relationship in France and Denmark
ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
FRANCE
ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
DENMARK
 State’s Role is very much important in
employee relationship in France
 Collective Bargaining System is
dependent on international laws and
tripartite discussions
 Collective Bargaining is as high as 84%
 There are three types of collective
bargaining systems
 Trade Unionism in France is based on
 State’s role is limited than other
European countries
 Collective Bargaining System is self
regulated.
 The relation between the organizations
and any form of industrial conflicts are
fixed by mutual agreements.
 The government consults with the
unions and the employer associations

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more of a ideological and political point
of view.
 There have been cases of intense
hostility towards employees from the
state machineries.
 The relationship between the state and
the labor and the unions is the most
charged in comparison to the other
countries of Europe.
 Political Rivalry between the unions
and the organizations is fierce in the
mentioned country.
before appointing any councils, boards
or commissions for looking into
employee grievances.
 Coverage collective agreements of
Denmark is as high as 85%
 The collective bargaining in the private
sector is close to 75%
 One fourth of the employees in the
public sector are not covered by any
collective agreements.
 Labor Market parties have the intention
to maintain strong labor market
regulations
 Public Sector unions demanded an
increase in the labor wage in 2008

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Basic Trade Union Organization of France and Denmark
Mainly Industry/Sector
Organizational Structure
Mixed
(Industry/General/Occupational)
Organizational Structure
Single Main
Confederation
Denmark, France
Multiple Confederations France Denmark
Table No 1– Trade Union organization
Source- (Countouris, 2014)
One of the most recent developments that have been happening for quite a long time is
the mergers of the Trade Unions. Both France and Denmark have seen such a trend which has
spread in Europe and other parts of the world. The number for member unions has declined and
there have been constant threat of further diminishing in the near future (Suleman, Lagoa &
Suleman, 2017). The establishment of the Unified Service Sector Union in 2001 in Germany is
believed to be the best example of such a merger. The above mentioned German Workers Union
has a strength of around 3million members which is the largest of any unio0n across the world.
Rising number of unemployment in the manufacturing industry is the main cause behind the
decrease in the number of members of the union (Avendaño, 2014). Though there has been
membership loss in other European countries both Denmark and Sweden have seen a slow but
steady rise in the levels of employment (Avendaño, 2014).
Country Union Density

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Denmark 87.5%
France 9.1%
Table No 2– Union Density
Source- (Blanpain & Bisom, 2014)
The above table shows the density of Unions in both the selected countries. The density
of union is much lower in France than Denmark which shows the amount of power the unions
have in Denmark. Such a trend has happened due to the participation of the government in
employee relationship (Green & Livanos, 2017). As mentioned earlier in the essay the
government of Denmark enjoys a considerable amount of power when it comes to the decision
making processes for the benefit of the employees and to make sure that the employees enjoy the
best possible environment in the workplace. On the other hand the government of France is
totally dependent on the decision making powers of the Unions and the employer organizations
to maintain a proper employee relationship in the workplace of the mentioned country
(Countouris, 2014).
The French Union Set up has a work council which is a council that must be set up by all
firms that are involved in employing more than 50 employees and comprises employer
representatives, employee organizations, employees and deputies of employers. Meetings are
held every month and the employers presides the meeting. The representative union can appoint
an observer to the council (Rosenbloom, 2014). These councils generally formulate the welfare
issues of the employees and have little or no power in making specific union decisions.

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Collective bargaining in French employment relationship is based on the Employee
Participation Act of 1982 which gives the employees the right to withdraw from workplace
conditions that are supposedly not suitable for them. The act was amended later and gave more
rights to the employees for improving their working conditions by negotiating with the
employers (Brewster, Houldsworth, Sparrow & Vernon, 2016). Since the year 2001 compulsory
bargaining at plant level have been extended to employment rights that are equal to each other
and also provided medical benefits. The employees are now able to take compulsory sick leaves
on their discretion. Collective bargaining in France is in three different set ups namely multi-
industry, industry and enterprise. More than 80% of the plant level arrangements are in
companies that employ more than 50 persons. Apart from the three collective bargaining
arrangements France also has a national social security protecting institutions and many of them
are managed by the joint help of the employers’ associations and the main five representative
associations (Salaman, 2015).
Collective bargaining in Denmark is more than 80% of the labor market in whole. The
private sector bargaining is around 75% of the labor market. One fourth of the wage earners in
the private sector are not covered by any agreement and they are all on individual contracts
(Avendaño, 2014). There has been the system of joint collective agreements between both the
public and private sector in Denmark since the year 1980. The following has helped to create a
leverage based system on the negotiation of a number of .different problems that the employees
face in their workplace (Janssen, 2016). The earlier industrial conflicts in Denmark have been
one of the main turning points for the new collective bargaining to formulate. The new
negotiation process has seen a paradigm shift of the bargaining process from the confederations
to the sector organizations and also retaining the coordination. The new system that was adapted

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during the beginning of the 1990’s saw the formation of some coordinated negotiation along with
the establishment of some sector based organizations. According to (Dziewanowska, Pearce &
Zupan, 2016) this following factor can be said to be as a centralized decentralization that has
been carried out by the different organizations in Denmark. Being a member of the European
Union Denmark had to set the guidelines of the Union policy according to the international
standards. This includes number of different factors like work culture, work timings, shift hours,
part time and full time employment and many more as such. The establishment of the tripartite
committee was established under a new legislation (Avendaño, 2014). However the current
strategies of the labor market have seen that the labor market parties have been influential to hold
on their advantage and have a supreme political control over the labor organizations. Tripartite
agreements are now more in common than the bipartite agreements as there have been a demand
in the increase in the wage structure since the year 2008.
Denmark unlike France has another main problem which it needs to tackle to get rid of
the crisis of foreign workers from other European countries. (Bidwell et al. 2013) The influx of
labors mainly from neighboring Poland has been a much talked about topic as the unions have
found it a bit confusing on whether to bring these workers under the collective bargaining plans
as they also represents a working community. Many companies take the advantage of not
protecting the rights of these employees and often tend to appoint these men at a very low wage.
The international pressure is however forcing the Danish industries to move back from such a
position and now equal rights are being provided to each and everyone in the industry (Herriot,
2013).
Denmark also faces an acute shortage of labor as there has been an increase in the
percentage of aging population of the country as well as in Europe. A survey by the

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Confederation of Danish industries has found out the shortage of skilled labors to around 30,000
which will be a huge problem for the industry. According to (Françon & Marx, 2015) the
shortage of skilled labors will lead to a rise in the number of the unskilled ones and thus the
different organizations have to implement adequate training measures to employ skilled
individuals in the workplace (Auer, 2016).
France has also been facing the crisis of migrants as there has been an increase in the
number of migrants from the war ravaged Middle East countries which pose a challenge for the
employer’s organizations and the unions to bring them under the umbrella of the collective
bargaining (Farnham et al. 2016). However both France and Denmark have been able to bring
down the industrial disputes by a considerable amount and have ensured a smooth operational
performance of the industries.
Conclusion
The following essay has been able to provide a clear picture of the international
employment relations based on the pictures of the two European countries, Denmark and France.
The aims and objectives of the essay has been met with ease as the writer has portrayed all the
essential elements that was needed to make the essay more compact. A thorough analysis of the
full essay will reveal some unknown facts of the Labor industry of France and Denmark. The
huge scope of the essay will help to formulate future researches.

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