Danish General Strike (1998)

Mon Apr 27, 1998

Image: Police arrest a picket at Aarhus Harbour [libcom.org]

On this day in 1998, more than 500,000 Danish workers, one fifth of the entire workforce, walked off the job in a general strike, demanding a 35-hour work-week, an extra week of paid holiday, and a 6% wage increase. The strike action came after a big economic boom in Denmark that left workers feeling left out from the increased profits of their employers.

The strike affected a wide variety of industries, from schools to manufacturing to airports to food and petrol stations. Workers in Sweden exhibited solidarity by refusing to load planes heading for Denmark.

May Day marked the fifth day of the strike, and a gigantic demonstration of more than 500,000 people took place in Copenhagen. The government intervened, ordering everyone back to work on May 11th and announcing that any strikes by the affected workers before March 2000 would be illegal.

A compromise deal was accepted by union leadership, and the majority of strikers returned to work, however some spontaneous walk-outs occurred in the following days - in 96 workplaces, 6,200 workers walked out for a one-day strike. Baggage handlers at Copenhagen International Airport stopped making their contributions to the Social Democratic Party, which led the government throughout the labor action.

• Date: 1998-04-27
• Learn More: libcom.org, nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu.
• Tags: #Labor, #General Strikes.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org