Reply of the Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish trade union
federations on the Second Phase Consultation of Social Partners
under Article 154 TFEU on a possible action addressing the
challenges related to fair minimum wages
To:
The Commission (letter sent by e-mail to
President Ursula von der Leyen
Copy to:
Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis
Commissioner Nicolas Schmit
Director-General Joost Korte
Stockholm 4th of September 2020
We, the trade union confederations of Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Sweden representing
together six million workers, would like to bring to your attention
that we don’t stand behind
the reply of the ETUC on the first and second consultation concerning a possible action
addressing the challenges related to fair minimum wage. It is our duty to make this very clear
as the Commission, in the second consultation, seems to imply that there is full support from
the trade union side for introducing EU legislation on minimum wage and collective
bargaining. However, this is not true. On the contrary, the ETUC is divided. We made this
point very clear in our letter to you dated 25 February 2020.
The ETUC opinion does not sufficiently reflect the interests of the Scandinavian trade union
movement. We firmly oppose introducing any binding rules on wages and most of the
proposals concerning binding EU legislation on collective bargaining. These proposals would
severely harm our Nordic labour market models.
Therefore, we would like to submit our reply to the questions put forward in the second
consultation and we ask you to carefully take them into account when further processing a
possible action on the subject.
Yours sincerely
Lizette Risgaard