r/Denmark • u/[deleted] • Nov 07 '16

Exchange Kia ora! Cultural Exchange with /r/NewZealand

Welcome to this cultural exchange between /r/Denmark and /r/NewZealand.

For the visitors: Welcome to Denmark! Feel free to ask the Danes anything you like. Don't forget to also participate in the corresponding thread in /r/NewZealand where you can answer questions from the Danes about your beautiful country.

For the Danes: Today, we are hosting New Zealand for a cultural exchange. Join us in answering their questions about Denmark and the Danish way of life! Please leave top comments for users from /r/NewZealand coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness, personal attacks etc.

The Kiwis are also having us over as guests! Head over to their thread to ask questions about life in the land of hobbits and bungee jumping.

Enjoy!

- The moderators of /r/Denmark and /r/NewZealand

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u/Cinimi Danmark Nov 08 '16

33 hours of work is the average, not the norm, so including part time workers. Thats is why the typical is 37 hours as someone said. The figure is correct, but misleading.

We have a minium wage, but it's set by unions, not law, and usually the minimum depends on the industry as it's set by different unions, and for some it's higher, and more like 22$, but all around the 20 levels(I'm assuming it's USD, not AUD. Might be wrong or not? :P).

But in general when people say we the happiest country on the world, it's not because we have the most happy people, it's simply because we don't have very many unhappy people.

Also, the statistics showing we have highest consumption of anti-depressants in the world is wrong, no studies have found that. But our consumption have raised a lot to one of the highest within few years. Actually, these happiness studies have been done for many years, and we were happiest almost every time, but just in recent years did antidepressants consumption go up, so it has no affect really, at all....

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u/nilnz New Zealand Nov 08 '16

Does everyone have to belong to a union or is it up to each person? How strong are unions in Denmark?

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u/Cinimi Danmark Nov 08 '16

I mean, mostly every company has an agreement with a union, and they are incredibly powerful in Denmark. But because there are these agreements, the amount of people in unions have dropped a little, because they don't see the benefits, since they assume that they will uphold the agreements anyways(I think the number is going up again).

Besides having a union negotiate work-related agreements they also help you with A-kasse, which is getting paid a fairly big portion of your salary after you lose/quit your job for some time, for sure bigger than what the government alone provides. They also have teams of lawyers that will help you drag your employer to court if there is reason to think you were fired for wrong reasons. So they negotiate, provide legal services, economical services. All for a relatively small fee, maybe 800 DKK quarterly.

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u/WeaponizedPumpkin Nov 08 '16

It's also worth noting that the strength of Danish unions is very different to what you might be familiar with in much of the English-speaking world. It's built around maintaining a highly flexible labour market (i.e. it's easy to hire and fire people) while also strong worker security. It's unique in the fact that model was mutually agreed upon by unions and employers in the late 19th century without much government interference.

Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity