Posted workers and foreign companies in Danish construction Jens Arnholtz University of Copenhagen 22 November 2016 Forskningscenter for Arbejdsmarkeds og Organisationsstudier Different groups of foreign workers ID: 803142
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Slide1
Employment Relations Research Centre
Posted workers and foreign companies in
Danish construction
Jens
Arnholtz
University of Copenhagen, 22. November 2016
Slide2Forskningscenter for Arbejdsmarkeds- og Organisationsstudier
Different groups of foreign workers
Slide3Basic challenges of posting
With employment contracts established in another country, adherence to Danish regulation is less obvious for both companies and workers.
Temporary nature of their attachment gives less incentive to integrate into the Danish
labour market.
Combined with major socio-economic differences between EU member states, this non-integration can result in working condition below normal Danish standards and lead to debates about ‘social dumping’ or ‘unfair competition’. Employment Relations Research Centre
Slide4Dias
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Method – respondent drive sampling and interviews
No register data and poor official statisticsSurvey with 149 Polish and 51 German posted workers in the Danish construction sector
Sampling through long chained network recruitment
Weighting data to avoid systematic sampling bias
Estimate valid beyond the sample
Additionally, interviews with 29 foreign service providers
Slide5Employment
contracts established in another country
Dias 5
Employment Relations Research Centre
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Polish
German
Hired specifically for the posting job
53%
15%
New contract in Denmark
41%
16%
Which
labour
market are they
oriented towards?
76 % compare to other posted workers in Denmark
85%
compare
to conditions in Germany
Slide6Integration into
the Danish labour market
Polish
German
Company has a collective agreement
10%
58%
Company
does
not have a
collective
agreement
32%
29%
Don´t know if company has a collective agreement
58%
13%
Dias
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Employment Relations Research Centre
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Polish
German
Member
of a Danish trade union
6%
7%
Never had
contact
to Danish
trade
union
85%
55%
Don´t know what the CA minimum rate is
73%
73%
Slide7Dias
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Wages of Posted Polish workers
Private home posting
Sub-contractors posting
Main contractors posting
Proportion of posted workers
40 %
29 %
31 %
Average wage for group
11
euro
(83
Dkr
)
14
euro
(106
Dkr
)
16
euro
(119
Dkr
)
CA minimum rate:
1
5,5 Euro (116
Dkr
)
Danish Construction
workers average wage:
23 Euro (172
Dkr
)
Slide8Dias
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Working time for posted workers
Private home posting
Sub-contractors posting
Main contractors posting
Germans
Hours per week
57
hours
55 hours
51 hours
45
hours
Get overtime pay
0%
10%
31%
56 %
Always
works
evenings
while
posted
53%
27%
13%
14 %
Always
works
Saturdays
while
posted
66%
46%
43%
35 %
Slide9Employment Relations Research Centre
Payment of expenses in relation to posting
Private home posting
Sub-contractors posting
Main contractors posting
Germans
Employer pays travel expense
26%
31%
52%
88 %
Employer pays for transport in
Denmark
48%
77%
45%
72 %
Employer pays for accommodation in
Denmark
32%
7
1%
56%
95 %
Slide10Dias
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Assessment of wage
Slide11Dias
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Foreign companies –
where does it go wrong?
Regulatory conformity
Regulatory evasion
1.
Lack
of information
2
.
Lack of adequate administrative
capacity
4
. Mistrust and cultural differences
3
.
Complicated rules
5.
Demands for low prices
Slide12Summing up the
challengesChallenge 1: Is
a model based on high trade union membership and high CA coverage able to handle groups with low incentive to integrate into the labour
market? Challenge 2: Many of the Polish posted workers are working for wages and conditions that are below the standards set by the collective agreement. Is a model based on voluntary adoption of collective agreements adequate for handling the regulation to these groups?
Challenge 3: Especially the Polish workers’ pay a lot of expenses themselves, causing the money they can bring back home to diminish substantially. Should such issues be more strictly regulated than they are today?Dias
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Slide13Summing up the
challengesChallenge 4: Many foreign service providers do not understand the Danish model and mistrust the actors that shape it. Therefore the ally themselves with new actors (accountants, lawyers, etc.) that can bring more confusion and conflict to the field. How can this be avoided?
Challenge 5: Many foreign service providers wins contracts by making tenders that do not take Danish standards of working conditions into account. This makes for a lot of conflicts, where trade union talk of social dumping while foreign companies feel like hunted gam. Can more information at an early stage change this and if so, who should provide it?
Dias
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