New contract gives 500,000 municipal employees more pay

Collective agreement reached over the weekend

A deal was struck early this morning that will give half a million municipal employees throughout the country a wage increase of 5.42 percent.

The agreement came after a long weekend of negotiations between workers and local government association Kommunernes Landsforening (KL).

The wage increases are scheduled to be phased in over the next three years.

Anders Bondo Christensen, the head of the Danish teachers' union, negotiated for the teachers and was the chief bargainer for a group called Forhandlingsfællesskabet, an association of 53 different unions. Michael Ziegler, the mayor of Høje Tåstrup, negotiated for the municipalities.

Long weekend
The parties began negotiating last Friday. Various committees, employee group heads, and Bjarne Corydon, the finance minister, had to look at the agreement as it developed over Saturday, so the real negotiations got underway on Saturday at around midnight.

READ MORE: Regional and local government eyeing possible merger

A few details are left to sort out, but things finally fell mostly into place at 2:30 this morning.

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