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ano wrote

Union leader says cancelling religious holiday dating from 1600s is threat to Danish welfare model

It's not the welfare model as such. This article fails to explain that the phrase “Danish model” is a specific term in Danish political discourse that refers to the principle that the government doesn't intervene in renegotiations for wages and conditions between labor unions and employers unions. (This is also why the country has no legal minimum wage.)

The “Danish model” is not a synonym for the “Danish welfare model” as a whole and the proposal will barely affect the labor market. Labor unions and companies are already scrambling to “de facto” preserve the holiday (in employment contracts, for example) even if the government goes ahead with this.

Lizette Risgaard represents the labor unions and she was relatively late to weigh in on the proposal. It took days. Hers is just one (technical) argument against it among many others, but the reason most people are not happy with the proposal is that the government used the war in Ukraine as an excuse for abolishing the holiday and only admitted the change would be permanent when pressed by the tabloid media.

People think this is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's also a bad solution because the government says people will still be compensated. It'll only save around 4 billion DKK (a bit more than half a billion euros) long-term. Most people would argue the money could easily be found elsewhere. Some spitefully ask why the money can't be found by cutting politicians' pensions and lucrative wages.

(Also, this is a pure right-wing government, The Guardian needs to stop kidding itself.)

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