1973-1982

From left to right

In many ways, the year 1973 constituted a watershed. From the turn of the year Denmark had joined the EEC, and in December both the Social Democratic Party and the SF suffered major defeats in the general election. The social democrats went from a 37.3% share of the vote to 25.7% and the SF from 9.1% to 6%. The DKP had 3.6% and remained in the Folketinget until 1979. The Leftwing Socialists were returned to the Folketinget in 1975 and remained there until 1987. The Social Democratic Party had a come­back in the course of the 1970s, but characteristically the long-established nexus between this party and the working class has been broken and it remains to be seen whether it can ever be re-established. In the course of the 1980s, the SF obtained a large share of the votes, but was unable to build up an equivalent organisation - it remained a parliamentary party without an organised membership. However, from the late 1980s the oppositional forces to the left of the Social Democratic Party convened in the SF, which with a degree of success appealed to various grass-root movements and social groups who had difficulties in joining the traditional labour movement.

A recessionary period began and unemployment figures rose alarmingly. This led to serious problems and challenges for the labour parties. In the SF an ideological and strategic process of clarification took place, and the Social Democratic Party, too, went through a serious crisis during which, for a time, the trade union movement and the political movement were rather sharply divided in their respective assessment of the scope and tenor of the "necessary" incomes policy.

The substantial structural changes of Danish society continued during the 1970s and 1980s despite the recession. More and more women came unto the labour market (approx. 85% of all women have a job, women account for approx. 50% of the LO membership, and the rate of unionisation is more or less the same for men and women today) and this fact, among others, necessitated a further extension of the public care sector which, consequently, continued to grow. Moreover, the labour movement succeeded in having a number of important reforms implemented, reforms that improved social security and strengthened the position of workers in the labour market.

Various grass-root movements put new points on the political agenda. The pace of the technological development increased and led to structural unemployment on top of cyclical unemployment. Manufacturing industries moved west, and particularly in Jutland new industrial enterprises emerged. This meant an increase in the number of first-generation wage earners who did not automatically find their way to the labour movement, and some of whom could only reluctantly be organised by the trade unions. This goes to explain the growth experienced by the Christian "trade union" movement: in 20 years its membership has risen from 1, 000 to approx. 40, 000 - the LO membership figure is approx. 1,400,000 and other national trade unions outside the LO organise approx. 600,000 members. These factors created serious problems particularly for the labour parties that had difficulty in formulating up-to-date policies which carried conviction vis-ŕ-vis the new - and the old - strata in the working class.

In September 1982 the Social Democratic Party left government responsibility in the hands of the non-socialist parties. The price that had to be paid for working with a non-co-operative non-socialist majority had become too high.  A coalition government, lead by the Conservative People's Party, came into power.