The collaboration organisation is a collective term for our entire works council structure at AAU. 

According to the State Cooperation Agreement, it is essential that the works council structure reflects the organisational structure, including the management and decision-making structure. 

Among other things, it is a requirement that a works council must be established in units with an independent management function where the number of employees is at least 25, and that in the case of several works councils, a main works council must be established that is common to the entire organisation. 

At AAU 

In order to reflect the management structure at AAU, AAU has many different works councils.

AAU's top works council is called the Main Works Council.

In addition, there are works councils at the main area level: 

• Faculties (FSU)
• Shared Services (FSA)

Finally, there are local works councils at each department or division (SU, SA, etc.)

You can follow the work and discussions of AAU's main works council (HSU) on the HSU website.

On this page, agendas for upcoming meetings and minutes from the meetings are regularly posted.

You can also find the material agenda items for HSU meetings in WorkZone.

A works council member must be offered a course for works council members within the first six months of their appointment.

Aalborg University therefore offers a basic works council course twice a year in collaboration with the co-operation secretariat.

The course is aimed at newly elected members, alternates, secretaries and others associated with works councils or merged works councils and health and safety committees.

The course is based on the state co-operation agreement and aims to give participants a basic understanding of the works council system, focusing on the roles of the members of the works council and the committee's tasks around goals and strategy.

You can find upcoming works council courses on plan2learn.

It will often be the secretary's role to plan the calendar of meetings for the coming year. In most cases, the rules of procedure will state how many meetings are to be held annually. It is therefore a matter of determining when each meeting will be held. The timing of the meetings should take into account when the different tasks/items will be discussed.

Information must be provided early enough and with sufficient content to allow for a thorough discussion in the works council, so that the employees' views and suggestions can form the basis for the management's final decision. It is therefore important that the items are not only included in the annual cycle after management has made a decision on, for example, the finances for the coming year.

To inspire your planning, consider the following questions when setting the dates for next year's meetings: (only consider those that are relevant to your committee)

• When does the department(s) conduct SDD? And should there be a discussion before or after?
  When does the department(s) conduct salary negotiations?
• When is the 1st and 2nd period follow-up finalised?
• When is the annual budget finalised? Ensure that the works council has the opportunity to comment before it is approved
• When do you want to extract sickness absence data
• When is the APV process expected to be completed in your department? And do you need to discuss the APV process in the committee before, during or after?

The meetings should also be placed appropriately in relation to the unit's meetings in the health and safety organisation and other cooperation forums in the unit

• When are the meetings of the parent and sub-committees, e.g. FSU and HSU.
• When are the meetings of the health and safety committee? (if the committees are not merged)

When cases are presented at a works council, they are often presented in a case statement, if applicable.

Case presentations can look very different. At AAU, the Rector's Office has developed a template for case presentations that is used for many different committees. You can find the template here.

As secretary of a works council, it is often your job to take and write the minutes of the meetings.

There can be differences in the type of minutes that need to be written.

It is up to the individual committee to decide what type of minutes are required, and this will usually be stated in the rules of procedure.

Examples

Below are some examples of the types of minutes used in, for example, the Joint Cooperation and Working Environment Committee in Shared Services (FSA), the Personnel Policy Committee (PPU) and the Main Cooperation Committee (HSU).

These can be, for example, discussion summaries. These are used in the HSU, for example. See examples of these on the HSU website.

They can also be decision minutes. These can be both short decision minutes and longer decision minutes.

See an example of a short decision summary on the PPU website (at the bottom of the HSU website)

See an example of a slightly longer decision summary on the FSA website.

Agendas, case summaries and minutes from works council meetings must be logged in WorkZone.

In WorkZone, use case group 234 - Local Works Councils.

Note that there is a separate case group for the main works council (232) and for committees and working groups under the main works council (233).

Read more about rules for journalling agendas and minutes etc. here.

When the works council wants a new committee structure (e.g. size, board of representatives, merger, etc.) or organisational changes occur that give rise to a new structure or a new committee, management must convene the bargaining organisations in the department for a negotiation.

Organisational changes
When organisational changes occur, it must be clarified whether the SU structure can remain the same or whether the change gives rise to a change. It is crucial that the SU structure matches the management structure to maintain discussions at the level where there is decision-making power. Any change to the SU structure depends on whether the new workplace will have an independent management function and at least 25 employees. For units with fewer than 25 employees, a works council can be established by local agreement. If a local works council is not established, the principles described in the co-operation agreement must still be followed.

Invitation 
The invitation to the negotiation must be sent by email to the local union representatives. If there is no local union representative, the notice is sent to the main organisation. The notice should include a reason for the meeting and an overview of those invited.  

Before the meeting
Prior to the meeting, management should prepare a presentation for negotiation, e.g. a presentation of the desired structure. Management and the negotiating organisations will then discuss the proposal at the meeting and finally agree on the organisation (number of seats for the employee side and the management side). There is no requirement for the number to be equal between management and employee representatives.

After the meeting
Once an agreement has been reached on the structure, the employee and management sides go their separate ways and appoint their future representatives according to the procedure below.

The responsible manager at the department/department is the chair of the Works Council. The chair appoints the other management representatives and any deputies for these.

Employee representatives and their alternates are appointed by the representatives of the negotiating staff organisations (our local union representatives). If a new committee is established, the negotiating organisations themselves take the initiative to elect new employee representatives.

For new elections to existing committees, the committee (typically the committee secretary) requests the bargaining organisations to initiate a nomination process at the end of the election period. The request must be sent by email to the local union representatives. It is then up to the negotiating organisations to agree, before the end of the appointment period, on who will be the employee representatives for the new period. This is done on the basis of the already established composition of the committee.

As a starting point, the employee representatives must be chosen from among the registered union representatives. If more employee representatives are to be appointed than there are union representatives employed in the unit in question, the appointment is made among the unit's other employees. This will typically be the case at SU/SA level.

It is important that an SU member represents all employees in the unit, and the seats dedicated to SU members should therefore generally be filled by the unit's own employees. In this connection, the units can offer the negotiating organisations to help find SU members for the local SU/SA. This can be done, for example, by the local units holding internal elections for SU in the same way as elections are held for AMR. The elected representatives are then sent for approval to the unit's negotiating organisations, which then make the final approval of the elected representatives. It is important that the chosen procedure is agreed with the bargaining organisations (union representatives).

Election of health and safety representatives 

At Aalborg University, new health and safety representatives are elected in March every 3 years (2025, 2028 etc.).

The health and safety representative can have a direct seat on the joint co-operation and health and safety committee.  However, this depends on how the seats are agreed upon in the committee. For example, it may be decided that there are two OHS representatives in the committee, but five OHS representatives in the department/department. In this case, the health and safety representatives choose among themselves how the seats are distributed or leave it up to the employees.

Rules of procedure define how many meetings to hold per year and when to hold them. Meetings should be scheduled to allow for a timely discussion of local issues in your workplace. This could be budget proposals, performance contract follow-up or finalisation, or conducting performance reviews.  Extraordinary meetings can also be called, which can be useful to have a procedure for.

All members should have the opportunity to show up well prepared. This is necessary for you to have a good and constructive dialogue. The rules of procedure can help to ensure this by describing how agendas are drawn up, what the fixed agenda items are, and when the agenda and attachments must be sent to members.

The rules of procedure must also ensure that everyone is informed about what happens in the committee. Therefore, there should be rules on approval procedures for minutes and deadlines for sending out the minutes to members. The rules of procedure can also describe how the secretary is appointed/elected and how information other than minutes coming from the committee can be handled by employees.

The co-operation committee has a number of specific tasks and topics to discuss in accordance with section 5 of the cooperation agreement:

• Goals, strategy and finances
• Skills development
• Discrimination and equal treatment
• Employee satisfaction (well-being survey conducted every 2 years)
• Work-related stress
• Abusive behaviour

In addition to the tasks to be discussed by the works council, the works council shall address other relevant issues within labour and personnel matters that are of importance to the workplace. It is up to the individual works council to assess which topics are particularly relevant and how the discussion/handling of the topic takes place. This could be, for example:

Labour and personnel matters 

• In order to create an attractive and efficient workplace and motivated employees who work to achieve the institution's goals, it is appropriate for the works council to discuss labour and personnel matters that fall under management rights,
• This may include work-life balance, sick leave statistics

Trust, co-operation and well-being 

• The works council plays a key role in ensuring that the workplace has a good psychological working environment that is characterised by trust and cooperation and that helps create space for professionalism and quality in the performance of tasks.
• To promote any initiatives and efforts, the cooperation committee can coordinate with the health and safety organisation if the cooperation and health and safety committees are not merged.

Transition in the workplace

• The works council has a key role in discussing and ensuring a positive approach to change. For example:
• The impact on the department's finances, work organisation, staffing needs and competence development.
• A plan for the transition process, including e.g. communication to the department/institute, implementation issues and handling the consequences.

The co-operation committee must be informed about and discuss budget issues and finances. It is therefore important that this is included in the committee's annual cycle so that there is a fixed plan for the discussion.

Management must inform about the latest developments and expected developments in the economy. It is particularly important that management informs about budgeted and incurred expenses related to labour and staff conditions, such as payroll, overtime and extra work and skills development.

The financial discussions can be divided into 3 parts. Budget discussion, ongoing follow-ups and the annual result.

The budget discussions are initiated during the autumn. It is important that the works council discusses the budget early enough so that the works council's comments can be taken into account before a final decision is made and the budget for the coming year is finalised. The secretary can follow up with the finance partner regarding deadlines etc. for the budget year.

The co-operation committee must be informed on an ongoing basis if there are any circumstances that affect the finances. Regardless of whether there are major changes or not, it can be a good idea to keep the budget on the agenda.

At the start of a new calendar year, the works council should be informed of the final annual results and the implications for the coming year.

In accordance with section 2 of the cooperation agreement, the cooperation committee must regularly evaluate its work in order to ensure that the cooperation is qualified and targeted.

There is no requirement for how this evaluation should take place. As an offer to works councils, the secretariat has developed a tool for evaluating the work of the works council. This tool can be found on the Secretariat for Co-operation's website: Evaluation tool - Secretariat for Co-operation

For inspiration, you can use HSU's evaluations from recent years. However, an old tool developed by the Secretariat for Co-operation has been used here.

Based on an assessment of the workplace's strategic goals and needs for strategic competence development, the co-operation committee must:

• Establish principles and guidelines for the overall competence development efforts in the department
• Discuss the need to initiate development plans for the entire department, individual teams or groups
• Establish guidelines for organising and following up on performance reviews.

At AAU, principles for competence development have been drawn up. Competence development must be discussed annually in the local works council from a backward and forward-looking perspective.

The departments and institutes, together with the local works councils, determine the specific goals for the department's/institute's competence development based on the existing strategies, future goals and tasks.

The HR department has prepared inspiration on how to work strategically with competence development. The page can be found here: Get started working strategically with competence development - Aalborg University

If the committee is not a joint committee, it is important to establish good cooperation with the health and safety organisation. This could be through regular annual joint meetings, for example.

Several areas related to well-being and the psychological working environment must be addressed in both committees. Merged committees will therefore also take part in the workplace assessment process and the annual health and safety discussion. In addition, the merged committee will also plan, lead and coordinate co-operation on health and safety. The committee must carry out the necessary activities to protect employees and prevent risks.

APV annual cycle: APV Annual Cycle - Aalborg University

AAU's health and safety organisation: Committees and policies - Aalborg University

If you are considering merging your works council and health and safety committees, the Cooperation Secretariat has prepared a leaflet with inspiration and advice for merging works councils into health and safety committees.

The leaflet helps you ask the right questions before you decide and provides inspiration and advice on topics such as;

• Should we merge the works council and the health and safety committee?
• How do we get a good process for the merger?
• Inspiration for a company agreement that fulfils the requirements.

When you have decided to merge your works council and health and safety committee, you need to enter into an agreement with the negotiating organisations that represent the employees in the area covered by the agreement.

The agreement is a so-called company agreement, and some special rules apply to the content of this agreement. Among other things, it must fulfil the minimum requirements set out in the Danish Working Environment Authority's executive order on cooperation on health and safety. You can find a template for a company agreement above.

The Co-operation Secretariat has prepared a guide on merging works councils and health and safety committees.

The guide goes through the rules and requirements that apply if governmental workplaces want to enter into a company agreement and what a company agreement should contain and what you should consider.

We recommend that you read this guide before you start drafting a company agreement.

You can seek advice, guidance and sparring from the HR department on merging co-operation and working environment committees.