Connecting members and challenging decisions – influencers with a solid foundation

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’We listen, we speak and maintain our influence – in Nordea as in Finansforbundet and the society. That is the best way we can ensure that our members will have a god working life’, says president Dorrit Brandt and vice president Mette Balck Mejlby. ‘2022 allowed new ways to get inspired and making an influence’. 

Up until the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 24 March, you can read a series of articles, describing some of the many initiatives and events where Finansforbundet in Nordea has put its fingerprint in the previous year. Here you can find the articles focusing on members and union representatives. This third and last one will focus on the many ‘external’ areas where FiN contribute and discover inspiration. 

What you don’t see

As a large company Nordea seeks to continuously adapt its strategy and organisation to the future demands – and these things can have consequences to the employees. Nordea regularly changes the organisation and employees get new managers/colleagues – and unfortunately jobs are also moved to other countries or even disappear.

‘It all comes with consequences for our members. The unions in ‘Union in Nordea’ – where FiN is represented as well as the similar organisations in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Poland – have entered into a number of collaboration agreements with Nordea, providing opportunities to deliver our input. That way, Nordea’s management can take the employee perspective into account  before the final decision, and we have during the past year been discussing Travel Guidelines, flexibility and staff turnover’, tells Mette Balck Mejlby who is president of Union in Nordea. She emphasises that it is not always possible to describe the transnational union-work, as intended changes are subject to confidentiality. ‘But we do our utmost to keep the jobs inside our areas – in a good and close collaboration with our colleagues in the other countries’.  

Collaboration in Denmark – formal and informal

In Denmark, FiN has a great collaboration with the People organisation as well as representatives from the management with respect of our different roles and perspectives. We meet, drink an informal cup of coffee etc. – and then comes the more formal contexts, i.e. the Danish Consultative Committee. ‘Besides discussing the general situation for Nordea and the employees, we have during the year put issues like flexibility, data ethics, senior careers and competence development on the agenda. On several occasions the result has been concrete initiatives, perceptible to the employees’, tells Dorrit Brandt.

‘FiN is also invited in working with diversity and inclusion, and several of us joined Nordea’s section at the 2022 Pride Parade in Copenhagen to show that we support broader diversity and better inclusion. 

Finansforbundet – and a central organisation

One thing is the many areas where the FiN-work is directed to Nordea. Another is that many topics affect the whole sector or maybe even the society. Here, FiN’s members should also have a mouthpiece. 

’Through participating in committees and activities in the central Finansforbundet we do an effort to ensure that our members can mirror themselves in the work going on. When it comes to i.e. regulation of our sector, terms to unemployed Danes, the competence development area and support to the leaders in our sector, we have of course made our voice heard in the official Finansforbundet’s political opinion’, tells Dorrit Brandt. She is herself a member of the central board in Finansforbundet. Here, she took part in recommending Finansforbundet’s national congress to decide a membership in Fagbevægelsens Hovedorganisation (FH – in English: Danish Trade Union Confederation). ’It was an essential decision – but in our opinion the right thing to do. Without a central organisation there is simply too many important areas where Finansforbundet’s more than 50,000 members would have no influence at all. For example, FH is invited to tripartite negotiations with the government and employers – and without our membership we have been excluded’.

Input from those unlike us

Thinking of the big changes in our sector as well as the society these years, it is highly important for FiN to stay attentive. First of all by keeping an eye on news and discussions in our surroundings – but there are more tangible ways to go. 

’Once again we went to Folkemødet (The Democracy Festival of Denmark) on Bornholm in 2022. Here, we meet a lot of people we already know – and even more, whom we would otherwise never have exchanged words. Receiving input from opinion formers, completely unlike us, feels so rewarding’, tells Mette Balck Mejlby. ‘This time, one of our focus areas was diversity and inclusion – which is so much more than gender and sexuality – and we brought a lot of inspiration with us back home to go on with’. 

Dorrit Brandt was highly inspired by data ethics – another hot topic at the Folkemødet. ’In the financial sector’s tent there was an interesting debate on how data ethics and the surrounding culture can affect the single member. We still have a lot to learn’, she evaluates. 

Before the Folkemødet even began, Dorrit Brandt visited the Rønne branch with Mads Skovlund, Helene Bløcher and Sanne Fredenslund for an interesting talk regarding the everyday life in Nordea. 

Influencers

As you see, FiN is an important player in many places. ‘We cannot be open on everything, and with a 9 member board only, it is not possible for us to meet all members within a year, even though we really would like to’, says Dorrit Brandt.

’These years, much impact happens via so called influencers. We try to adapt it – which is why you see us digitally at many channels now and then. Keep an eye on your LinkedIn profile – here you will every now and then see your FiN representatives share parts of what we do to make your working life better’, Dorrit concludes. 

These – and other – issues will be even more explained when we meet at the AGM in Finansforbundet i Nordea on 24 March.

Last chance!

Thursday, 9 March is the last call if you want to sign up for Finansforbundet in Nordea's Annual General Meeting 24 March at 18.00-21.30. You must be registered to get voting rights etc., and it is now only possible to sign up for virtual participation - either locally with your colleagues at the workplace or from home. You can no longer sign up for the beer tasting event nor participation at Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers.

​Read more about the possibilities at finansforbundet.dk/agm2023 - and sign up here.