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Friendly painter Jens Jensen from Rørup on Funen became one of the pioneers of the early labor movement, chairman of DsF and the first Social Democratic mayor.
By Henning Grelle
Jens Jensen was born in April 1859 in a small smallholding in Rørup Parish on Funen – in the village of Årup, midway between Odense and Middelfart. His father was both a farmer and a bricklayer, and together with his mother, Jens Jensen and his two brothers took part in all the housework and farm work from an early age. His grandfather, who was a weaver, lived near their home. He had what Jens Jensen didn’t have in his childhood home, a bookcase full of books. “These books were my delight,” Jens Jensen wrote in his childhood memoirs from 1920.
“At the beginning of the time I can remember, my grandfather read something to me and showed me the pictures, and when I myself had learned to read quite early, I was something like five years old, I immersed myself in Knight Peter with the Silver Keys, Fortuna’s Purse and others whose titles I no longer remember, let alone the content.”
There is no doubt that Jensen’s later well-known qualities, such as his ability to listen, his calmness and patience, were due to his grandfather’s great influence. “As a child, I could sit quite still for hours and listen to his conversations and stories without getting tired, and I clearly remember how the images in his stories came alive in my imagination.”
When Jens Jensen entered the village school, he could read, write and draw. He quickly became one of the best responders and both the teacher and the priest told him that he should study. There was no financial way out of it. Like his two brothers, he was apprenticed to a craftsman and became a journeyman painter in Årup in 1877.
Read about Jens Jensen and May Day here
Journeyman painter in Odense and Randers
Jens Jensen was apprenticed to a skilled master in Årup. He had been lucky enough to learn the trade of painting and had found time to combine it with his childhood and school hobby of reading and drawing.
But times were bad. Since the winter of 1876, an economic crisis had spread from Copenhagen to the provinces, and the economic downturn with falling employment was not just a seasonal problem. Work was scarce in the home region, and the village masters could not secure employment for Jens Jensen.
He worked around the house, did some painting for people in the area and tried his luck in Odense, where he got some work in the spring and summer of 1877. By wintertime, he was back home and out of work. “Not only is it boring here, but it’s also desolate here,” he wrote to his cousin. “One of these days I’ll go to Odense to see if they won’t start again soon. You see, it’s good enough to be a craftsman in the summer, but in winter it’s quite another matter, for what we deserve in summer can easily be added to in winter. I think I’ll soon be looking for another way of making a living.”
That didn’t happen this time. In the spring of 1878, Jens Jensen got another job in Odense, where he could choose between several masters. “It’s certainly quite different from working at home,” he wrote to his parents.
But Odense was not enough for Jens Jensen. He wanted to travel. “To begin with, I have come over to the Jutlanders to see how the Jutlanders really feel,” wrote a happy Jens Jensen in May 1878. He had come to Randers and found work at the large Scandia carriage factory in Randers. There were 40 painters in the workshop and although he preferred building work to wagon work, he was satisfied. He earned DKK 3 a day and the pay was the same in summer and winter. The factory had paint work on 95 trams going to St. Petersburg. Petersburg. Then they had to paint railroad cars for Sweden and Zealand. I paint fine work on trams, he wrote home. It’s the same work as when I paint pictures at home.
When winter came, Scandia did not need its full workforce of 300 men. Nor was Jens Jensen, who was unemployed in Randers for most of the winter. He made a short trip to Brønderslev, but his time in Randers was mostly spent thinking about the future and counting the last of his money.
“It costs a lot to be unemployed. I might take a trip to Copenhagen or Hamburg. If you can get something at home, I might come home for Christmas.” Jens Jensen was home for a visit during the Christmas holidays and shortly afterwards went back to the Jutlanders. Although there was no work in town, he had a girlfriend in Randers – Marie – whom he had found it difficult to leave.
In February 1879, he found work again, but on reduced hours. The expectation of more employment in the spring was not fulfilled. The economic crisis had taken hold and he was never as busy as the previous year. In April, his relationship with Marie broke down and it must have been a painful showdown. “You can count on it being a few years before I get engaged again,” he told his parents.
Throughout the summer and fall, he worked as a painter on farms in the area. He spent the winter in Randers again, but it was now clear that the city was no longer the place for him.
In Copenhagen in 1880
On March 6, 1880, Jens Jensen paid 6 kroner for a ticket to the capital Copenhagen. He stayed in a room for DKK 2.50 a week including morning coffee and immediately started looking for work. But after visiting the city’s master painters, he soon realized that there was no work. So he decided to become a tourist and experience the life and sights of the city.
“The first place I visited was the Thorvaldsen Museum and it’s well worth the trouble to sacrifice a day or two. However critical or philosophical one may be, one cannot but rejoice in and admire the great art and creative ability this man has possessed, when one realizes that the large collection of original works of art that the museum contains is due to one man alone,” he wrote enthusiastically to his cousin.
Jens Jensen also visited the Danish Parliament, which 15 years later would become his workplace as a member of parliament. “I’ve been up to the Reichstag at Christiansborg and it’s almost an entire theater performance to hear the debates up there. The palace as a whole is one of the most colossal buildings you can imagine.” There was also a trip to the Round Tower, a visit to the Academy’s painting exhibition, Charlottenborg and Det kgl. Theater.
The capital appealed to him. “Copenhagen is quite a beautiful city with many nice facilities and open spaces inside the city. Especially the neighborhoods built since 1870 are downright magnificent in terms of size and equipment.” There was also time to study prices in the city, which was quite natural for a journeyman painter without work. To his parents he announced: “Everything is sold far below the price it costs in Odense, Randers and Aarhus.”
As early as March 20, it’s the end of strolling around as a tourist. Jens Jensen got piecework from a master craftsman with a bad reputation, but, he noted: “You can always get someone else if it doesn’t work out.”
In his first winter in the big city, Jens Jensen was among the lucky ones to find work. He was also about to get engaged for the second time. He had met Julie (Juliane) in the summer of 1880. She was from Elsinore and worked as a maid for a captain in central Copenhagen. “My girlfriend is a very nice and talented girl, but she has no fortune,” he told his parents. In February 1881, they exchanged rings at a party hosted by Julie’s family.
At this time, Jens Jensen made a living as a self-employed painter and did work in the large residential neighborhoods north of Copenhagen. In the spring, he was employed by Bernhard Schrøder, the city’s largest master painter with over 100 apprentices. Jens Jensen was to do so-called fine work – decorating ceilings and ornaments – a job that appealed to him and developed his professional skills. “Schrøder is a very nice man when you can just do what you take on – and now I’ve been a painter for so long and with different masters, so now they have to get up early when they have to do something that I can’t.”
The work at Schrøder was versatile and Jens Jensen advanced to foreman of the teams that commuted back and forth between the city and the northern residential neighborhoods. In the summer of 1882, Jens Jensen was sent to Vordingborg to work on the Rosenfeldt manor twenty minutes’ walk from the city.
Trade union chairman
As paid chairman of the Copenhagen journeymen painters, Jens Jensen took on new tasks. In the fall of 1884, he went on an agitation tour of the provinces and set up branches in Aalborg and Aarhus. He was unsuccessful in his old home region of Randers, and he also failed to gather the journeymen painters in Odense. A return visit to Odense in the spring of 1885 was crowned with success. The purpose of these exhausting and tiring agitation trips, where he showed up in all weathers and frequently caught colds, was Jensen’s desire to gather the country’s journeymen painters into a national association.
To this end, in October 1885, the Copenhagen Painters’ Association published Fagtidende for Malere, which appeared once a month. Fagtidende was entirely Jensen’s work. He wrote everything that appeared in the magazine and he chose the vignette for the cover, designed by his colleague P. Thrane, which graced the front pages of the magazine for a number of years. The vignette was completely in Jensen’s style and spirit. The painting profession should be experienced as an art profession. In the vignette, the painter looks out over the sea with his palette, immortalizing the sailing ship on the open sea. Below him hang decorations of angels that Jens Jensen had painted in the fine villa homes. Although the motif was an expression of the style of the time, it was primarily intended to signal that the painting profession was for skilled painters and not for cheaters hired by employers to splash paint on cheap buildings.
The first lines of the magazine left no doubt about what they wanted: “When this magazine today presents itself to the large circle of colleagues, it is with the wish that the idea, which is hereby realized, may greatly contribute to creating a point of connection between workers in our profession, not only here in the city, but also in the provinces and our brothers in the Scandinavian countries.” Big words, but nonetheless something that could become reality.
In the spring of 1885, the Copenhagen trade unions were in action for higher wages. Some used the strike, others negotiated a settlement. Jens Jensen managed to negotiate a price list with wage increases that both masters and journeymen agreed to. For the blacksmiths, however, things went wrong. The iron manufacturers had founded an employers’ association that was determined to do away with all trade unionism. They sent the blacksmiths out on the street with the message that they could return to work once they had resigned from their union. This attempt to illegalize the unions was of course a matter that affected both blacksmiths and all other trades.
In addition to the blacksmiths’ own organization, there was only one party to coordinate the labor struggle: the Social Democratic Federation. In 1878, for practical reasons, the party had separated political and trade union work in order to develop a party organization with a purely political profile. Over the years, the reality had changed. The lack of a unifying trade union organization had in practice turned the party into a trade union coordinator, which was not difficult considering that the party’s leadership and members were trade unionists. It also suited party chairman P. Knudsen to have control over all aspects, but this was not possible in the long run, especially not when a large-scale smithy lockout took up all the party’s resources.
Jens Jensen was a frequent trade unionist at party meetings and he also took up with P. Knudsen and argued for the now obvious need for the formation of an independent trade union association. P. Knudsen was well aware that there were members in the trade unions who found politics undesirable in their organization, and even in Jensen’s painters’ union, politics was a frequent topic of discussion at general meetings. However, Jens Jensen was fully aware of the necessity of the political struggle and was therefore the right man to maintain a close connection between the union and politics.
When the smiths’ lockout had ended and the blacksmiths had retained their union, the Copenhagen unions had collectively achieved a stronger position in the party. In 1886, Jens Jensen was elected to the main board. When the party received an invitation to a Scandinavian labor congress to be held in Gothenburg in August 1886, the party was only able to send P. Knudsen. The Copenhagen trade unions were well represented, including Jens Jensen, who went on his first trip outside the Danish borders.
The cooperating trade unions in Copenhagen
On a beautiful August day in 1886 on a completely calm lake, Jens Jensen sailed with P. Knudsen and other union leaders to the first Scandinavian labor congress in Gothenburg. Sleeping places on board were scarce and Jens Jensen got no sleep. Nevertheless, he was greatly encouraged on arrival. The only representative who showed up to welcome him was Jens Jensen’s colleague in Gothenburg.
However, Jens Jensen was not only the center of attention upon arrival. He was also at the heart of the negotiations that followed and in shaping the program that would become a landmark for the trade union movement throughout the Nordic region. At the congress, the trade union movement pledged its support for socialist principles and participation in political work. They would work for a catalogue of reforms that included an eight-hour working day, benefit funds, hourly wages instead of piecework, trade union arbitration courts and recognized wage agreements. Trade unions were to be united in national federations and the means of industrial action – the strike – was to be used only as a last resort.
After returning from Gothenburg, Jens Jensen was once again the man of action. At a large meeting in October 1886, the Copenhagen trade unions founded the Cooperating Trade Unions of Copenhagen. This joint organization was to lead the union work, coordinate the union actions with the authority to sanction the prohibition or initiation of strikes. Supporting strikes became a voluntary matter with a moral obligation to provide support when required. Over the years, however, support was imposed on the organizations through fixed contributions. The Social Democratic Party was given the opportunity to elect two members to the leadership and the entire party leadership was given access to the unions’ joint meetings. Similarly, the party’s laws were changed so that the trade unions could elect two representatives to the party leadership.
Jens Jensen became chairman – a position he held until 1903, when he became mayor. He wrote about the relationship between the party and the trade union movement: “It was only the work that they wanted to share, whereas they avoided everything that could lead to the development of two labor parties, one political and one trade union.”
Between politics, cooperation and trade union work
“I have a meeting every evening and even though I’m not sure I’ll be elected, I think I’ll get a significant number of votes.”
In early 1887, Jens Jensen was traveling again – this time against his will, but on the orders of P. Knudsen, who wanted more Social Democrats in the Danish Parliament and preferably candidates elected in the provinces to supplement the two Social Democratic MPs Holm and Hørdum – both elected in Copenhagen. Beforehand, it was an almost impossible task. The Right Party surged ahead of the divided Left groups and the result was a shift to the right, which also felled Hørdum, while Holm barely retained his seat and came to make up the Social Democratic one-man army.
Jens Jensen was not affected by the election defeat, but was busy with other things. He had left the chairmanship of the painters’ association, but continued to sit on the board. Alongside his position as chairman of De samvirkende Fagforeninger, he threw himself into the cooperative, more specifically the production cooperative. During 1886 and 1887, he spearheaded the establishment of Arbejdernes Fællesbageri in Copenhagen. The intention was to bake bread cheaply for the poor and hungry people of Copenhagen. An economic crisis once again ravaged the country and the party spent many meetings trying to figure out how to alleviate the distress. They started small with a rented bakery, but as early as 1887, a bakery of their own was established on Nannasgade. “We had a foundation stone laying ceremony at the bakery – very solemn. A lead box was walled in by Wiinblad (editor of Social-Demokraten, HG). In it was laid a document that you can read in Social-Demokraten. I wrote it this morning, on real parchment, and in the sleepy state I was in, you can imagine that it was difficult.” – The letter to Julie is bursting with pride.
The day before, Jens Jensen had signed the deed and paid for the land. The owner pocketed DKK 11,000 and then invited him on a picnic to Skodsborg, where he ate and partied before heading home via Søllerød and Lyngby with plenty to eat and drink.
The bakery was close to Jens Jensen’s heart, but he settled for a seat on the board and left the reliable C.C. Andersen handle the day-to-day operations.
Trade union work was calling and big tasks awaited. The unions were not only Scandinavian-oriented. They were international. On October 31, 1888, Jens Jensen went on his first trip abroad. He was to attend an international trade union congress in London and he was to study English labor conditions. The latter was on behalf of Social-Demokraten, where he had become an associate writer in 1887, working on trade union matters. Jensen’s many long articles filled with details and observations were impressive considering his struggle with the English language. He had language teacher Gerson Trier by his side, but he had to fend for himself during the many visits and parties. “But I was much happier on Tuesday evening when I visited Friedrich Engels. Here the whole assembly spoke German and it sounds like Danish to my ears,” he wrote home to Julie.
To his parents he wrote about London: “When you come from Copenhagen to London, there is as big a difference as between Middelfart and Copenhagen. Remember there are 5 mill. people live in one city. The buildings are much bigger and nicer than here and all the main streets are paved with concrete and as smooth as a living room floor, but living in London is very expensive. You spend about £8 a day.”
The following year in 1889, Jens Jensen was in Paris. The congress took place on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, but was also an extension of the congress in London the year before. Jens Jensen attended the trade union congress, while A.C. Meyer attended the Marxist congress held at the same time. Together, the two congresses agreed to use May 1st as a demonstration in the fight for the eight-hour working day. It was up to each country to decide who would organize or under what forms May Day would take. Jens Jensen felt strongly obligated by the adoption and immediately after returning home, he began preparing the first May Day in Denmark to be held in 1890. He held a series of meetings and in March 1890, the Cooperating Trade Unions decided to make May Day 1890 a public holiday and use it for a demonstration for an 8-hour working day.
In the parliamentary elections in January 1890, Jens Jensen again had to run for office in Odense, where he dragged his feet with one meeting after another. This time there was no chance of beating the Right’s candidate and Jens Jensen was very worried about his two-year-old son Alfred, who had contracted tuberculosis. When the election was over, he rushed home and realized that there was little hope for his son, who died in early February.
He therefore did not attend the party for the re-election of Hørdum and the election of editor Harald Jensen in Skjoldelev-Kredsen.
P. Knudsen was, however, determined that Jens Jensen was a political card to be brought into play in a future election, but in a better district.
In January 1892, there was to be a by-election in Lyngby-Kredsen. The Right needed a new candidate to represent them in the Danish Parliament, and three weeks beforehand, the Social Democratic Party leadership decided to nominate Jens Jensen as a counter-candidate. However, they had no idea that Jens Jensen could win and wrest the district from the Right. But they wanted to make their mark in a city with many workers and give the Right Party proof that they could threaten their position of power.
The election theme was relatively simple, which led to a bitter battle for the voters’ favor. Jens Jensen campaigned on the fortification issue and presented examples of the destruction of Lyngby and the surrounding area in the event of war, pointing out that the Right’s militarism was not supported by the population. He demonstrated that the Right’s economic policy of prioritizing high tariffs worsened the living conditions of the working population.
The Right used every trick in the book against Jens Jensen. Hotel hosts in Lyngby received threats to let Jensen in for meetings. He therefore had to settle for Gentofte, Jægersborg and Skovshoved. In Skodsborg, a well-attended meeting took place in a horse stable. But the Right had five good reasons for rejecting Social Democrats. They wanted to abolish all property, abolish marriage and introduce free love, declare religion a fraud and last but not least encourage workers to be lazy.
It didn’t bite Jens Jensen, but unfortunately it did bite the voters. Jens Jensen received 445 votes against 1151 for the Right’s candidate.
But Jens Jensen did not lose the seat. In April, there was to be a general election. This time Jens Jensen received 567 votes against 1262.
Things went better for Jens Jensen at the municipal level. Elections to the Copenhagen City Council took place in a peculiar way and with great advantage for the wealthy. The City Council consisted of 36 members elected for six years, but in such a way that six were elected in turn each year, with the sixth member being elected by a simple majority. The vast majority of the members of the Citizen Representation were lawyers, directors, military personnel and the like. Apart from a few master craftsmen, there were no civil servants or workers.
The citizen representation deliberately avoided turning petty bourgeoisie people into voters by not taxing them. To be a voter, you had to pay tax on an income of DKK 800 per year, which many workers did not reach. In the 1880s, workers were encouraged to pay tax on DKK 800 even if they did not have such a high income. The Social Democrats thought it was no great sacrifice. It only cost a few kroner and many began to do so even though the income limit increased to 1000 kr. annually from the beginning of 1890. But one thing was the money and the opportunity to vote – another was to break the conservative dominance. There were only six on the ballot each year and it was a long shot unless something radical was attempted.
In the mid-1880s, the Social Democrats and the liberal opposition of leftists (later the Radicals) agreed to run on a joint list to form a unified alternative to the Right. In the early days, things were slow. In 1888, the Social Democrats ran on their own list with 8 people, including Jens Jensen. Nothing came of it. In 1893, the opposition decided to nominate 7 candidates on a joint list. Three were Social Democrats: Jens Jensen, K.M. Klausen and Emil Wiinblad. The result was overwhelming and marked the first break in the solid foundation of the Right. Six right-wingers gave way to six candidates from the opposition and two Social Democrats, Jens Jensen and K.M. Klausen, were able to take their first seats in the City Council. They were joined by four liberals – only Wiinblad was a few votes short of being elected.
Jens Jensen could now write citizen representative on his business card. He enthusiastically wrote to his parents: “I am now a member of the city council or Borgerrepræsentationen as it is called here in the city and it is an important and responsible position – but I hope to be able to do something good for the city and all its disadvantaged inhabitants. In addition, this election is a great victory for us as only the better-off have the right to vote, namely everyone who pays taxes of at least DKK 1000 in income.”
Over the years, the Social Democratic group in the city council grew. In 1897, Jens Jensen became budget spokesman and in 1901 its vice-chairman. Despite the election, Jens Jensen maintained his candidacy for the Danish Parliament. The Social Democrats of the time managed it all – city council, parliament, trade union work and the care of the cooperative. So did Jens Jensen, but he demanded a safer district and P. Knudsen bowed down.
In 1895, Jens Jensen ran in the 10th district, Østerbro in Copenhagen. Jens Jensen was naturally proud when he could announce to his parents that he had received 2256 votes against right-wing Captain Rambusch’s 1033. But his efforts had caused a kidney disease that had plagued him all winter to break out. He had to stay calm again while Copenhagen’s 12 districts celebrated the result. The Right now only had 4 out of 16 left, but Jens Jensen recovered quickly. He was needed like never before in the trade union movement. It would occupy all his time for the next 5 years.
The army we create
From the mid-1890s, the trade union movement faced a breakthrough in Danish society. In the wake of industrialization, trade unions were established everywhere, and in the market towns, workers gathered in joint organizations that took over local political and trade union work. On a national level, the trade unions gathered in respective unions, the vast majority of which were headquartered in Copenhagen. For De samvirkende Fagforeninger in Copenhagen, this meant a gradual change in status from a local organization to a central trade union organization for the whole country. It was from this organization that the slogans were issued, the May Day demonstrations were planned, and an arrangement for strike support was established. It was also more than necessary.
From 1895, negotiations with employers became increasingly difficult. Employers’ associations were now set up everywhere with the sole purpose of uniting and fighting the unions. Even small wage demands were now met with employers locking out their workers. The intention was to destroy workers’ mutual solidarity and avoid negotiating with the union.
Jens Jensen was everywhere during these years. If he wasn’t in the office for 18 hours, he was in the provinces and if he wasn’t there, he was at a Scandinavian or international labor congress. From 1897, he moved from hot spot to hot spot in Denmark.
Among employers, it was again the iron manufacturers in Copenhagen and the provinces that were the most aggressive towards the unions. They, in turn, had a strong opponent in the Danish Union of Blacksmiths and Machinists.
Most of the spring of 1897 was characterized by lockouts in the iron industry, but the conflicts intensified when the manufacturers had so-called joint workshop rules posted in the workshops. They contained wage regulations, payment for overtime and procedures for determining piecework. In addition, each worker was required to present proof from his former master that he had been legally released from his obligations. In the blacksmiths’ view, this was the same as introducing a record book in line with legal requirements for servants and domestic servants. Initially, they avoided conflict and sat down to negotiate.
But neither side would budge and the result was a 15-week lockout of 4000 workers throughout the iron industry. A settlement was brokered by two prominent mediators, Jens Jensen and the chairman of the Employers’ Association, Niels Andersen. The settlement was fragile, but a landmark for later developments. The ironworkers had to withdraw their certificates of assessment and accept that a piecework agreement was only valid when it was agreed between master and journeyman. The workers, in turn, had to agree not to stop work until negotiations and mediation had been attempted. Finally, the parties agreed to set up a court to settle labor disputes. The settlement was very much in Jensen’s style. It looked like a recognition of the workers’ organization. The iron manufacturers, on the other hand, saw the settlement as an encroachment on their management rights. The test of strength was a draw.
The experience of 1897 called the unions to rally. On 3 January 1898, 405 delegates and representatives of 70,000 organized workers founded the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (DsF), today’s LO, in Folkets Hus, Enghavevej.
Behind the formation were 25 years of efforts to build a conflict preparedness in the trade union movement. DsF was now tasked with administering a conflict fund and regulating strike movements through the allocation of financial support from the community. In order to receive strike funds, a strike had to be approved by the DsF Executive Committee. It was then up to the individual trade union, in cooperation with DsF, to bring the strike to an end. DsF could not force the individual unions to settle. The individual unions were sovereign. Jens Jensen was elected as chairman to lead the work of the new main organization.
At the meeting – known in the press as the Great Workers’ Parliament – Jens Jensen gave one of his best speeches.
A union for the whole country had become a necessity. The tasks were growing and becoming more difficult to solve, and the opponents’ union forced the workers to move even closer together. But, Jens Jensen emphasized:
“The army we create must be strong and firm, for it must conquer a world, but it must be democratically organized, for we must develop people.”
DsF and Jens Jensen were soon needed. The employers’ association rattled its sabre and in its eagerness to gain more member organizations, it directly highlighted the possibility of winning the battle against the trade unions.
Despite many work stoppages in 1898, they managed to avoid a lockout. Jens Jensen was an excellent negotiator who was able to calm the employers’ tempers and get along with their chairman Niels Andersen.
In the spring of 1899, things went wrong. A series of small carpenters’ strikes in seven cities in Jutland caused the Employers’ Association to initiate the most extensive test of strength in the history of the Danish labor movement.
Just when DsF and the Danish Joiners’ Union thought the conflict had been brought to an end on May 10, the Employers’ Association put forward 8 points that not only covered the working conditions of carpenters, but were also a proposal for how the employers envisioned the principles of a main agreement. In the future, this would oblige DsF to be primarily responsible for ensuring that all collective agreements were respected and complied with. The employers demanded the right to manage and distribute work at the companies and that all collective agreements should have a common expiry date.
These demands were rejected by the DsF. It was war for war’s sake. DsF had no authority to interfere in the internal affairs of the unions. With regard to management rights, it was considered natural that workers had the right to influence their working conditions.
Against this background, the employers considered negotiation to be hopeless. The lockout that had covered the carpenters was now extended to other trades and at its peak covered 40,000 workers or half of DsF’s members.
For 100 days from May to September, the union movement had to collect money for the locked-out workers from the far corners of the country to a number of European countries and the US. After endless negotiations and numerous attempts at mediation, the lockout ended on September 5, 1899.
Jens Jensen slept at night on a sofa in the office and in between the long meetings he had to write to Julie.
For example, a letter from August 23rd stated:
“It became impossible for me to send you a letter yesterday. I had a meeting with the Board of Representatives from 10 am to 10 pm. Today I have a meeting with the boards of the excluded unions and tonight it was decided that there will be a meeting of the main board on Thursday evening. So I can’t get home until Friday. You can imagine how awful it is these days. People talk back and forth and no one dares to take any particular position, and we have to have closure somehow.”
The conclusion was the so-called September agreement, later dubbed the labor market constitution, or simply the Main Agreement.
In DsF, the settlement was not greeted with enthusiasm, 128 voted for and 98 against. If the lockout was an attempt to crush the unions, the opposite was the case. The workers emerged stronger from the conflict with unity and solidarity intact and even with the employers’ recognition of their right to organize. Fundamental to the settlement was the two main organizations’ mutual recognition of each other as parties entitled to negotiate and engage in conflict. Other parts of the settlement were characterized by the principles contained in the employers’ 8 points. Rules were established for the notification and implementation of strikes and lockouts. A duty was introduced for the organizations not to approve or support conflicts while collective agreements were in force. The duty of peace was only lifted when the collective agreements expired and until new ones were signed. The right to conflict was thus preserved, but limited to certain periods of time.
The most controversial clause of the agreement was – and still is – the employers’ right to direct and distribute work, as well as to use the workforce they deem appropriate at any given time.
The decisive news of the settlement was that in the future, the cooperating trade unions would be held accountable for collective agreements. This was new in relation to the task DsF had been given when it was founded on January 3, 1898.
After the settlement, Jens Jensen was tired, but not burned out. In 1901, he managed to secure another victory. The Danish national organization and Jens Jensen in particular had effectively used the international contacts built up since the 1880s to obtain financial help during the lockout. In 1901, DsF invited international union leaders to attend the 6th Scandinavian Labor Congress in Copenhagen. This laid the foundation for the international secretariat of national organizations.
The trade union movement was now strengthened nationally and internationally. In 1901, Jens Jensen was frequently traveling abroad. In 1902, things started to move in the Copenhagen City Council. K.M. Klausen had become an alderman in 1899. Now P. Knudsen was also elected councilor and in 1903 the Social Democratic group grew to 20.
When Finance Mayor L.C. Borup died in January 1903, a mayoral position was vacant. Jens Jensen was ready for new challenges and ready to once again become the first – this time the first Social Democratic mayor in the country.
The diplomat of the trade union movement
Jens Jensen once reportedly said that he had more important things to do than the Communist Manifesto. However, several of his surviving manuscripts show that he had read the old manifesto from 1848. Jens Jensen was a man of action – an organizer. Theory and theoretical activity could be fine, but it could easily lead to discord and squabbling, which in turn could lead to paralysis. The worst thing for him was stupidity. Jens Jensen always addressed his audience and the minds of his readers.
In his letters, he often returns to the stupidity and lack of understanding not only of stuck-up and snobbish capitalists, but also of workers. Over the years, the happy Fynbo became more cool and reserved. Frederik Borgbjerg called Jens Jensen the diplomat of the labor movement – an excellent characterization of Jens Jensen’s stylish appearance and manner. Jens Jensen never rejected a proposal, he was always willing to negotiate. Not indefinitely, but for a long time.
A bourgeois politician has written about Jens Jensen: “He is in a negotiation, clever and dexterous. It seems that this man must first set his trap to make Jensen fall into it.”
Jens Jensen had several advantages. One of them was that he had no history in the labor movement of the 1870s. He was not tainted by the party struggle of the Pio era or the dispute with Harald Brix’s heraldic movement, which until 1880 threatened the Social Democrats. P. Knudsen knew all that. For him, the word unity was more important than the Bible itself. The relationship between P. Knudsen and Jens Jensen was not hostile, but Knudsen kept a close eye on Jensen. Wherever Jens Jensen was, so was P. Knudsen.
When Jens Jensen became chairman of De samvirkende Fagforeninger in Copenhagen, P. Knudsen became vice-chairman. They each had their own office at the Social-Demokraten editorial office. In the middle between the two sat Wiinblad. When the farm workers were to be organized in the early 1890s, they disagreed wildly. Jensen wanted to organize them professionally – Knudsen wanted to organize them politically. Maybe Knudsen was jealous or feared the worst. Jens Jensen was at the forefront of a rapidly growing trade union movement, while membership growth in the party associations was somewhat slower. The formation of a trade union party was a theoretical possibility, although it never materialized. But P. Knudsen took no chances. Trust was good, but control was better.
Jens Jensen was at the forefront of major and important events in the history of the labor movement. He became the first chairman of De samvirkende Fagforeninger – the first chairman of De samvirkende Fagforbund – and the first Social Democrat in the Copenhagen City Council, together with K.M. Klausen.
The prospect of becoming the first Social Democratic mayor in the country and then in the capital must have been a temptation – although it was hardly the leitmotif, but rather the prospect of what was closest to Jens Jensen – to develop, influence and act for the benefit of the capital.
Jens Jensen and May Day
As one of the Danish representatives in Paris, Jens Jensen helped make the 8-hour day a May Day slogan. Jens Jensen was a painter, social democrat and trade unionist. He participated in the meetings in Paris as chairman of De samvirkende Fagforeninger – the main organization for the Copenhagen trade unions. When it was founded in 1898, he became the first president of De samvirkende Fagforbund (DsF, later LO). For many years to come, he was one of the foremost advocates in Danish social democracy for a statutory 8-hour working day. In 1903, Jens Jensen was elected as the first Social Democratic mayor of Copenhagen, and later – in 1918 – he helped introduce the 8-hour working day for municipal employees in Copenhagen.
In 1890, the first May Day demonstration was held on Fælleden, which we know today as Fælledparken. Despite the authorities’ reluctance and threats of dismissal from employers, thousands of workers showed up. Among other things, they sang the song “8 Hour Day” written for the occasion by the former Social Democratic chairman and poet A. C. Meyer. The song was on the May Day program repeatedly in the following three decades. The last verse of the song emphasizes the 8-hour day as the main demand of the labor movement:
Now straighten your back, bros, lift your eyes, sister!
Spring is sprouting outside the prison wall.
Have you forgotten that you have strong voices?
Sing the praises of waving nature.
Equal time for work and rest
and to fight for the young cause of life;
the first goal to which your strength must aspire
is the 8-hour workday
