RiBus was a company that ran busses. When it won a bid for outsourcing of public bus routes in Esbjerg, the drivers went on strike, because RiBus did not have acceptable wages and working conditions. The strike lasted for more than 8 months.

It's significant not just because it lasted longer than any other strike in recent Danish history; it also marked the first (and to my knowledge only) recent large-scale use of a number of very nasty union-busting tactics.

• The striking drivers were fired. That was pretty much unprecedented at the time. You do not generally fire people for striking in Denmark. Doing so is considered very, very bad form.

• Blacklegs were employed extensively to get around the strike. Blacklegging used to be extremely frowned upon in Denmark. Unfortunately, in recent years that seems to be no longer the case.

• Police was employed to break blockades. The right to blockade is - or was at the time, at least - almost universally (although not officially) recognised in Denmark. Thus using police to break blockades and protect blacklegging was viewed as a serious breach of the social contract. The ensuing clashes between police and blockade guards would occasionally turn rather ugly.

• Unknown parties engaged in extensive sabotage of RiBus busses and occasional vandalism directed at the homes and property of known blacklegs. Presumably the saboteurs were anarchists rather than union members - the Danish unions have not condoned sabotage as a weapon in labour conflicts since the September Agreement more than a century earlier.

- Jake

Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam