Collective Bargaining

Last year the country has seen one of the lowest wage growths of Europe. Where labour costs in the Eurozone increased by an average 2.5% in Belgium they only increased with 1.2%. According to figures from the advice and audit bureau Deleoitte workers on the lowest salaries have seen their net earnings rise the most since the tax reforms that was implemented 3 years ago. A study released by the Catholic University of Leuven on Friday showed that despite the rise in fuel prices and other expenses purchasing power in Belgium has increased over the past few years.

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Government announced that workers will get an extra day's holiday in 2019. The current minimum number of holiday days in the country is 25. In addition, the annual Europe Day on 9 May will be added to the list of public holidays.

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Trade unions are continuing their joint actions against the federal government's policy with a week of action on 14 December. Even though this government itself is under discussion unions go on with their protests against the pension, end-of-career and wage plans of the government and employers. The week of action ended with a national day of action on which some workers, amongst whom the TEC buses, trams and metros worker in Liège and Charleroi and port workers in Ghent, went on strike. Besides the transport sector strikes also took place in the food sector, and the metal and textile sector. The increase in the retirement age is very sensitive to people who perform physically demanding work and many workers are willing to engage in industrial action to prevent the proposed pension reforms.

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After two 24-hour strikes at branches of Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) coffee company in Joure and Utrecht on November workers won a 5.8% wage increase and agreed upon a new collective agreement. The 5.8% wage increase will be spread out over the course of two years and two months. Besides the wage increases the workers and their unions succeeded putting a stop to plans of the company management to create a two-tier wage system that would pay new workers substantially less than people that are already employed by the company.

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Government has announced to increase the minimum wage by 22% in what is the largest annual wage increase in more than 40 years. With this increase millions of low-paid workers could see their wages rise from 736 euro to 900 euro a month. The 22% increase of the minimum wage was agreed jointly with anti-austerity party Podemos. With this move the government hopes to get enough support for the 2019 budget to be adopted in parliament. The country increases the minimum wage annually, last year with 4%. Podemos claims the 22% wage increase as a victory.

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OECD published a new job strategy report, the first one in 12 years. According to the report that is called “Good Jobs for All in a Changing World of Work” collective bargaining is the best way to deliver better quality work. The OECD states that the digital revolution, globalisation and demographic changes are transforming the labour market and says that unions and employers have an important role to play and can work together in educating and training workforce to fit the demands of the changing labour market. Furthermore the OECD report recognises the important role that collective bargaining plays in both boosting productivity as tackling inequality. Collective bargaining is also linked with higher employment and lower unemployment, young people, women and low-skilled workers are also doing better under coordinated bargaining than under fully decentralised systems.

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Last month both employers’ organisations and the majority of the trade unions rejected a proposal by the Prime Minister to make membership of workers and companies in trade unions and employer associations compulsory (see our November newsletter). At an annual two-day seminar the debate on non-unionised workers continued. Trade union the Voice of the Workers proposes an “agency shop model” whereby non-union members pay a fee whenever they benefit from a service negotiated by a trade union. Contrary to other European countries, trade union membership is on the rise in Malta Trade with membership figures for the first time going over the 100.000 mark.

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Trade union CCOO has called a two-day Railway strike in Renfe and Adif for December 21 and January 7, at the beginning and end of the Christmas holidays. The union called out the strike to protest job cuts and furthermore demands multi-year plan of human resources that allows the renovation, rejuvenation and gender balance in the jobs of both public companies, where women represent only 13% of the staff. This call for strike is not the only strike at the rail. Train inspectors will also go on a one-day strike and partial stoppages of the Adif railway controllers have been announced by the Syndicate of Railway Circulation (SCF) over a lack of personnel.

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Collective bargaining negotiations for the more than 110.000 workers and the approximately 17.000 metalworking apprentices ended with a successful agreement that will be valid for twelve months. Workers in the industry won a 3.3% wage increase and the apprentice compensation is going up with 7.2%. Another point of negotiations was 12-hour working day that was recently introduced by the government. In the new collective agreement an additional break of 10 minutes was agreed for working of more than ten hours. From the third hour of a working day, a 75% surcharge will be paid until 7 pm, from 7 pm on, a 100% surcharge will apply. The night work allowance is raised in four annual stages of around 7% to 2.53 euro.

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This month saw another wave of strike actions at Uljanik, the biggest shipyard of the country. Workers went on a two-week strike in demand of their November wages and the wages that were not fully paid to them in September and October. These two months the workers received minimum wages instead of their full wages. This summer the Uljanik workers also went on strike to protest similar problems with unpaid wages. Some workers that were unsatisfied with union representation formed an informal workers organisation to represent their interests. This new organisation that is called Stožer za obranu Uljanika (Headquarters for the Defence of Uljanik) is both engaging in negotiations with Uljanik management as in the strike actions.

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