Collective Bargaining

Staff at Roscommon County Council staged several strikes in support of family-friendly work practices. Hundreds of trade union members and supporters marched through Roscommon in solidarity with the county workers. The dispute is over council management’s refusal to halt its effective ban on flexi-leave in the county council, in defiance of Labour Court rulings. Trade union Fórsa says it’s now over 12 months since any Roscommon council worker was approved for flexi-leave.

Read on: in English …

The regional transport strike, organised together by trade unions FNV and CNV is still going on with no agreement insight. The ongoing dispute focusses mainly around wages and the right to have regular bathroom breaks (see our April and May newsletter). After new rounds of negotiations not led to a breakthrough in the collective bargaining process, an all-out strike was announced. After a few smaller regional strikes were organised earlier this month, a nationwide strike was held from 27 June to 2 July.

Read on: in English …

The finance ministry published a report that announce a substantial pay increase. The economy will speed up and gain 4.1 per cent in 2018. The boost is expected to be driven by household consumption and private investment. Nominal wage growth is set to be the fastest since the crisis, thus adding to the inflation pressures. 40 thousand new jobs will push the unemployment rate below 7 per cent. In the coming year, the economic growth will further accelerate as the automotive sector stays firm. The new macroeconomic forecast has a positive impact on tax bases throughout the medium-term horizon.

Read on: in English …

Members of the union of Greek hospital workers, POEDIN, blocked the entrance to the finance ministry in protest against austerity. Crying out slogans against austerity, the protesters obstructed employees from entering the building. POEDIN is demanding the revocation of pay cuts and permanent status for staff on short-term contracts.

Read on: in English (1) …

Around 18000 construction workers took it to the streets to demonstrate the proposals to scrap the current retirement age of 60 for the industry. Unions threatened with strikes for the building sector this autumn if the retirement age for construction workers will indeed be increased.

Read on: in English …

After strikes earlier this month that affected about 85 percent of the services in the country further strikes were announced that are now suspended because an agreement has been reached. The workers were on strike in protest against the possibility of trains having just a single crew member on board. The labour conflict now seems to be resolved with an agreement on railway safety/single agent matters that was signed between the State Office for Infrastructure and the trade unions.

Read on: in English (1) … in English (2) …

The Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) declared a trade dispute after months of negotiations with the Secretariat for Catholic Education have failed. According to the union their demands to bring working conditions of teaching grades in church schools in line with state schools are not being met by the church schools. The Secretariat for Catholic Education states that it is surprised that the MUT declared an industrial dispute while the Secretariat of Catholic Educations wants to resolve the issues at hand.

Read on: in English …

Industri Energi, the biggest trade union that represents some 4.000 workers on offshore oil drilling rigs, concluded a new wage deal last month. The Safe union, a smaller involved union with 2250 members still had to ask its members to decide whether they accept the deal (see our May newsletter). The members of the Safe union now voted against the new wage deal and hold on to their demand for better wages. Safe union warned that drilling and catering staff who work on oil producing platforms could go on strike this summer.

Read on: in English …

An article in the European Journal of Industrial Relations investigates under what conditions unions can successfully regulate precarious employment. The authors compare the divergent trajectories of collective bargaining on agency work in the Italian and German metal sectors from the late 1990s and explain the differences by the interaction between trade unions’ institutional and associational power resources, mediated by employers’ divide-and-rule strategies and by union strategies to (re)build a unitary front.

Read on: in English …

Nine days after the start of the indefinite strike, the workers' assembly of H & M has approved the agreement reached by the unions with the management and decided to call off their strike. The agreement includes significant salary improvements. The entire workforce will see salary increases and the salary difference that exists between a large part of the workforce will be cut, with the lowest salaries benefiting the most. Furthermore, employees will receive 35% extra salary per hour when working night-time.

Read on: in Spanish …