Collective Bargaining

The OECD launched, in cooperation with the ILO, the report ‘Building trust in a changing world of work’. The report stresses the critical role of social dialogue in creating decent work and inclusive growth. It also stresses that new efforts are needed to ensure the recognition and realisation of the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The report highlights the crucial role of social dialogue in enhancing the inclusiveness of labour protection and the important role played by social partners in shaping the future of work, through workplace cooperation, collective bargaining and tripartite social dialogue.

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Amidst a dispute over staff pay and conditions, the Coventry University Group (CUG) was trying to undermine union rights by setting up a ‘sham’ trade union – the Staff Consultative Group. The CUG signed a recognition agreement for it to represent staff – denying them official UCU representation. After protests and a petition named ‘Stop the anti-union dirty tricks in the Coventry University Group’ that was signed over 10000 times unions and CUG have come to an agreement on trade union representation. The agreement provides UCU with a voluntary recognition as a trade union for academic staff at the CU campuses, working alongside the Staff Consultative Group and others.

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The art centre of Trampoline House is currently hosting a sound installation, titled Economy of Migrant Labor – For the Right to Work. The initiative pays attention to bottle collectors that try to survive in the country. There are no official figures on the number of bottle collectors, and the collectors’ status is quite varied in terms of background and social status. Some bottle collectors are low-income and homeless Danes, while others are migrants and refugees. Some are waiting for their asylum applications to be processed, and others have been granted asylum but have no work. What they all share is the common experience of being exploited, marginalised and excluded from society. According to the initiative, this difficult situation is not only limited to bottle collectors. The Global North is dependent on migrant workers for their cheap, exploitable and non-unionised labour, who pick fruits or work in construction and cleaning industries.

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After 18 months of tense negotiations, the trade unions OGBL, LCGB, and Aleba reached a breakthrough in the discussions of a collective agreement with the banking association ABBL. The bargaining result will introduce new classification and remuneration systems and has a clause that will lead to an increase of the June 2018 bonuses by 10%. It includes an improvement in flexible working hours and training of employees in the sector. The trade unions had increased the pressure on the ABBL in recent weeks. The agreement affects approximately 15,000 people in the sector. The negotiators decided to set up a sector-wide joint committee with the mandate to decide on issues such as employee functions being incorrectly defined.

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The government is setting up quotas amid rising immigration from Ukraine. The issue of labour immigration is getting high priority due to the growth of Ukrainian drivers and construction worker in the country. Besides this, the government decided to toughen the order of the trip of third-country nationals to Lithuania by bringing back the system of work permits.

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Union and business leaders warn that multinationals might be taking their business elsewhere due to lack of sufficient labour force reports a daily newspaper. The deputy head of metalworkers’ trade union Vasas told the paper that one multinational recently laid off more than 500 workers because it could not find sufficient labour. The union official estimated that 2,000-3,000 jobs have been lost as companies take capacity elsewhere, while shelved investments have prevented job creation. He urged immediate government intervention and negotiations with interested parties to find rapid solutions to prevent more firms from shifting production away from the country.

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Trade union confederation TUC came up with an analysis of the features of insecure jobs. The findings show that 3,820,000 workers are in insecure forms of employment. This is 11.9% of the workforce, or 1 in 9 workers. Many workers in the ‘gig economy’ are denied key workplace rights, including protection from unfair dismissal. The union speaks about firms that falsely label workers as self-employed, outsource work to agencies or use zero hours contracts to drive down costs and dodge employment and tax responsibilities. Agency and zero-hours workers can he hired and fired at will and have no right to return to their job after having a baby.

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McDonald’s is facing the first industrial action in the country since 2003. It started with wild picket lines that blocked many of the company’s fast food restaurants in Paris. Since 11 May, a McDonald's located at Boulevard de Magenta, near Gare de l'Est, is occupied by a dozen employees that are supported by students and railwaymen who joined them. Workers are demanding a base salary of 13 euro per hour, a 13th month for all and sufficient staff.

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Trade unions ALEBA, LCGB-SESF and OGBL announce in a joint press statement that an agreement was reached between the various stakeholders in the insurance sector. The agreement, signed on 16 May 2018 after several months of negotiations, will be effective in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The collective agreement introduces a number of benefits, such as bonuses, an increase of the salary scales for new hires, the increase of guaranteed pay rises over a three-year period and the right to training.

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Brussel Airlines held walkouts this month after some 80% of the pilots voted in favour of strike actions. The pilots protested the heavy workload with not enough time to rest, retirement conditions, career prospect and demand a pay hike. The strikes that were held on 14 May and 16 May 2018 lead to a cancelation of approximately 75% of the scheduled flights. Brussels Airlines says it will lose 10.4 million euro from the two days of walkouts.

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