A strike for higher wages at Railway infrastructure (IP) saw 90% of the workers participating. The arbitration court had stipulated that 25% of services had to be maintained as a minimum service. The wage increase the company offered was in some cases less than 2 euro a month. The IP workers are on strike demanding a 4% wage increase which would guarantee at least another 40 euro a month for each worker.
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[close]Global union Public Service International (PSI) expressed its concerns about the recently issued tenders by Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève for private ‘partners’ to run its ambulatory operation services, through a public-private partnership. In a solidarity letter to Swiss union Syndicat des Services Publics (SSP), the general secretary of PSI states that the public-private partnership is a ‘surreptitious introduction of privatisation of surgical care’.
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[close]According to Eurostat data, Luxembourg is at the top of the wage ranking with an hourly wage of €43.8 in 2016. Denmark (€38.7) and Belgium, (€37.9) offer the second and third best hourly wages for workers across the EU. Workers in countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Lithuania or Latvia are paid under €10 for an hour of work. Eurostat revealed that the hourly employee compensation increased in 2017 in all EU member states, with the EU average standing at €23.1 and €26.9 in the euro area. Compared to 10 years ago, hourly wages increased significantly across the EU.
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[close]Concerns are growing that the new French owner of telecom company Eir plans to cut up a third of the workforce resulting in job losses for up to 1.000 staff. Earlier on unions at Eir raised concerns over the fact that the company is not taking on apprentice engineers to replace the very large number of engineers that are due to retire this year and in subsequent years. Trade unions officials shared staff concerns in a meeting with the new CEO.
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[close]According to the organisers 5.3 million followed a strike call by women's organisations, trade unions and other organisations for the first ‘feminist strike’ in the country's history. With their strike the women were protesting discrimination at work and sexual violence. All over the country there were public rallies under the slogan ‘If the women go on strike, then the world stands still’. The women were encouraged to not only participate in the protests and stay away from their workplaces. They were also called upon to stop work at home and neither clean nor cook.
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[close]The nearly five months old wage dispute at meatpacking plant Rakvere (see our February newsletter) is not yet solved. Workers are holding on to their demands for a 16% wage increase from 1 February 2018 and an additional 16% increase in basic wage from 1 July 2018. Unions are now trying to negotiate with both HKScan and the Finnish parent company of the same name. According to the union HKScan does not want to meet the demands of the strikers in fear employees from other departments may also come forward with demands for higher wages.
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[close]In a sharp polemic, underpinned with graphs and figures, the current policy is criticised. According to the author, the government did not use the last eight years to close the gap in living standards, but rather to strengthen its power. The tax and social policies clearly benefited the upper middle-class. Between 2010 and 2016, the gap between the poorest and the rich grew. In 2010, the top ten-percent in terms of per capita income made 7.3 times more than the bottom 10 percent. By 2017, this had increased to 8.6 percent. The purchasing power of the poorest one million individuals lost 15 percent of its value in less than six years.
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[close]The central organisations of employers and workers, agreed on what could become a historic agreement. The deal between on the one hand employers’ organisation Confindustria, on the other hand the three trade union confederations CGIL, CISL and UIL will lead to new contractual arrangements and industrial relations. The negotiations started a year and a half ago. The framework agreement that has been negotiated should become an instrument in the fight against what is called ‘contractual dumping’, the phenomenon of contractual arrangements signed by non-representative organisations.
Read on: in Italian … The agreed document: in Italian …
[close]A IMF working paper describes that nominal wage growth in most advanced economies remains markedly lower than it was before the Great Recession of 2008–09. The paper finds that the bulk of the wage slowdown is accounted for by labour market slack, inflation expectations, and trend productivity growth. In particular, there appears to be greater slack than meets the eye. Involuntary part-time employment appears to have weakened wage growth even in economies where headline unemployment rates are now at, or below, their averages in the years leading up to the recession.
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[close]The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) urges the government to raise minimum pension in order to alleviate poverty amongst elderly people. Latvia’s old-age poverty rate is the second-highest in the OECD, after South Korea: more than 25% of people aged 65 and older have an income below the relative poverty line. The pension system is designed to automatically adapt to demographic trends and because the working population is shrinking fast this also reduces the pension benefits.
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