Collective Bargaining

Trade unions reacted positively towards the collective agreement they negotiated for the 560000 workers in local and regional government offices. After a 10-year freeze, they managed to win an 85 euro pay increase per month and there are improvements in a range in holiday entitlement and sick leave. Additional resources are available for local bargaining. The General Confederation of Labour for public services, FP-CGI, is proud of the new collective agreement that addresses wages, rights and bargaining at the same time.

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Data from the Office for National Statistics show that real wages are continuing to fall and unemployment is rising. In fact, real wages fell for the tenth month in a row as pay growth failed to rise above the rate of inflation. This alarming news came out at the same day that the Living Wage Foundation published new data on the effects of earning below the real living wage. According to a survey, commissioned by the Living Wage Foundation, low pay is having a devastating effect on family life and worker health. The survey polled 1,016 UK parents working full time and earning less than the Living Wage.

Read on: in English … The ONS-data: in English …

Workers at the CTT postal services went on nationwide strike and demonstration on 23 February. The industrial action was planned by the four unions representing CTT postal workers (SNTCT, SINDETELCO, SINCOR, and SINTTAV) in demand of the renationalisation of the recently privatised CTT Postal service. If the restructuring plans of CTT go through, this will leave hundreds of employees out of job, increasing the work load for the remaining postal employees. Postal unions say the strike’s turnout was over 70%.

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The Flemish education ministry and the trade unions concluded a draft collective agreement. The deal includes a wage improvement, a demand that was crucial for the unions, as the last pay increase dates from 2003. Wages will be increased stepwise with 0.3% on 1 September 2018, resulting in 1.1% on 1 January 2021. The aim is to have a pay increase that is similar to the private sector. Besides, other provisions have been concluded to make the jobs in education more attractive for starters. Several leading persons in education had called in recent months for a campaign to be launched to the teaching profession among graduates.

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It looks as if the country will be swept by a wave of strikes, demonstrations and protests, by professionals of various sectors including teachers, doctors, nurses and public prosecutors, over the coming months. Teachers have pledged strike action for March, while doctors have said they may strike in April. Nurses initially gave the country’s Health Ministry until the end of February to further negotiations over pay and working conditions, but in the meantime confirmed a national two-day strike set for 22 and 23 March. Unions representing nurses accused the Health Ministry of broken promises. Among the demands are a 35-hour work week from July, overtime payment, and the payment of a 150-euro supplement for nurses with specialist functions, which should have come into play from January. At the start of 2018 the country’s doctors had already waged similar action.

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Several groups of public sector workers went on strike in February. Police workers walked-out on Monday 12 February demanding a wage increase of around 15 percent. The head of the police trade union said that officers are undervalued and deserve more to reflect the hours they work. Health care workers other than doctors, and social care workers went on strike on 13 February demanding the government to stop austerity measures, rise their pay and increase staffing. On 14 February Slovenian schools closed as around 40.000 teachers went on strike. They demanded that their salaries be brought in line with other public workers. A few days later, the main negotiator in the governmental delegation resigned in an effort to ‘disburden’ the negotiating process and speed up negotiations.

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According to the annual report 2017 published by the statistical office, the employment rate increased by 0.7 percentage points to 67.8 percent in 2017, with on average 5,022,000 person employed. The increase of the number of employed persons was important in the it-sector, in public administration and in construction. On average, 6.7 percent of those in the labour force aged 15-74 were unemployed in 2017, which is a decrease of 0.2 percentage points compared with 2016. The unemployment rate among men decreased by 0.4 percentage points to 6.9 percent, while among women, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent.

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A report of the thinktank Resolution Foundation, Living Standards Outlook, is exploring in detail what the next five years may hold in store for household incomes and inequalities. The report is concerned with an in-depth look at the real spending power of typical households and of the income distribution. The authors conclude that the outlook is poor for low income working-age households. The years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 in the projections all involve part of the income distribution becoming worse. Roughly the bottom 40% of the working-age population is expected to face relatively weak or even negative income growth, with higher and relatively equal growth for the rest (in cash terms incomes grow fastest for the richest). The last decade has been the weakest for average earnings in two centuries after adjusting for inflation. This is the product of a combination of disappointing nominal pay growth and above-target inflation. On nominal pay, whereas 4% growth was normal before the financial crisis, average earnings growth has remained below 3% cent since January 2009.

Read on: in English … Report: in English …

A Eurostat update illustrates with data and graphs how minimum wage levels vary considerably across the European Union Member States; it also provides a comparison with the situation in the candidate countries and the United States. The office publishes the national minimum wages twice a year; reflecting the situation on 1 January and 1 July of each year. As a consequence, modifications to minimum wages introduced between these two dates are only shown for the following bi-annual release of data. In January 2018, 22 out of the 28 EU Member States (Denmark, Italy, Cyprus, Austria, Finland and Sweden were the exceptions) had a national minimum wage, as did all of the EU candidate countries (Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Turkey). As of 1 January 2018, monthly minimum wages varied widely across the Member States, from 261 euro in Bulgaria to 1,999 euro in Luxembourg.

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In an editorial of its quarterly, trade union LANV labels the results of the last bargaining as very modest. Apart from a few branches with 0.5 to 1% general pay increases, most negotiations led to a standstill in the wage development. This is the more surprising as the economic situation is positive. The union demands aimed to compensate at least the inflation and to guarantee the purchase power of workers. The union is especially worried about the development in the hairdressing branch, where the employers decide to quit the bargaining system. In the hospitality sector two rivalling employers’ organisations are active, one that respects the bargaining, the other that refuse to negotiate and to respect the agreements.

Read on: in German …