Collective Bargaining

After a spontaneous strike in December 2017, renewed collective bargaining started at the Ford car plant in Craiova. The workers are unhappy with the salary increases proposed by the company’s management and the unions will start preparing a warning strike if the mediation process between the unions and the management fails. The union at Ford Craiova notified the company’s employees that it decided to start the work conflict procedures. The collective agreement at the Ford plant expired at the end of 2017 and will have effect until the end of February 2018. After that, employees are only covered by individual labour contracts.

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In the 4th quarter of 2017, the average wage in the country was 5,586 Kuna (753 euro), an increase of 1% compared to the 3rd quarter. In the same period men earned, on average, 13% more than women (men 5,931 Kuna, women 5,240 Kuna). Besides the top management, the best paid jobs can be found in technology and development, human resources and IT. The lowest average wage is paid in textile and leather and several services sectors. Also hospitality scores below average.

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Women earn PLN 700 (168 euro) a month less than men on average, the labour ministry has said. Depending on the method used to select and calculate data, women earn 7% to 18.5% less than their male counterparts. Industrial relation experts say that, although it looks that the country’s gender pay gap is smaller than the EU-average, the smaller difference in pay is not so much the result of efforts by employers as of the lower wages employees receive compared to their counterparts in other countries. The bigger wage gap in Western European countries is also a result of women there often working part-time.

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Amid an ongoing protest over healthcare spending, pay and conditions the health ministry and a group of resident doctors failed to arrive at an agreement. The OZZL doctors trade union which is leading the protest, said it was disappointed by the meeting, adding that the ministry was unprepared and had nothing to offer. Resident doctors held a nearly month-long hunger strike in October 2017, demanding a healthcare spending hike to 6.8% of GDP by 2021, less red tape, shorter hospital waiting lists and better pay and conditions.

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McDonald’s workers won a pay rise following the first UK strikes in the company’s history. In September 2017, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) launched its ‘McStrike’ campaign at two restaurants in Cambridge and Croydon due to a dispute over pay and conditions as well as zero-hours contracts. More than 40 workers staged a 24-hour walkout. McDonald’s has confirmed that a pay rise will take effect from 22 January 2018. The pay rise will be the biggest in ten years.

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Trade union 3F, the country’s largest union, has published an overview (in English) of the income requirements and other conditions that workers have to meet in order to obtain unemployment benefits. The changes came into effect per 1 July 2017. The income requirement is calculated in Danish kroner: workers must have earned DKK 228,348 within three years (2018 figures). It is possible to count a maximum of DKK 19,029 (2018 figures) for each month to meet the requirement. For a part-time insured person, the income requirements are lower. Only unsubsidised work accrues the right to unemployment benefits. This means that jobs with subsidies do not count. The unemployment fund calculates the rate of unemployment benefit based on the best 12 months of earnings within the past two years. A rate is only calculated when a worker starts a new period of unemployment benefits. As of 1 July 2017, a monthly rate – a fixed amount – was introduced, whether or not the month is short or long. The maximum rate is DKK 18.633 per month for a full-time insured person. On another webpage the union’s unemployment fund is introduced.

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The workforce at Autoeuropa, the Volkswagen unit at Palmela is still disputing new working hours. The factory interrupted production from 26 December, citing a break in the supply of pieces. The coordinator of the Works Council said that the interruption had happened at a difficult period due to the definition of hours to assure production of the T-Roc model, after workers had approved a proposal for a strike on 2 and 3 February 2018. The Works Council has presented a list of demands to management. The new working hours imposed by management from February to July includes compulsory working on Saturdays, which the company says is necessary to meet the production objectives.

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Transport workers organised a regional transport strike for better working conditions. The workers complain because they are often under extreme pressure to stick to their schedules. They also called for a 3.5% pay increase. The trade unions FNV and CNV backed up the strike that led to a great deal of problems for travellers on railways stations in the regions. The action was because the negotiations for a collective agreement failed, with neither guarantees to reduce job stress, nor a satisfactory salary proposal.

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The trade union of Estonian public-sector trade unions TALO and the ministry of culture signed a 2018 pay agreement for cultural workers, according to which the gross minimum monthly salary of cultural workers whose pay comes from the state budget will increase to 1,150 euro in 2018, a 22% increase. According to a previously signed agreement, the salary of full-time cultural workers should reach the country's average monthly pay by 2020. The ministry declared that this deal shows the great value that the country gives to cultural work.

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According to the Federal Statistical Office, the current working week is 41-hour. It is the norm across the country (excluding the self-employed). Legally, the maximum number of working hours per week is 45 for employees working in industry, office staff, technical and other employees, sales personnel in large retailing firms and 50 hours for everyone else. But there is flexibility in the system. The employers’ organisation of SMEs has argued that the current labour law needs to be modernised and made even more flexible. The association wants to see the removal of ‘red tape’ regarding work times and break times and also called for SMEs to be freed from requirements aimed at large companies. The trade unions are committed to shorter working time; workers thus can benefit from technical progress and it can bring a better work-life balance. Besides, a regular trade union working life survey, the Barometer Decent Work, revealed that job stress is growing and workers lose the grip on their leisure time as a result of digitalisation.

Read on: in English … Travail Suisse Barometer Decent Work: in German …