Collective Bargaining

The canton of Neuchâtel can go ahead with plans to introduce a minimum wage after the country’s highest court rejected an appeal by opponents of the idea. The people of Neuchâtel voted in favour of bringing in a minimum wage back in 2011, and the cantonal government later decided on an hourly rate of 20 francs. The introduction was suspended after several professional organisations and private individuals challenged the plan in court. The Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne rejected the appeal, saying that the proposed minimum wage of 20 francs ‘conforms to the constitutional principle of economic freedom and to federal law’.

English: https://www.thelocal.ch/20170807/neuchtel-to-become-first-swiss-canton ...

The Court’s communication (in French): http://www.bger.ch/fr/press-news ...

The statistical office has worked out a comparison of the sectoral wage developments in the neighbouring countries (Germany, Belgium, France). Much attention was given to the wage dynamic in the private and public sector. Because of the country’s large finance sector, the office focused especially on the wage formation in financial services. One of the findings is that the surrounding countries have no sector in the lead. But, there are important mutual interactions, both short-term and long-term, between sectoral bargaining.

French: http://www.statistiques.public.lu/fr/publications …

http://www.statistiques.public.lu/catalogue-publications ...

Workers of the Bank of England began a three-day strike, after talks at the conciliation service Acas ended without agreement. The workers, organised in the Unite trade union are disputing a below-inflation pay rise of 1%, which has been imposed. The trade union members, including cleaners, security and maintenance staff, picketed the Bank's headquarters in the City of London. Unite has called on the governor of the bank, to personally intervene to settle this long-running dispute for the sake of the stability of the bank and the interests of its committed workforce.

English: http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/bank-of-england-staff ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/business ...

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch ...

At the very same moment that the EDF Group’s Committee for Dialogue on Social Responsibility met for the annual meeting a group of workers of EDF subsidiary Luminus was sacked. Following the announcement of the dismissals, Luminus workers, together with national unions, staged protests and strikes at various sites to express outrage at this blatant disregard for basic labour rights and lack of consultation with unions, and they asked for international support. Under this pressure, the Luminus management finally apologised for the way the dismissals were announced in a press release.

English: http://www.industriall-union.org/fired-by-voicemail-an-edf-worker-speaks-out-0

http://www.world-psi.org/en/edfs-astonishing-hypocrisy ...

French: http://www.lavenir.net/cnt ...

The WSI Collective Agreement Archive presented a half-year report on the wage developments in 2017. Based on the available data, the report has calculated an average wage increase at 2.5% in 2017. In the first half of the year several agreements included a pay increase in between 2 and 3%. Most of the agreements were signed for a two-year period. The real wage increase, however, will be lower, due to higher inflation.

German: https://www.boeckler.de/pdf …

https://www.boeckler.de/pdf ...

The collective bargaining in the painters and plasterers branch led to an agreement for a period of 3 years. The collective agreement was declared generally binding as of 1 August 2017. Based on the EU posting of workers directive, the agreement refers to a list of provisions that apply for foreign companies with posted workers.

German: http://www.lanv.li/contortionist ...

A Global Labour Column sketches out the problems in the tourism sector. Tourism work is tough and poorly paid, working conditions have deteriorated significantly, especially for hotel housekeepers. Hoteliers have taken advantage of the crisis to increase workloads, reduce wages, make contracts more insecure, and outsource. As a result of labour fragmentation, wages have dropped dramatically and many hotel cleaners have become ‘working poor’. Hotel housekeepers have been heavily squeezed; they are one of the largest groups among hotel staff, representing between 20 and 30% of employees. They are mostly female, suffering from multiple forms of discrimination.

English: http://column.global-labour-university.org/2017/07/confronting-job-precarity ...

A Svimez think tank report points to 20 years of lost growth for the southern regions. The recovery of 2015-2016, confirmed in forecasts for 2017 and 2018, will not structurally change this. With the current economic trends, the Centre-South regions will recover their pre-crisis levels in 2028, that is 10 years after the rest of the country. The labour market is characterised by an explosion of part-time work, above all that which can be defined as ‘involuntary’, people accepting part-time work due to the lack of full-time work. In 2016, full-time workers (4.9 million) increased by 1% compared to 2015, while part-time workers rose 4.9%: 1.1 million, of which 858,000 are ‘involuntary’. Despite the increase in employed people, levels of poverty and social exclusion are still high: 34% of southern Italians are at risk of poverty and 10% face absolute poverty.

English: http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/business-and-economy …

The report (in Italian): http://www.svimez.info/images/RAPPORTO ...

Campaigning by PCS and other public-sector trade unions has led the Scottish Government to announce that it will remove the 1% pay cap from 2018. The minister with responsibility for Scottish Government pay policy, has also agreed to allow employers to bring all pay settlement dates forward to 1 April 2018. This will mean earlier pay rises in 2018 for thousands of PCS members in the Scottish Government sector.

English: http://www.pcs.org.uk/news/union-campaigning-leads-scottish-government …

Two thousand striking workers at a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' (FCA) plant - FCA Srbija - succeeded in gaining a 9.5 per cent pay increase and keeping their annual bonus, amongst other gains, in a deal signed between Fiat and the trade unions on 25 July 2017. The deal follows an unprecedented three weeks of strike action at the factory in Kragujevac, and effective trade union mobilisation which benefitted from the support and solidarity of fellow trade union organisations from all across Europe.

English: http://www.b92.net/eng/news/business ...

http://www.industriall-union.org/workers-at-fiat-serbia-win-better-conditions ...