The government has approved an increase of 8% in the minimum wage for 2017, from the current €655.20 per month to €707.60. Even so, the new minimum wage has been denounced as insufficient by unions, some of whom had been demanding a rise to €800 a month. The rates will come into force on 1 January 2017 and will require employers to pay no less than €707.6 a month for 14 payments a year (two double payments).
English: http://www.janetanscombe.com/news/spains-minimum-wage ...
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Ferry workers have ended a nine-day strike, saying they did not wish to disrupt the holiday season, but they are planning to resume action if the government did not back off tax hikes for ferry workers. The general secretary of the Pan-Hellenic Seamen's Federation has said the strike was suspended even though none of the workers’ demands had been resolved.
English: http://bigstory.ap.org/article …
Thousands of trade unionists demonstrated against planned new cuts demanded by international creditors in a general strike that shut down several key sectors. According to police, some 15,000 people took part in trade union protests in Athens and another 5,000 in Thessaloniki. Civil servants, bank staff, merchant seamen, railway workers and state-employed doctors were among professionals taking part in the 24-hour stoppage against the measures, which are scheduled to be approved by lawmakers. The measures include cutting public spending on salaries and pensions by 5.7 billion euro in 2017. Unions are also against the government’s plans to raise over 2.0 billion euro in 2017 from privatisations, including 1.2 billion euro from the sale of regional airports. Journalists were also striking. All television and radio news broadcasts were off the air a day and no newspapers were published before the nationwide general strike. Journalists are protesting the social security reforms that will affect their pension funds. The media sector has been hammered by both the financial crisis and a global slump in newspaper sales and media advertising. Journalists are often left unpaid for several months.
English: http://pakobserver.net/thousands-demonstrate-in-greece-over-new-budget-cuts/
http://www.timesunion.com/news/world/article/Greek-journalists-on-24-hour-strike …
Trade union LANV (German: Liechtensteinische ArbeitnehmerInnenverband) could conclude the collective bargaining negotiations in several sectors. Two sectors will see a general wage increase of 0.5% while in the remaining seven industries there will be an individual increase between 0.3% to 1%. Work-family balance is still a major issue for the trade unions although they managed to increase the number of paternal leave days in two sectors.
German: http://www.volksblatt.li/nachricht …
The Tienen-based lamp factory Sylvania has to close. 170 jobs will be axed in the process, but trades unions want to save as many jobs as possible. Most employees are on average over 50 years of age, and have worked an average of 29 years at the factory. They are afraid of their future. The first talks between the unions and the management led to the conclusion that the planned translocation will lead to a loss of 170 of the current 200 jobs. So far, it is not clear to which location abroad the activities will be transferred.
English: http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english ...
Dutch: http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/regio/vlaamsbrabant …
According to a Bundesbank projection Germany's economy is continuing to move on a sound upward path. However, employment will grow less dynamically as a result of demographic change, whereby the pool of people available to work will shrink, resulting in a dampening effect on consumption growth. The bank expects mounting labour market bottlenecks that will be a catalyst for stronger rises in wages and income. The projection foresees (over the period 2015-2018) an increase of the gross wages between 2.4 and 2.9%.
English: https://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN …
The luxury good company Richemont has reached an agreement with employees on a new round of job cuts. Trade union Unia, which was involved in talks between the company and its workers, said about the cuts that the layoffs were smaller than originally planned, as renegotiated severance packages helped support voluntary departures.
English: http://www.euronews.com/2016/12/09/richemont-reaches-agreement ...
The registered unemployment rate decreased to 8.78 percent at the end of November 2016, which is the lowest level since December 2008 when it stood at 8.39 percent. This is, according to the government, mostly due to the active measures in the labour market and targeted projects via the European Social Fund. The government signed another three projects aimed to support the unemployed on 19 December.
English: http://spectator.sme.sk/c/20415773/unemployment-rate-falls …
The trade union confederation Cartel-Alfa evaluates the collective bargaining situation in its December Newsletter. The union writes that the changes of the labour laws have eliminated the negotiations at sectoral and national level. The requirement at the sector level to have 50+1 of the members in the sector, for both negotiating parties make the conclusion of such a collective labour agreement virtually impossible. The regulations for the sector-wide collective bargaining led to a sudden decentralisation of collective labour relations, collective bargaining practically taking place only at enterprise level. Although the situation might seem different at enterprise level, with a slight increase of agreements, in reality this does not mean a restoration of the unbalance between employer and employee or an improvement in the growth distribution.
English: http://perc.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/newsletter_cartel_alfa …
The German trade union confederation DGB and the Austrian OGB organised, with several NGOs, a panel discussion, ‘How to build the pillar of social rights’, with some outstanding speakers. Allan Larsson, Special Advisor for the European Pillar of Social Rights of Commission President Juncker commented that Europe would urgently need a new approach to the obviously failed neoliberalism. Maria João Rodrigues, MEP, rapporteur for the Pillar of Social Rights in the Employment Committee, said that the negotiations in the European Parliament were proving to be difficult in particular with regard to the question of the concrete achievement of objectives, such as how the pillar of social rights should be embedded legally binding or how and what resources could and should be made available. Other speakers came from the ETUC, the Austrian Arbeiterkammer and the Cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Social Affairs.
English: http://www.akeuropa.eu/en/news …
Position paper of AK: http://www.akeuropa.eu/_includes …