The international and European trade union movement has strongly condemned the failed coup and offered our deepest condolences to the victims. Unconstitutional attempts - especially involving military force - to seize power and overthrow democracy are unacceptable. The ITUC and ETUC are also deeply concerned by the government's drastic purge launched in the immediate aftermath of the coup attempt. Many civilians are amongst the thousands of people arrested and detained. Tens of thousands of workers and citizens have now been dismissed or suspended from their jobs. Plans have been announced to replace 20,000 teachers, among them thousands of trade union members. The coup attempt cannot be used as an excuse to eradicate democratic opposition through a `state of emergency'.
English: https://www.etuc.org/documents/turkey-ituc-and-etuc-deeply-concerned .
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Unemployment may drop to 9.4% this year, the Economics Ministry said during the presentation of its latest Macroeconomic Review. The labour market situation continued improving but at a more moderate rate reflecting influence of negative demographic trends. Employment will increase moderately in 2016, by 0.8% or 7,100 employed persons compared to 2015. The employment rate will be slightly above 62%. The steepest growth in the number of employees is expected in the sectors focused on domestic demand - commercial services and trade. As the demand for labour increases, average gross wages and salaries have also been rising gradually. They increased by 3.7% and 4.6% in 2012 and 2013, respectively, by 6.8% in 2014 and by 6.9% in 2015, reaching 818 euro. A rapid increase of wages and salaries was also observed during the 2016 Q1; average gross wages and salaries increased by 5.3%, as compared to the 2015 Q1.
English: http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics .
The report: https://www.em.gov.lv/files/tautsaimniecibas_attistiba .
A study of the Molinari Institute compares the tax and social security burdens of individual employees earning typical salaries in each of the 28 EU member states and, in doing so, to determine a `tax liberation day' - measuring how much of each year's work is devoted to paying taxes - for workers in each country. In addition, the study tracks year-to-year trends in both the taxation on, and cost of salaried labour in the EU.
English: http://www.institutmolinari.org/IMG/pdf/tax-burden-eu-2016.pdf
French: http://www.institutmolinari.org/IMG/pdf/fardeau-fiscal-eu-2016.pdf
The All Transport Workers' Union of Turkey Tümtis reported union busting practices at the Gaziantep municipality's urban transport company, Gazi-Ulas Transportation. Tümtis has been organising bus drivers at the company since 2002. A month ago, the company started to force Tümtis members to resign from the union and join another one - Oz Tasima-Is. The company also transferred 160 workers from Gazi-Bel - the municipality's other company - to Gazi-Ulas and forced them to become members of Oz Tasima-Is, in an attempt to dissolve the Tümtis membership. Global union ITF reminded the mayor of Gaziantep in a letter that the right to organise workers free from interference is a fundamental ILO right, guaranteed in the constitutional law article 51. The practices are taking place despite a collective bargaining agreement with Tümtis, which specifies that the company cannot force workers to resign or join another union.
English: http://www.itfglobal.org/en/news-events/news/2016/july/itf-intervenes .
According to the national statistical office, the labour costs per hour in 2015 have increased at the lowest pace in 20 years. In some sectors labour costs even decreased. Thus is partly due to lower pension contributions by employers. The largest increase was in IT and communication (2.9%); in banking and financial services the costs decreased with 2.6% because of lower pension contributions. However, the banking and finance sector stayed on top of the ranking of hourly gross wages paid (55 euro); in the bottom of this ranking figures the hospitality sector (18 euro). The average hourly wage in 2015 was 33 euro.
Tables and information (Dutch): https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2016/30 .
Tables (English): http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication .
During inspection checks, the State Administrative Agency noticed that within three Nokia subsidiaries, foreign employees were paid much less than Finnish employees. The notification from the Agency to Nokia concerned 95 employees from India, China and Poland who worked for Nokia subsidiaries between 2014-2015. From the documents, it appears that foreign employees with the lowest salaries who worked in product development design earned 50-75 percent less than their Finnish counterparts. This means that Indian, Chinese and Polish employees at the lowest end of the pay scale earned about 750 euro a month.
English: http://yle.fi/uutiset/nokia_caught_out_on_wage_discrimination .
Average wages in the private sector increased by 5.3% year on year in June 2016, while employment increased by 3.1%. According to the Central Statistical Office, the average monthly gross salary in the private sector was PLN 4,252.19 (969.22 euro). In the 1st half of 2016, the average paid employment in the private sector rose by 2.9% in annual terms. Helped by ongoing deflation, real wages have enjoyed their fastest rise since March 2015. Wages in June 2016 were 2.1% higher than in May, while employment was up 0.3%.
English: http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/262464,Wages-employment-on-the-up-in-Poland
Report on 1st half of 2016: http://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/other-studies/informations .
A three-day-strike in the handling sector at the main airports from 1 July against the low salary model and precarious employment conditions was called off just before the start (dee our June Newsletter). However, the dispute seems not to be settled as a new strike was organised on 31 July by the Union of Workers of the Aviation and Airports (SITAVA), challenging that baggage handlers at the Portela Airport have not had a pay raise since 2008 and protesting against the privatisation of the sector.
English: http://portuguese-american-journal.com/travel-alert-portuguese-baggage-handlers .
Workers that went on an 11-day strike at a Nestlé factory (see the June Newsletter) in the north western province of Bursa concluded a collective agreement. The agreement, which covers more than 900 workers, includes a mechanism for an extra 45 workers to be made permanent. Trade union Tekgida-Is also signed an agreement with Nestlé Waters in July which applies to more than 500 workers. Both agreements provide for significantly improved wages and social benefits and most importantly provide collective bargaining protections and union representation for more than 1400 workers in the food-processing sector.
English: http://www.iuf.org/w .
A Danish-American study followed workers for 12 years and found that the well-being of employees, particularly women, suffers as a company's orders go up. When production companies enjoy an uptick in business, the employees pay for it with their well-being. When a production company increases its exports by ten percent and employees are made to work extra hours to carry the load, the workers suffer more illness and injuries. As exports rise exogenously, both men and women get higher wages. However, despite higher wages, women develop higher rates of severe depression. Women are 17.4% more likely to have a heart attack when their companies' orders increase, 6.4% more likely to suffer a workplace injury and are 2.5% more likely to suffer severe depression. The extra hours led to a 5% increase in work injuries for men but appeared to have no effect on their likelihood of having a heart attack. Male workers actually became 2% less likely to suffer depression when their companies were busier than normal.
English: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/19 .
The report: http://www.econ.ku.dk/jrm/PDFfiles/w22365.pdf