Collective Bargaining

A study on the shadow economy in construction conducted by the Latvian Partnership of Building Contractors, Business against Shadow Economy (BASE) NGO, and the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) revealed that unreported pay or the so-called envelope wages make up 36.3% of all wages paid in the construction sector, which is significantly higher than the country's average figure of 17.9%. Also other elements of the shadow economy are much higher represented in the construction sector than on average. The proportion of unreported income in construction is 31.6% compared to 19.9% in the total economy, and unreported employment reaches 23.5% against 9.6% on average.
English: http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics .

A case of employees who developed occupational diseases in the wind turbine industry has attracted great attention in the media because problems with hazardous chemicals in the workplace were considered a thing of the past - something that companies had long since gotten under control. Radio Denmark uncovered one of the biggest scandals involving exposure to dangerous chemicals at work in recent time. Two major wind turbine manufacturers, Siemens Wind Power and Vestas, have taken health and safety at work so lightly that at least 150 employees have become seriously ill from workplace exposure to epoxy and isocyanates. This case proves that certain companies have not been up to the job and have failed to live up to their responsibility to ensure safe and healthy workplaces where going to work doesn't make you sick.
English: http://www.lo.dk/English version/News/siemens.aspx

Trade union IndustriAll published an interesting profile of the Turkish trade unions. The profile clarifies that the legislator has enacted unreachable collective bargaining thresholds in the Law on Trade Unions and Collective Labour Agreements. A union that wants to sign a workplace level collective bargaining agreement must organise at least 1% of the entire workforce in that industrial sector. In the meantime, there are also workplace level thresholds of 50%, and for companies with more than one workplace it is 40%. According to the legislation, employers?can easily file a complaint at the local court claiming that the union concerned does not have sufficient majority to be a bargaining partner. It is common practice amongst employers to get rid of union presence at the workplace, or at least to stall the collective bargaining process.
English: http://www.industriall-union.org/profile-unions-in-turkey-holding-the-line .

Security and other ground workers at Schiphol Airport celebrated two important wins in their fight for better conditions and improved security. KLM has been forced to drop its plans to include in the collective bargaining negotiations with the trade unions the outsourcing of 6,000 of the 17,000 ground workers' jobs at Schiphol. The widespread discontent of the baggage handlers, depot, check-in and other workers led to huge participation in the FNV action day and demonstration outside KLM's head office on 19 May. Within a day, KLM agreed to drop the proposals and start the negotiations with a clean slate. There will be further actions to keep up the pressure until the negotiations conclude in early July 2016. Following a series of short stoppages - organised via SMS messaging -Schiphol and its security companies agreed on 2 June, to employ at least 40 more security workers, to reduce standing time during passenger control to two hours (in line with the latest scientific recommendations), and to introduce climate control.
English: http://www.itfglobal.org/en/news-events/news/2016/june/schiphol-ground-workers .

The average salary has crossed the 400-euro mark `for the first time' amounting to 401 euro in April. The prime minister stated that what the government wanted has happened - incomes in the private sector have increased. He added to expect incomes in the public sector to be higher at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017.
English: http://www.b92.net/eng/news/business .

National mail service company Posti has announced a new round of employer-employee negotiations about slashing up to 370 jobs. The company says it plans to discontinue early morning newspaper delivery services in yet-to-be-specified parts of the country. The company said it will offer laid-off personnel access to a programme which aims to help them find new jobs, get retrained or become entrepreneurs.
English: http://yle.fi/uutiset/posti_up_to_370_newspaper_delivery_jobs_to_be_cut .

The Bank of Estonia stated that the actual movement of workers to jobs with higher productivity and higher wages will make the structure of the economy more based on value added and will increase the incomes of residents. The increase in labour costs and reduced profitability are affecting first and foremost the branches of the economy with a lower added value, and should prompt businesses to invest in undertakings offering higher added value. The bankers said that collective agreements play only a small role beyond setting minimum wages and employers can decide directly about their wage costs.
English: https://www.eestipank.ee/en/press/risk-growth-slowing .

In the framework of a joint project on social dialogue capacity building, the European social partners in education gathered around the table Estonian education social partners. Trade union EEPU discussed the need to develop and strengthen social dialogue with representatives from the ministry of education and research, the Association of municipalities, the vocational education department and the adult education department. Among the discussed items were teachers working conditions, teachers' wages, the lack of attractiveness of the teaching profession, municipalities' governance issues, as well as the low rate of unionisation of teachers. Recent data indicate that in the first four months of 2016 the average monthly salary of teachers of municipal schools was 1,135 euros, which marks a year-on-year rise of 6.3 per cent. The strategic goal is to raise the average pay of teachers by 2019 to a level equalling 120 per cent of the national average wage. The state's support to local governments to top up the teacher payroll increased this year by 13.2 million euros or 7.3 per cent, to 196 million euros. The national minimum salary for teachers, i.e. the smallest amount schools can pay a full-time teacher per month in 2015, is 958 euro.
English: https://www.csee-etuce.org/en/news/archive/1509-estonia .
http://www.baltictimes.com/estonia__teacher_salary_averages_1_135_euros/

The social partners had asked for the legal extension of the collective agreement in the agency sector. The government has decided to make the agreement generally binding, starting from 1 April 2016 until 31 March 2018. The compliance is monitored through a central paritarian committee that has several competences, for instance on the interpretation of disputes and the sanctioning in case of breaches.
German: http://www.zpk.li/Portals/0/gav/gav/2016/Personaler-GAV .

A study discussed at the GMB Congress in Bournemouth shows that the number of people employed in the manufacturing industries in the UK has declined by 385,500 in the seven years since 2008 from 3.36m to 2.97m people. The recovery cannot be put on a sound footing and a further recession is inevitable unless the Government puts in place a strategy to close the huge and unsustainable balance of payments deficit GMB Congress told. The study shows that the UK balance of payments deficit has grown from 3.6% of GDP in 2008 to over 5% in 2015. It also shows that manufacturing output fell by 12% between 2007 and 2009 and while there has been a recovery since then output in 2015 is still 6% below the 2007 pre-recession level.
English: http://www.gmb.org.uk/assets/media/documents .