The supermarket giant Tesco wants to get rid of a contract agreed 20 years ago that it claims is `inflexible'. Staff moving to a new contract would suffer a wage reduction of over €2 an hour from over €14. Almost 1,000 long-serving Tesco workers face a pay cut of over 16%, the loss of guaranteed overtime and a bonus. Tesco has asked workers to sign a new contract, negotiated in 2006, which would mean lower pay of €11.97 an hour, later working hours and rostering on Sundays. They would also lose a guaranteed bonus, which would now be based on performance. Trade union Mandate has announced that it will ballot for industrial action if the company forges ahead with the plans to slash the wages without agreement.
English: http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/up-to-1000-tesco-staff-fight-massive-cuts .
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In December 2015, 4 821 000 persons aged 15-74 were employed, not seasonally adjusted. This is an increase of 58 000 compared to December 2014. The number of permanently employed persons increased by 79 000 and amounted to 3 602 000. The number of unemployed persons amounted to 345 000 and the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. Smoothed and seasonally adjusted data shows an increase in employment and a decrease in unemployment, which amounted to 7.1 percent. Over a twelve month period labour costs have increased by 3.5 percent for wage-earners and 3.3 percent for salaried employees.
English: http://www.scb.se/en_/Finding-statistics/Statistics-by-subject-area/Labour-market .
Two research institutes have evaluated the impact on the labour market of the statutory minim wage introduction (from 1 January 2015). First, the Institute for Employment Research IAB presented a document with an assessment. According to the IAB-Arbeitsmarktspiegel, several important developments took place at the labour market since the introduction. While overall employment continued to show a positive trend, the number of exclusively marginal part-time employees dropped markedly at the turn of the year. This effect is strongest in industries and regions with a low average wage level. Persons changing into direct forms of employment can explain a little more than half of the decrease. The second evaluation comes from the Hans Boeckler Foundation (HBS). The authors conclude that million workers profited by the introduction; especially in the low-wages branches the workers' income has increased substantially. The introduction has had no negative consequences on the labour market; on the contrary, the Foundation concludes that the introduction of the €8.5 per hour minimum rate has actually been instrumental in kick starting employment.
English: http://www.iab.de/en/publikationen/forschungsbericht ...
http://www.boeckler.de/pdf .
The IAB-report (in German): http://doku.iab.de/forschungsbericht/2016 .
The HBS-report (in German): http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_wsi_report_28 .
Maintenance workers on London Underground have voted in favour of strike action in the dispute over plans for a Night Tube service. Unions suspended plans for a series of strikes by drivers, station staff and other employees earlier on. But the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) went ahead with a ballot of its members employed by Tube Lines, part of London Underground. They backed walkouts by 352 votes to 82.
English: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london .
According to the workforce sample study Active Population Survey (EPA), the number of jobless fell by a record 678,200 to 4,779,500 in 2015. Such figures have not been seen since late 2010. Overall data show that 2015 was generally a good year for the job market, although the unemployment rate is still 20.9%. Broken down by sectors, the majority of hirings in the last quarter were in agriculture (70,200) and services (54,900), while jobs were lost in industry (55,500) and construction (24,100). The trade union confederation CC.OO. reacted on the published data and described the situation as dramatic while the country still has almost five million unemployed.
English: http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/28/inenglish .
http://www.plenglish.com/index .
The report (in Spanish): http://www.ine.es/en/daco .
More than half of the population supports the current system of state-paid grants for the arts in the form of a monthly wage to a wide-ranging group of selected artists. 53.2% of respondents to an opinion poll said that they favoured the system, under which selected artists are paid a taxable monthly `wage' of almost ISK 340,000 (approx. €2,400) from taxpayers' money. Support for `artist wages' is on the increase, with the proportion of the population in favour some 7 percentage points higher than in February 2013 and over 14% higher than in March 2010.
English: http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/culture_and_living/2016/01/27/majority_support .
The Panhellenic Seamen's Federation (PNO) began on 20 January a 48-hour strike against austerity measures, as all vessels remained in ports; ferry traffic to Greek islands was suspended. PNO announced a possible prolongation of the stoppage and organised a second 48-hour port strike a week later. The sailors are protesting the government's plans to reform pension and social security systems, and the elimination of seamen insurance fund NAT. The union opposes to the idea of NAT being merged into a main pension fund. PNO already staged a four-day strike against the government `anti-people policy' in November 2015.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-greece .
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160120 .
Several trade union confederations have criticised the government plans to reduce protection against precarious employment. Trade unions are afraid this will lead to an even further weakening of the position of women and young people in the labour market. The unions see the danger that many jobs intended to be permanent will now be made fixed-term and it will be more difficult for young people to get permanent employment. The trade unions participated in a governmental working group, but there was no genuine tripartite engagement as the goal was set in advance in the Government Programme. The group has formulated three main proposals.
English: http://heikkijokinen.info/en/trade-union-news-from-finland .
A wave of strikes in several sectors went over the country; taxi drivers blocked key roads and hundreds of flights have been cancelled as air traffic controllers joined civil servants, hospital workers and teachers for a day of strikes. The taxi drivers blocked the capital's ring road in a demonstration against upstart competitors such as Uber. Air traffic controllers organised a strike over pay and working conditions. The public service workers have been called to down tools to protest against labour reforms proposed last September affecting pay and career advancement. Kindergarten and primary school teachers went on strike for higher pay.
English: http://news.yahoo.com/major-french-strike-affect-flights-taxis .
During a final seminar the Norway Grants project `Increased availability of gender pay gap statistics', implemented by Statistics Estonia in order to study the pay gap, was discussed. The conference focused on giving an overview of the project and its implementation and discussing the Diversity Charter and related topics. According to the data, Estonia has the biggest gender pay gap in the EU. The resulting publication, published in December 2015, examines changes in the gender pay gap over time based on different background variables (ethnicity, education, etc.), and the factors (gender segregation, the activity of women in business, the influence of family and children, parental benefits, paternal leave, parental leave) which impact on the pay gap.
English: http://www.stat.ee/338437
The report Indicators of Gender Equality (bilingual): https://www.stat.ee/268959