Collective Bargaining

The European Court of Justice has ruled that for workers with no fixed office, such as care workers and door-to-door salesmen, time spent travelling to work should be counted as working time under the EU's Working Time Directive. The ruling does not impact on those with long commutes to fixed work places. The Directive is designed to protect workers' health and safety; outlining how long employees can work and how much time off they are entitled to. The case was brought to the ECJ by the Spanish trade union CC.OO against security company Tyco. The action was prompted by the closure of Tyco's regional office in 2011 meaning staff had to travel for up to three hours every morning to install the company's products. The ECJ stated `if a worker who no longer has a fixed place of work is carrying out his duties during his journey to or from a customer, that worker must also be regarded as working during that journey'.
English: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs .
https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/news/european-court-justice-rules .

At its Congress in Paris (29 September - 2 October) the European Trade Union Confederation will adopt new policies and demands. Representatives of some 90 national trade union organisations from 39 European countries will be among the hundreds of delegates who will debate and vote on a draft Paris Manifesto and `Action Programme 2015-2019'. A large section of the action programme is dedicated to the promotion and coordination of collective bargaining, including a call for stronger collective bargaining systems and binding agreements at national level covering workers in both public and private sectors, including workers in SMEs, in order to promote quality employment, equality, decent wages, pay increases and social progress.
English: https://www.etuc.org/european-trade-union-confederation-13th-congress-etuc15
https://www.etuc.org/sites/www.etuc.org/files/press-release/files/action_programme-uk ...

Employers' organisations have announced their fierce opposition to a trade union proposal to redefine the minimum wage, reported in last month's newsletter. Under the proposal, which has gained the support of the Parliament's coalition parties, all bonuses would be excluded from the minimum wage. This would mean that bonuses such as premium pay rates for inconvenient working hours would have to be paid on top of the minimum wage, rather than contributing to it, which would imply a de fact pay hike. Employers are opposed to the plan and object to its being tabled as a motion to Parliament through a popular petition, thus evading the traditional road of social dialogue.
English: http://www.sloveniatimes.com/employers-debate-minimum-wage-initiative

Trade unions organised a rally on 10 September to protest against the new draft Labour Code, which will be debated in Parliament this month. The proposed Labour Code, amongst others, would lower wages by no longer paying overtime, while simultaneously requiring employees to work mandatory overtime. The law raises the maximum weekly working hours to 60 hours per week and makes it easier as well as cheaper for employers to fire workers.
English: http://www.industriall-europe.eu/news .

The Global AgeWatch Index 2015 ranks Portugal as the third worst country in Western Europe in terms of social and economic well-being for people aged over 60, being topped only by Malta and Greece. Worldwide, Portugal ranks `moderately' in the Index at 38th. The Index found that older people have been substantially affected by austerity measures imposed by the government over recent years. Despite having universal pension coverage, `the poverty rate in old age is still high at 7.8%', the report argues. Since 2010, when pensions were cut by 3.5% to as much as 40 percent, pensioners lost around 628 million euros per year.
English: http://theportugalnews.com/news/good-for-the-young-not-for-the-old .
http://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-data/country-ageing-data .

In a research report of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), an independent think-tank, it is noted that, for nearly all European countries, economic growth is `wage-led'. This means that the boost to demand from rising wages outweighs other impacts on profits and international competitiveness; growth in national income is driven by growing wages more than by growing company profits. The authors conclude that the slide in the wage share, an outcome of deliberate government policy, has resulted into lower growth overall. Far from boosting growth, and therefore promoting a `trickle down' effect, it has both worsened inequality by squeezing the wage share, and at the same time hampered overall economic development. Restoring the wage share is a win-win: improving both equality and development.
English: https://b.3cdn.net/nefoundation ...

Dockers at Muuga port will be putting up picket lines demanding the recognition of their shop steward. Members of the Estonian Independent Seamens Union (EMSA), representing 62% of the workers, elected a shop steward to represent them in negotiations with management. However, the Muuga port management has refused to recognise the steward. Workers have announced they will be picketing the company's Tallinn headquarters demanding their voice be heard.
English: http://www.itfglobal.org/en/news-events/news/2015/september/estonian-dockers .

The Government revealed a proposal to raise the minimum wage in 2016 at the meeting of the Tripartite National Committee of Social Dialogue. The proposal, which has not been approved, involves three consecutive minimum wage increases during the year 2016. In total, the minimum wage would be raised from RON 1,050 (?236) to RON 1,400 (?316) on 1 January 2017.
English: http://www.romania-insider.com/romanian-pm-govt-raise-minimum-wage .

The latest data of the statistical office indicate that there is a shift from fulltime to part-time work among women. Part-time employees increased (+27 700) and full-time employees decreased (-10 600). However, this hides men's and women's different patterns of employment: mostly men were affected by the increase of employees (+16 300), with their numbers slightly increasing in full-time as well as in part-time. The number of female employees remained on the level of the previous year, hiding a drop of full-time and a rise of part-time to a similar extent (-18 300 full-time and +19 100 part-time).
English: http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/104091.html
German: http://www.statistik.at/web_de/presse .

Employers in all regions expect to be hiring more people during the last quarter of 2015. In a survey by ManpowerGroup, employers indicated their hiring to be up by 10% in the last quarter, a 2% improvement compared to last year and 7% stronger than the third quarter. Employers were most optimistic in Plovdiv and Rousse and least in Burgas.
English: http://www.balkans.com/open-news.php .