Collective Bargaining

Ahead of the annual Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, the anti-poverty NGO Oxfam formulated a demand for urgent action to narrow the gap between rich and poor. The Oxfam briefing report (based on the earlier report Even it Up: Time to end extreme inequality, October 2014) shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the best-off 1% has increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014, while the least well-off 80% currently own just 5.5%. The wealth of the richest 80 doubled in cash terms between 2009 and 2014, and there is an increasing tendency for wealth to be inherited and to be used as a lobbying tool by the rich to further their own interests. The organisation's seven point plan includes the introduction of minimum wages and a move towards a living wage for all workers, including a minimum-income guarantee for the poorest. Free collective bargaining gives workers a better chance of earning a fair wage.
English: http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/wealth-having-it-all ...
Focus on the original Oxfam report: http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/even-it ...

Police workers are set for their first-ever nationwide strike in response to 'mudslinging' by authorities after officers in Rome called in sick on New Year's Eve. Members of police union Ospol-CSA - which represents nearly 60,000 officers in 8,000 Italian municipalities will walk out for 24 hours and stage a rally in Rome in solidarity with their colleagues on 12 February. The strike was called after politicians, including Rome's mayor and the prime minister, rebuked the force over a mass sickie pulled by 83.5% officers slated to be patrolling the streets on New Year's Eve. The absences followed a months-long rift between police and the government over changes to pay, working conditions and staffing levels.
English: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2916447/Police-nationwide-strike ...

A dispute in the Maltepe University Hospital over working conditions, the use of subcontractors and poor pay has escalated and led to the dismissal of workers that started a unionisation campaign. The trade unions have the impression that the government is looking to break the power of independent unions and enable the growth of what they call a `Republic of Subcontractors' with work being increasingly assigned to underpaid, overworked contractor labourers whose employers are subject to few regulatory checks in their frenetic rush for profit.
English: http://www.equaltimes.org/turkey-hospital-workers-unite ...
http://www.world-psi.org/en/turkey-psi-general-secretary-meets-dismissed-health-care ...

Former staff of the defunct Cyprus Airways gathered in front of Parliament to demand full rights. The protesters handed over a petition demanding the state `undertake its responsibilities as the main shareholder of the now defunct airline, with timeframes of payment, commitment on action to re-hire employees either by the state or a possible new local privately owned carrier and securing the providence funds of employees made redundant last year'. The workers argue that the two salaries the dismissed workers are entitled to should not include the cuts that were imposed on public salaries after the airline had already been closed down.
English: http://in-cyprus.com/cyprus-airways-staff-demand-full-rights/

Employers' organisation UEL and the government have signed an agreement committing employers to hire 5,000 additional jobseekers, raising the expected number of hired jobseekers in the upcoming three years from 30,000 to 35,000. The agreement includes several concessions from the government, which have not yet been consulted with trade unions. Amongst other things, the coalition intends to increase funding to the employers' mutual fund, abolish automatic salary increases from non-skilled to skilled minimum wages after ten years in the same job and allow more flexible working hours.
English: http://www.wort.lu/en/politics/hiring-local-jobseekers-employer-union-promises ...

One of the main findings of the 2014 Employment and Social Developments in Europe Review, which looks back to the legacy of the recession, is that countries providing high quality jobs and effective social protection and investing in human capital have proved to be more resilient to the economic crisis. In Chapter 1, section 5.1 on a healthy labour market the report says `labour market institutions' activities, such as collective bargaining, and minimum wages, can contribute to the resilience of labour markets to macroeconomic shocks'. The report notes a decrease of the share of workers covered by collective bargaining (with large drops in Portugal, Greece and Spain) and decentralisation of bargaining accelerated since 2007 without referring to the austerity policy dictated by the Troika that can be seen as one of the main causes of this development.
English: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main ...

2014 saw a further increase in employment, with a particular leap in the public sector. Approximately 25,000 new full-time vacancies opened up. Experts expect another 20,000 new jobs created in 2015. However, employment statistics show how numbers of the working population have remained constant throughout the 1990s. By the end of 2014 there were 147,369 unemployed persons enrolled at the regional employment centres, about 10,817 more than in the month November.
English: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/multimedia/switzerland-s-booming-job-market ...
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/switzerland/unemployment-rate

The European Observatory OSE reveals in a paper that Southern European countries have been hit hardest and longest by the post-2008 economic crisis. The paper briefly reviews reform trends prior to and during the crisis and summarises the major findings of a project with regard to pensions, family policy and healthcare. In general, the reform agenda brought a drastic reduction of collective bargaining and the weakening of unions, freezing and/or cuts in wages, and greater flexibility in the rules governing hiring and dismissal of workers (including the duration of temporary and fixed-term contracts).
English: http://www.ose.be/EN/publications/ose_paper_series.htm

After the industrial conflict between the government and Portugal Airlines (TAP) workers culminated in threats of a Christmas strike, talks have been resumed. The government will maintain a 34% stake in the company and plans imposing a ban on mass layoffs as a condition of the sale. An agreement (with the trade unions) guarantees that there will be no collective layoffs for a certain period of time - for 30 months or as long as the state has a stake in the company after this privatisation, whatever is the longest.
English: http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/01/15/portugal-airline-privatisation ...

Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) announced early January that it would be dropping 38 trains from 16 January in response to budget cuts with more trains are expected to be suspended as of February as well as layoffs expected to follow the reduced capacity. Trade unions called for protests and initiated petitions. Most of the trains that were to be dropped previously serviced less populated areas of the country. In reaction to protests, public subsidies to the railways were restored and BDZ restored the cancelled trains.
English: http://www.novinite.com/view ...