Collective Bargaining

Union leaders from Britain, France and Germany held talks in Berlin with colleagues from Poland, the Czech Republic and the United States to discuss the rise of Amazon in Europe and how to engage with the online retailer on job security, warehouse working conditions and low pay. National organisers from the German trade union Ver.di, the French CGT and the British GMB view Amazon as a leading example of how a new generation of powerful e-commerce employers treat their low-skilled workforce. Amazon has been accused in the past of using aggressively anti-union tactics.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/03/amazoncom-unions ...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/01/amazon-rise-europe-discussed-union ...

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's minimum income standard (MIS), now in its sixth year, has become an essential, annual benchmark of what is thought to be the reasonable financial underpinnings of a modest life; not starvation rations, just sufficient to achieve a decent standard of living in the 21st century. The MIS reveals a dismal truth that runs deeper than poverty numbers alone: that increasing numbers of British people on low incomes will never be able to afford an acceptable standing of living.
English: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/01/minimum-income-standard ...
http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/minimum-income-standard-2014

The High Court has lifted the three interim injunction orders granted to Greyhound Household Ltd in June. The decision means that management cannot interfere with official union pickets or prevent workers from describing its actions as a lockout. Trade union Siptu stated that the pickets at two Greyhound plants in west Dublin will continue until the management sits down to discuss and find an agreed resolution. This dispute arose because management unilaterally imposed wage cuts of up 35% from mid-June 2014.
English: http://www.siptu.ie/media/pressreleases2014/featurednews ...

A court in Istanbul has ruled that a company that employed an unregistered worker from Trkmenistan, but disowned him after he died in a work-related incident, must pay a record amount of compensation to his family. The court found the main contractor liable. Earlier in 2014, the 13th Labour Court had ruled that the incident was a work-related accident, paving the way for the Social Security Institution (SGK) to pay the widow a monthly benefit until she remarries or dies. In a related penal law suit, two officials of the subcontractor firm who were responsible at the construction site have been given suspended sentences of more than one year in prison.
English: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-court-rules-for-record-compensation ...

An English version of the annual report of the official statistical office is available online. The section Labour, Earnings and Income summarises data on wages and labour costs, (un)employment, labour migration and other relevant items. Men's earnings are, on average, higher than women's and earnings of persons in managerial positions are higher than those of other employees. Average earnings of central government employees are higher than earnings of local government employees as well as persons employed in the private sector. But, the greatest spread of earnings is, by contrast, found in the private sector.
English: http://www.dst.dk/pukora ...

Due to the reopening of the talks the trade unions in the national electricity supply company HEP have postponed their strike announced earlier on. The protest was initiated as workers feared their rights were endangered with the new contracts they were offered.
English: http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/Business/2014-07-01 ...

Long after it expired (the end of 2012) the collective bargaining partners in construction renewed the sectoral collective agreement that covers approximately 800,000 workers. In addition to a wage increase that starts at €40 for the basic level, it provides for a reform of the sector's paritarian organisations. The pay rise is implemented in two stages, first €15 in July 2014 and later €25 in July 2015. From January 2015 on, employers have to pay a monthly €8 contribution per worker to a supplementary contingency fund. In December 2013 the joint trade unions had organised a strike to put more pressure on the employer's side.
Italian: http://www.agenparl.com ...

Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of parent Fiat SpA made a surprise return to Italy from the U.S. to solve a labour dispute at the Grugliasco car factory near Turin. He met with the Grugliasco workers for more than an hour before announcing production changes at the Maserati plant. He bowed to the unions request and reversed a decision taken a week earlier, giving the green light for the transfer of 500 laid-off workers from Fiat's main plant at Mirafiori to Grugliasco. Wage talks are still stalled after eight months of negotiations. Trade unions are asking for an annual increase of 300 euro, while Fiat has countered with an offer of 250 euro.
English: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-29/marchionne-seeks-italy-labor-peace ...

Workers are to take to the streets in another of hundreds of protests over austerity measures over the last four years, at the same time the government is moving to restore the pay of police, military and uniformed officers to obey a court order. The civil servant's trade union, ADEDY, has planned a series of protests in several cities to protest the public sector mobility scheme in which selected workers - predominantly the lower-paid and without political protection - are paid 75% of already-slashed salaries for eight months and then fired if another position can't be found for them. In Athens some 397 sacked cleaners have been protesting for several weeks. They initially won a court order to be rehired, but it was ignored by the government until it got a reversal from a higher court. In the meantime, public sector unions have called a 24-hour strike for July 9.
English: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/06/30/greek-workers-protest-firings ...

Railway workers trade union ACOD/CGSP has called for a 24 hour strike because the network is so understaffed that workers are unable to take days off. The union calculated that between 1 January 2011 and this spring 4,000 jobs have gone lost (over a total of 38,000), with negative consequences for the health and safety of the workforce and for the safety of the railway system. Talks with the management have not led to acceptable solutions yet. The trade union call the proposals tabled from the management side `cosmetic'. The ACV-CSC railway union endorses the analysis, but is of the opinion that there is still space for further talks.
English: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews ...
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/international/severe-delays-expected ...