Collective Bargaining

Overall unemployment decreased to 10.9% in the third quarter of 2013, 0.8 percentage points lower than in 2012. However, youth unemployment increased slightly to 23.1%. Employment improved in construction and transportation and storage sectors and decreased in administrative and service activities and in the industry sector.
English: http://www.lithuaniatribune.com/57030/swedbank-unemployment-in-lithuania ...

After lengthy and rocky negotiations, Moravian mining company OKD and trade unions have reach a collective agreement that will be valid from 2014 to 2018. Days before the deal, employees of OKD voted in favour of strike action. At the heart of the dispute was a disagreement over the miners' pay. OKD argued that due to the company's difficult position, it wished to cut costs. In exchange for a 4% wage increase, the company wanted to terminate 13th and 14th month bonuses, as well as implement a plan for coal extraction and work safety. Unions have reacted outraged, claiming workers' salaries will decrease by 6% under OKD's proposal. The new collective agreement reduces the level of bonuses but guarantees their continued existence as well as current wages.
English: http://praguemonitor.com/2013/11/12/okd-miners-go-strike ...

Analyses of personal income distribution based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) and used in two separate studies, show that the disparity in income distribution in Germany increased noticeably in the first half of the new millennium. It decreased in the period 2006-2010. However, this decline came to a halt in 2011. The most influential forces for this development in 2011 is the anew increase in inequality of capital and labour income. Alongside, the relative poverty risk has reached a record high in 2009 with a rate of 15%. For the following two years this proportion is still rather high with about 14%. More importantly income mobility decreased since the German reunification. The chance to escape from relative poverty within a four years period has come down by 10 percentage points to only 46% in the last years.
English: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf ...
German: http://www.diw.de/documents ...

The Federal act on a unified regulation of dismissals for blue and white collar workers has passed the council of ministers. Two years ago the Constitutional Court had already concluded that a different approach of both categories was unconstitutional (see the July Newsletter). The act has to be applied from 1 January 2014.
French: https://vbo-feb.be/fr-be/Dossiers/Concertation-sociale ...
Dutch: https://vbo-feb.be/nl-BE/Actiedomeinen/Sociaal-overleg ...

The Supreme Court has ruled that pension conditions can still be changed if people are already drawing their pensions. Employees of insurer Delta Lloyd had a generous scheme for years, under which the pension was guaranteed to go up with inflation. In 2011, the insurer halted the construction, including for those who were already pensioners. The pensioners went to court. An appeal court in Amsterdam ruled in 2012 that the change was not against the law. The highest court has confirmed the opinion of that verdict.
English: http://www.nisnews.nl/companies-allowed-to-change-pension-conditions ...

Workers in the trade sector will receive from 1-1-2014 at least a minimum wage of € 1450; from 1-1-2015 onwards this wage increases to € 1500. This is the outcome of the collective bargaining in the trade sector between the trade union GPA-djp and the trade section of the Chamber of Commerce (WK™). The agreement covers two years (2014 and 2015) and includes a general pay increase in 2014 of 2.55% for wages below € 1850 and of 2.5% for wages beyond that level. In 2015 a general increase based on the price index will be paid with a 0.4% supplement for all workers.
German: http://www.gpa-djp.at/servlet/ContentServer ...

Despite gloomy economic forecasts, federal employees will receive a 0.7% wage increase. Trade unions PVB, VPOD, Garanto and PVfedpol had originally demanded a 1% increase, whereas the government wanted to increase salaries by no more than 0.5%. The trade unions stress that while the 0.7% is a modest increase, it was the best possible result in the current circumstances that still guarantees a small hike for the 50% of federal employees who have already reached the end of their pay scale.
English: http://www.epsu.org/a/9985
German: http://www.vpod.ch/aktuell/nachrichten/ansicht/article/07-prozent-mehr-lohn ...

In updated figures over the 1st half of 2013 no significant changes in the total workforce or labour migration can be found. The slow, but steady, growth of the services sector is illustrated by a 68.6% share in the labour force, against 59.9% in 2012.
German: http://www.llv.li/pdf-llv-as-bevoelkerungsstatistik_30._juni_2013
http://www.llv.li/amtsstellen/llv-as-3_arbeit_und_erwerb ...

Doctors and nurses marched through Bucharest on 2 November to protest against their low salaries and lagging investment in the health care sector. Symbolising the system's `death by underinvestment', the doctors and nurses carried crosses, coffins and wreaths. The College of Doctors said over 3,000 doctors leave the country every year in search of more gainful employment. Newly qualified doctors receive less than €200 per month, an amount the unions have demanded be doubled. Trade unions also demand that at least 6% of GDP be spent on health care and have threatened a general strike may still follow this month's protest march. In reaction to the petition for a general strike, the government has announced it will create a state-funded scholarship of €150 per month for all resident doctors, which will be added to their salaries.
English: http://www.romania-insider.com/doctors-and-nurses-take-to-the-streets ...
http://www.romania-insider.com/amidst-threats-of-a-doctors-strike-romanian-govt ...

Talks on a new social pact will restart at the Economic and Social Council after a hiatus lasting a year and a half. The social partners represented on the labour relations body agreed to give themselves two weeks to submit remarks to the guidelines they last dealt with in the spring of 2012.
English: http://www.sta.si/en ...