Unions and management at Virgin Media Ireland have agreed to appoint an independent mediator in an attempt to resolve a dispute arising out of recent redundancies. Unite and Siptu have called off industrial action that was to go ahead in January over disagreements about the terms of a redundancy deal and union recognition.
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[close]In the third quarter of 2019, total hourly labour costs paid by employers in Bulgaria increased by 10% compared with the third quarter of 2018, according to early estimates published by the National Statistical Institute. A breakdown by economic activity shows that the highest rise in total hourly labour costs in the third quarter of 2019 compared with the third quarter of 2018 was recorded in the real estate sector (15%) and education (12.8%). In industry, total hourly labour costs grew by 8.3%, in services by 10.5%, and in construction by 10.1%.
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[close]PAME Trade Union Front held militant demonstrations in Athens and many big cities of Greece against the Parliament vote of “the new ‘anti-workers’ state budget for 2020”. In the demonstrations the need to prepare for a new general strike and to strengthen solidarity with refugees and migrants was also stressed.
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[close]Despite rising employment in many western economies, poverty is not declining. A key finding of the 2019 report Social Justice in the EU and OECD, recently published by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, is that being in work is no longer a guarantee of comfortable living standards. Social safety nets, eroded by the crisis, have not kept pace with changing employment structures.
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[close]After eight rounds of negotiations there is a new collective agreement at Telekom Austria. The result: 2.2% wage increase with a maximum of €110 for 11,000 employees. The wage increase affects not only the employees, as Telekom Austria offered, but also contract workers and civil servants. Another improvement reached is an increase in apprentices’ compensation.
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[close]According to Statistics Estonia, 21.7% of the Estonian population (284,000 residents) lived at risk of poverty and 2.4% lived in absolute poverty in 2018. Compared to 2017, the share of people at risk of poverty decreased by 0.2 percentage points and the share of those living in absolute poverty by 0.3 percentage points. In 2018, a person was considered to be at risk of poverty, if his or her equivalised monthly disposable income was less than €569, and in absolute poverty, if it was less than €215.
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[close]The government and unions are to face-off over controversial pension reforms, 14 days into a crippling transport strike that has damaged businesses, frustrated commuters and cast a shadow over holiday plans. After hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, both sides stood firm prior to a series of meetings. Union leaders have vowed to continue their action into the new year as the government defended its plan to forge the country’s 42 pension schemes into a single, points-based system.
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[close]In total, more than 20,000 people who work in the health service in Northern Ireland were involved in this action. Nine thousand Royal College of Nursing nurses held a 12-hour strike. The problem of pay and funding for nurses and healthcare staff dates back to about 2010.Until January 2017, it was the responsibility of a health minister in the devolved Stormont executive to decide on pay for healthcare staff in Northern Ireland.
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[close]The long struggle concerning terms of employment in the City of Turku owned food and janitorial services company Arkea was finally resolved. The company decided to return to their earlier collective agreement after a failed attempt to move 1.000 employees to other agreements with major cuts in salaries and holidays.
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[close]Romania’s state pension system needs a complete overhaul focused on contributions and private funds to become sustainable, the Finance Minister said. Since 2008, it is mandatory for all working Romanians under 35 to contribute to private pension schemes as well as their state pension, but still this is not enough to fill the coffers.
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