Collective Bargaining

Young people who flock to European capitals like Brussels each year for internships often face uncertain conditions as many are badly supervised, and poorly paid. A 2011 survey by the European Youth Forum (YFJ) found that three out of four interns receive no or insufficient compensation for their work. In July this year, about 200 interns held a Protest at Place du Luxembourg in Brussels outside the Parliament. The idea is now to develop a system, to rate employers who receive a label, certifying how they perform against certain criteria including remuneration and training.
English: http://www.equaltimes.org/news/brussels-interns-demand-decent-work

The country profile on the quality of life published by Eurofound and based on the third European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) reports on living conditions, housing, local environment, health, public services, social cohesion and quality of society, as well as subjective well-being. Life satisfaction scores at 6.3 on a scale of 1 to 10. This is far below the average of 7.1 for the EU27, where life satisfaction levels range from 5.5 in Bulgaria to 8.4 in Denmark. Around 31% of Serbians have difficulties making ends meet, placing the country in the lowest third of countries surveyed according to this indicator. Moreover, it has the highest proportion of people suffering from work-life conflict (80%) of all the countries surveyed.
English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2013 ...

ABN AMRO plans to lay off a fifth of staff at its offices, according to the banking trade union. The branch, which has offices in Kirchberg, plans to axe up to 30 jobs from its 153-strong workforce and intends to negotiate on a social plan with the unions. The trade unions have asked more time to gather certain documents regarding working hours in an effort to lower the number of redundancies required and avoid creating a new social plan.
English: http://delano.lu/news/dutch-bank-plans-double-digit-staff-cut
http://www.wort.lu/en/view/negotiations-with-abn-amro-put-back ...

The TUC has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission against the UK government for failing to implement the Temporary Agency Workers Directive properly, leading to tens of thousands of agency workers being paid less than permanent staff despite doing the same job. The government's flawed implementation of the EU Directive has allowed the abuse of the so-called 'Swedish derogation' - where employment agencies routinely pay agency workers far less than permanent staff doing the same job. The TUC gathered evidence from workplaces where agency staff are paid up to œ135 a week less than permanent staff, despite working in the same place and doing the same job.
English: http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-22536-f0.cfm

Emergency talks between trade unions and ambulance employers have started after the latter cut 25% off ambulance workers' sick pay. Trade unions have reacted outraged, but ambulance employer said the cuts were made to bring the ambulance drivers in line with other personnel. Some 35,000 ambulance staff, who have traditionally been treated differently in the national agreement, are affected by the cuts.
English: http://www.unison.org.uk/news/ambulance-service-too-vital-to-play-games ...
http://www.gmb.org.uk/newsroom/talks-to-avert-ambulance-dispute

The country profile on the quality of life published by Eurofound and based on the third European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS, 2012) reports on living conditions, housing, local environment, health, public services, social cohesion and quality of society, as well as subjective well-being. With 23% of the population living at risk of poverty in 2011, as reported by the official statistics, the country comes second worst in this respect among the 34 countries covered by the EQLS. The Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, was 40.4 according to the country's national statistical office (and 42 using income information from the EQLS, 2012). This is well above the EU27 average of 30.7 reported by Eurostat.
English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs ...

After 68 days of strike at Turkish Mint, reported in last month's newsletter, Basin-Is and Kamu-Is agreed on changes in the collective agreement for the Turkish Mint & Stamp Printing House. The collective agreement includes better provisions on health and safety, trade union rights and a 3% increase in social premiums.
English: http://www.uniglobalunion.org/Apps/uni.nsf ...

About 13,500 employees of the heavily indebted public company Zagreb Holding will face pay cuts and layoffs within the next year. The local government is preparing the restructuring of the Holding and putting some of its businesses on the market. This will be followed by drastic rationalisation of the number of the employees. Shortly before an extraordinary City Assembly session the mayor of the Croatian capital said either 20% of the 13,500 employees would be laid off or salaries would be slashed by 20%. He said the cuts would have to be negotiated with the unions, voicing confidence that an agreement with them was within reach.
English: http://globserver.cn/en/europe/press/zagreb-cut-public-employees-salaries
http://daily.tportal.hr/280543/Zagreb-mayor-announces-20-in-layoffs-or-salary-cuts.

Workers at the chemicals company Tessenderlo Chemie in the town of Ham stopped working for 48 hours in protest against a planned production expansion and the work pressure that causes serious health and safety risks. According to the trade unions, the planned production increase would lead to higher work pressure which could put at risk employee safety. The unions stated that they are against the hiring of an external consultant in the coming restructuring process. The strike ended with better guarantees for workers' health.
English: http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/videozone ...

The Constitutional Court dealt a blow to government efforts to cut spending and keep the country's EU/IMF bailout on track, rejecting a bill that would have effectively allowed the state to fire public sector workers. The court decided to deem the norms of the bill unconstitutional `due to the violation of guarantees of secure employment'. The court has rejected large parts of the government's deficit-cutting plans twice since the country accepted a bailout in mid-2011, each time forcing it to come up with alternative measures.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/portugal-austerity-court ...
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/portugal-reels-after/796600.html