Virgin Media has been accused of `stealing' trade union recognition from its staff following the company's result of a referendum on union recognition. Despite the company giving CWU less than a week's notice on the referendum, and bombarding staff with company messages urging them to vote for derecognition, the supposed result was a very slim 52% to 48% in favour of the company's position. According to a Virgin spokesperson the company will from now on deal with staff forums which have an inclusive voice in the company's decision-making.
English: http://www.cwu.org/news/archive/virgin-media-steals-union-recognition.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/22/communication-workers-union-virgin-vote
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Eurofound published a report that illustrates the role of social partnership in times of crisis. The social partners have been involved in the decision-making process and the implementation of anti-crisis measures throughout the crisis at different levels. The authors conclude that the cushioning of the effects of the crisis was more effective in countries with strong social dialogue. However, the crisis has also accentuated pre-existing weaknesses in social dialogue, adhering to path dependent pre-crisis trends. An increase in unilateral decision-making by governments on issues affecting the public sector and the increasing decentralisation of collective bargaining at company level constitute challenges made manifest by the crisis.
English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2012/21/en/2/EF1221EN.pdf
The Office for National Statistics has published its latest annual pay statistics. According to the TUC the 36% pay gap between part-time and full-time workers is the main barrier to closing the gender pay gap and tackling in-work poverty. There are currently over eight million part-time workers in the UK, nearly three-quarters of whom are female. However, the proportion of men working part-time today is at an all-time high, with the number of male part-time workers more than doubling in the last 20 years. A large number of part-time workers live in poverty, with an average wage of just 8 per hour. Two fifths of part-time workers earn less than the living wage of 7.45 an hour, while two in five part-time workers in the capital earn less than the London living wage of 8.55.
English: http://www.tuc.org.uk/equality/tuc-21693-f0.cfm
SAS threatened to declare the company bankrupt unless its staff in Sweden, Denmark and Norway signed new working conditions, including pay cuts of up to 15%. The LO-trade unions see this as a clear shift away from the usually consensual `Nordic Model' that stands for good relations between management and labour. The company says that the move was necessary to save the company. Workers representatives were informed in detail about the situation and about the conditions from the side of the banks for a new credit facility.
English: http://www.dw.de/sas-receives-approval-from-unions-on-massive-cuts/a-16388583
Focus on the Nordic Model: http://www.scandinavianlaw.se/pdf/43-4.pdf
Health workers in the Visegr d countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) have organised joined protests against privatisation and low wages in the health care sector. Czech health care workers, who already achieved a pay rise in March 2011, focused their protests on rising insurance costs, cuts in hospital beds and privatisation, which are feared to lead to job losses and worse service. Unions said that insurance companies have not renewed contracts with a number of hospitals and fear these hospitals might be forced to close down. Government officials have reacted the country has too many hospital beds, as much as twice the number per inhabitant compared to Sweden.
English: http://praguemonitor.com/2012/11/21/health-workers-hold-protest ...
The ITUC has obtained a copy of a detailed not-for-publication joint EC and IMF document that pressures the Romanian government not to adopt a decree that is intended to correct measures/provisions that are inconsistent with core labour standards. The decree is intended to correct flawed provisions in the country's social dialogue law. The document, Joint Comments of European Commission and IMF Staff on the Draft Emergency Ordinance to Amend Law 62/2011 on Social Dialogue, has been reviewed by IMF headquarters personnel, who acknowledge its authenticity. The EC and IMF pressure the authorities `to ensure that national collective labour agreements do not contain elements related to wages'. This is inconsistent with Article 4 of ILO Convention 98, which holds that governments should not enact measures to restrict the scope of negotiable issues in such labour agreements.
English: http://www.ituc-csi.org/imf-and-ec-apply-behind-the-scenes.html?lang=en
UNI Global Union (UNI) and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) today brought a case to the German government alleging that Deutsche Post DHL (DP-DHL) has committed a series of labour violations outside of Germany which breach the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. The trade unions concerns have been documented over a litany of labour violations. DP-DHL has adopted a deliberate strategy to limit unionisation in many countries including Turkey, Indonesia, Malawi, Vietnam, Colombia, Guatemala, Hong Kong and the USA. A commitment to human rights is central to the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises as is clear standards of conduct for industrial relations, including a respect for the right of workers to establish or join trade unions and the right to collective bargaining.
English: http://www.itfglobal.org/press-area/index.cfm/pressdetail/8182 ...
http://www.respectatdhl.org/the-case-against-deutsche-post-dhl.html?lang=en
At the signing ceremony in the Parliament, Prime Minister Orb n assured of Hungary's unbroken support to the free trade agreement signed between the EU and Japan. He stressed that the Hungarian Suzuki plant was of particular significance for the country since after the fall of communism, it has contributed to the integration of the economy into the new world economic order. He also informed that as a result of the negotiations, Japanese investors may come to Hungary in the upcoming one or two years. The Government is committed to creating an investment-friendly environment for international companies. With such an aim, similar agreements have been signed with industrial giants like Coca-Cola, pharmaceutical firm Gedeon Richter, aluminium company Alcoa-Kofem and car manufacturer Daimler.
English: http://www.kormany.hu/en/prime-minister-s-office/news/the-hungarian ...
Hungarian: www.kormany.hu
Trade union UNIA has published a history of women in watchmaking. In the slipstream women working in watchmaking met to demand real progress in terms of equal pay. They adopted a resolution demanding detailed audits of women's and men's wages in the engineering and metal working sectors, calling upon the industry to participate in the dialogue on pay equity, an instrument which aims to close the pay gap. The women are demanding access to information on pay systems, classification and promotion in order to allow corrective measures to be taken. They are also demanding training and retraining. In order to raise women's low wages, they are in favour of introducing a minimum wage in the industry.
English: http://www.industriall-union.org/women-in-swiss-watch-making
Outsourced cleaners that work at four different John Lewis sites in London and are employed by cleaning contractor Integrated Cleaning Management (ICM) won a 9% pay rise as a result of an IWW campaign. The cleaners had seen their hours reduce and workload increase, while they were paid minimum wage of 6.19. The increase, backdated 5 months, takes their pay to 6.72 per hour at three central London sites, and 6.50 at one outer London site. Supervisors will now get 8.00 per hour and 7.84 respectively.
English: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/05/living-wage ...
http://iww.org.uk/node/821