Trade union confederations SAK, STTK and Akava and the trade union solidarity centre SASK have strongly condemned an employer proposal to pay young people lower minimum wages. The unions state that pay already depends on experience and young people are therefore already relatively cheap to hire. Apprenticeship schemes also exist in Finland, which allow for lower pay when work is combined with training. The unions state that a lower minimum wage for young people is both unfair and inhibits young workers' independence.
English: http://www.artto.kaapeli.fi/unions/T2012/p41
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Trade unions of doctors and nurses signed an agreement of cooperation. The common goal is to initiate systematic solutions in health care by respecting the memorandum - a document signed by the doctors' trade union and the former government on preventing Slovak doctors from handing in their notice en masse last year. Doctors, meanwhile, support nurses in their fight for higher salaries, which has already been taken to the Constitutional Court. Both doctors and nurses criticise the lack of financial means provided to health-care facilities by health-insurance companies.
English: http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/47983/10/doctors_and_nurses_trade .
A conflict about wages, working conditions and general healthcare sphere management between the doctors' and nurses' unions on one side and hospitals and the health insurance fund on the other side entered its fourth week, continuing on rotational basis, meaning that the specialties and clinics that were on strike alternated. Hospital personnel have been demanding changes to improve patient care and prevent medical personnel from emigrating. The conflict went into arbitration after the unions rejected the employers' final wage offer. The health insurance fund made an offer on 12 October, which was refused by workers. Union representatives stated that the offer addressed only workload reduction in outpatient care, doing nothing for inpatient care. Secondly, wage demands were not met. The unions demanded a 23% raise for caregivers, 17.5 % for nurses and 11% for doctors to take immediate effect. The Health Insurance Fund offered 15 % for caregivers, 10% for nurses and 6% for doctors, which would take place over the course of two years.
English: http://estonianfreepress.com/2012/10/doctors-wont-give-up-and-the-strike-goes-on/ http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/markets_and_companies/?doc=64725 http://news.err.ee/health/c0eca57f-ea8b-4ec1-9f20-89f1bd4ea64e
http://news.err.ee/health/af8143c0-3979-4cc0-a2a1-afb87e16621e http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/31976/
Thousands of people gathered in Rome on 20 October to call on the Monti government to take action against the increasing number of job cuts and factory closures threatening the already weak labour market in the country. Workers from all sectors of industry gathered in the square outside St John's Basilica, a traditional rallying point for left-wing protests, holding red balloons and banners with slogans.
English: http://news.yahoo.com/italian-workers-rally-against-job-losses-plant-closures .
http://www.equaltimes.org/news/austerity-isnt-working-say-protestors-in-london-and-rome
As a side effect of a new collective agreement in the metal and electrical industry, due to come into force by 1 November, agency workers at Siemens may face a pay cut. The collective agreement actually raises temp workers' wages in the industry as a whole, but it may also annul a previous company-level agreement in Siemens. Since 2009, Siemens has had a company agreement which guarantees that agency workers who have worked for the company for over a year will earn 75% of the base salary paid to direct hires; after 16 months they have the right to equal wages and after 18 months the right to direct employment. Management and the Siemens works council are currently in negotiations.
English: http://www.staffingindustry.com/eng/content/view/full/72118
A draft law that introduces several liability in a chain of subcontracting has been approved by the parliamentary committee on economics. Trade union Unia has welcomed the proposal that introduces a mandatory social responsibility for the main contractor. It is an essential instrument for the social partners to improve contract compliance and can be seen as a crucial flanking policy measure for the free movement of workers and services.
German: http://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/nationalratskommission-fuer-solidarhaftung .
http://www.parlament.ch/d/mm/2012/seiten/mm-wak-s-2012-08-29.aspx
French: http://www.unia.ch/news_aktion_fr.9.0.html?&L=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=7941&tx .
http://www.parlament.ch/e/mm/2012/Pages/mm-wak-s-2012-08-29.aspx
After 252 days of negotiations, the teacher unions and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions have agreed on the terms of a new collective agreement. The collective agreement includes a 4.2% wage increase for the current year and will cover over 200,000 teachers in 290 municipalities.
English: http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/news_details/2334
A new law on strike will envisage that an employee can only be fired if a court determines that he went on strike illegally. The law will give a greater role to the Agency for Peaceful Settlement of Labour Disputes, and another novelty is that every strike committee will have to report to the agency its decision to launch a strike 10 days before its beginning.
English: http://www.b92.net/eng/news/business-article.php?yyyy=2012&mm=10&dd .
A new collective agreement has been closed in the machinery and metal goods subsector, including pay increases across the board. In the 12 month lasting collective agreement (for over 120,000 workers) unions and employers agreed on a 3.3% increase of wages, a 3.4% increase of the sector's minimum wage (now up to €1636.35) and a 3.4% increase of apprenticeship remunerations. Employer demands for performance pay, more decentralised bargaining and a 52-hour working week were retracted in the last negotiation round.
English: http://www.eucoban.eu/EMF/Reports/Austria-Agreement-for-machinery-and .
Management of the ArcelorMittal has announced it is closing down its Schifflange steel site. The 47 workers will be reassigned to other plants, as will running orders. Unions have said they are afraid hundreds of jobs will go if the site is abandoned and plan to present a report on the viability of the site during a steel tripartite meeting on 26 October 2012.
English: http://www.wort.lu/en/view/schifflange-steel-site-to-stop-production-indefinitely .