Collective Bargaining

On 2 September 2017, radio journalist Dorota Nygren wrote a story about a 53-year old man in Italy who spat at an Italian priest. She decided not to mention the man’s national origin as this would be discriminatory. The editor of the broadcaster threatened her with dismissal and she was later transferred to another department on a lower salary. In 2018 Nygren brought a court case against her employer, a case she won on 8 November when the radio broadcasting was found guilty of breaking the principle of equal treatment and the court ordered the payment of compensation for the discrimination and the correction of the plaintiff’s reduced salary.

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The government presented a proposal to raise the monthly minimum wage by nearly 6% to €635 next year, which would still make it the lowest in western Europe. The Prime Minister promised to raise the monthly minimum wage by 25% to €750 by 2023 when he began his second term in office last month. The increase has coincided with significant dynamism in the economy and the labour market. One in five workers in Portugal are on the minimum wage and the employment status of 890,000 people was officially described last year as precarious, a term used to refer to non-standard forms of employment, including temporary work and fixed-term contracts.

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Teacher union PSZ has called on the government to come to a decision on increasing wages for employees working in the public education sector as part of a package of demands. In a statement the union noted it has set the government a deadline of 22 November to meet its various demands. However, the union said the wage issue was one among many, and given long-standing problems in public education and a problematic new bill on vocational training before parliament, demonstrations this autumn appear to be unavoidable.

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Young workers face specific challenges in the labour market that trade unions must address. Involving young activists in trade union work is also fundamental to trade union renewal. IndustriAll Europe is therefore investing in its youth activities, giving priority to trade union organising and collective bargaining to help improve the quality of work for young workers and apprentices.

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Hundreds of health workers gathered outside the Latvian parliament calling for higher spending on healthcare. The demonstration was called by health care worker organisations led by LVSADA. It was joined by a broad coalition of trade unions, professional associations and civil society organisations all angry that the government has gone back on a legal commitment to increase spending on healthcare.

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A report published by the Labour Productivity Board of the European Commission aims at reviewing labour productivity developments and assessing the relationship between labour productivity and changes in value added, labour compensation and exports in the domestic economy. According to this report, over two decades Lithuania was one of the fastest growing EU Member States in terms of labour productivity and GDP growth. Between 2000 and 2017, Lithuania’s labour productivity per hour worked (at constant prices) almost doubled, in comparison with 21% in the EU Member States. This was influenced by the application of modern technologies in industry.

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According to preliminary data from the National Statistical Institute (NSI), at the end of September 2019 the number of employees under a labour contract decreased by 39,100, or 1.7%, compared to the end of June 2019, reaching 2.31 million.

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Lidl Suisse, together with the trade unions Syna and the Swiss Society of Commerce Employees (Société suisse des employés de commerce), signed a new collective agreement for the period 2020-2024. The agreement includes new rights for parents as well as for apprentices and interns. Lidl Suisse employs more than 3,500 staff.

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Trade unions and leftist political parties in Denmark have started a vigorous campaign calling for an end to the EU Budget Act, enacted in the country in 2012. The legislation places a ceiling on social spending and development expenditure by the government. Trade unions are demanding that the austerity measures imposed under this Budget Act be scrapped and a new people’s budget implemented.

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More than 115,000 pensioners have re-joined the workforce, up from around 75,000 at the end of last year, the Finance Ministry State Secretary reported. Growth was supported by the introduction of more exemptions for pensioners from the start of this year. The rollout of the tax exemptions followed the establishment in 2017 of pensioners’ cooperatives which provide the legal foundation for retired Hungarians to work again, mitigating the impact of the labour shortage.

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