Collective Bargaining

On 16 February, some 250 trade union militants from all over Europe turned out at Unilever's Rotterdam headquarters in the Netherlands to protest the world's third largest consumer products company's unrelenting shut-off of a final salary pension scheme for 5,200 UK workers. The manifestation, under the banner "Unilever, Don't Make Workers Pay for Your Profits", saw representatives from no less than 23 European union organisations. It was organised by Unilever's European Works Council (EWC) and the European union federations EMCEF and EFFAT. Thousands of workers across the multinational's twelve UK sites have been on strike since December 2011 in protest at pension cuts. Unilever UK management did finally agree to meet with the unions on 9 February, with the assistance of tje ACAS conciliation service, but the company is still adamant on closing the final salary pension scheme effective 1 July 2012 (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 5 January 2012).
English: http://www.icem.org/en/4-Chemicals-Pharmaceuticals ...

Trade unions involved in the long-running dispute over pay cuts at Southampton City Council in the south of England are taking legal action over the authority's failure to consult properly over redundancies and over the unfair dismissal of 1,000 workers. The response of the Council was to allocate UKP 600,000 (? 706,000) from the money it has saved on salaries to a fund to pay compensation. The unions organised a demonstration on 15 February in Southampton outside the Council and have announced a major demonstration in London and industrial action for 10 April (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 May, June, July-August, September and October 2011, and Year 5 January 2012).
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/458; http://www.unison.org.uk/news ... http://www.soton-unison-office.org.uk/latestnews.htm

The construction industry came to a halt on February 14, after thousands of workers islandwide launched a 24-hour strike to protest employers' decision to freeze pay rises and the Cost of Living Allowance (CoLA). Another grief was that permanent staff was being fired and being replaced with subcontractors and EU workers to save money. Work stoppage started at 7am, with strikers guarding sites until 10am to ensure no work was carried out and all building sites were free of subcontractors. Workers claimed that the freeze of CoLA rises for 2012 was in violation of the agreement reached early February between the Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEV) and the SEK and PEO unions.
English: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cost-living-allowance/building-workers-warn ...

The parliament voted on 31 January 31 for a limitation of the wage index. Tripartite negotiations came to a halt in December 2011. Trade unions did not accept proposals put forward by the employers on the introduction of a 2-year moratorium, a modulation of wage indexation, a study to analyse the legitimacy of wage setting suspension and a revision of the minimum wage. The government then stipulated a temporary modulation of wage indexation for 2012-2015. For this period, salaries to be indexed in accordance to inflation are augmented only once a year. An interval of 12 months is to be respected between each index payment. The payment due initially in March 2012 (as inflation is still high) is postponed to October 2012 while a next forecasted index payment, if applicable, is postponed to October 2013 at the earliest. Social minimum salary is not frozen as demanded by employer' associations, but will continue to rise with a next augmentation on 1 January 2013.
French: http://www.ogbl.lu/blog/opposition-contre-la-regression/
German: http://www.ogbl.lu/de/blog/opposition-contre-la-regression/

On 14 February Sven Rondik, president of the Education Personnel Union, announced that teachers and day-care workers will go on strike for three days, starting on 7 March. The union wants a 20% increase in teachers' wages in 2012 and 15% in both 2013 and 2014. One day before Rondik's announcement on television, the State Conciliator signed the decision to declare the negations between education workers, local municipalities and the education and science ministry to raise minimum wage rates of teachers, a failure (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 December 2011 and Year 5 January 2012).
English: http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/30562/

According to officials of the Unionen union, about 400 air stewards working for TUIfly Nordic, Novair and Primera Air went went an indefinite strike on Tuesday 14 April, after they failed to reach an agreement with the three airlines over working hours. The union says it wants its members to work a maximum of 42 hours a week, while the employers want to be able to schedule the cabin crew to work up to 60 hours a week. The three airlines fly for package holiday organizers, which argue they have arranged to use alternative airlines.
English: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9ST3OUO1.htm http://tripsentry.com/AdviceDisplay.aspx?aid=32527

In a journal interview, Labour Minister and vice-president of the governing CDU party, Ursula von der Leyen, has hailed real wage increases for German workers. She referred to the "reserved" wage development of the last few years that, in her view, substantially helped to get the German economy out of the crisis. Now that economy is on steam and profits are rising, von der Leyen went on, it is fully justified that workers get their fair share, which actually means wage increases higher than inflation - the exact levels to be decided by the social partners.
German: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,814650,00.html

On 9 and 10 February, the chairpersons of the three union confederations, FNV, CNV and MHP, unanimously rejected the idea of nominal zero wage increases. A few days earlier, president Bernard Wientjes of the main employers' association VON-NCW had held a plea for a "national zero line". FNV president Agnes Jongerius reacted that the average wage increase is already lower than inflation, and that realisation of Wientjes' plan would aggravate economic stagnation. CNV chairman Jaap Smit said that in some industries and companies collective bargaining would remain to allow for real wage increases.
Dutch: De Volkskrant, 10 February 2012; http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/02/09/werkgevers-willen-nullijn ...

On 26 January 2 the GDG-KMSfB union negotiated a pay deal that applies from 1 April 2012 for employees of local authorities in the Carinthia region. Agreed is a 2.56% increase plus a flat-rate rise of €11,10 per month. There will be further negotiations in 2013 in contrast to the arrangements covering employees of the regional government in Carinthia who get the same increase in 2012 but a pay freeze in 2013.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/458
German: http://www.gdg-kmsfb.at/servlet .

The Kommunal local government union has rejected a proposal by the mayor of Stockholm that workers under the age of 25 should be offered jobs on pay rates at 75% of the minimum of the collective agreement. The union argues that there is a high demand for workers, particularly in the social care sector, but these workers need to be properly trained. It says it is willing to negotiate about the provision of training for young workers and also calls for more funding from central government.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/458
Swedish: http://www.kommunal.se/Kommunal/Nyheter/2012/Ungdomsloner ...