Around 1,000 women workers at Bury Council in north west England are set to benefit from an equal pay deal negotiated with the unions. The women, working mainly in care, cleaning and catering jobs, have been paid less than the predominantly male workforce in comparable jobs. The council has decided to agree to the long-running claim before it was due to go the Court of Appeal. The UNISON union estimates that the council has wasted more than UKP1 million (?1,179,000) of public money by fighting the claims through the courts for nearly five years.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/458 http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2592
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Since November 2011, the printing unions have been trying to include both a wage hike repairing purchasing power damage and a ban on toxic solvents in the new collective agreement for the so-called grafimedia sector. The old agreement expired on 31 January. After the employers' associations did not react on a union deadline by that date, the largest union, FNV KIEM, organised industrial action in some large printing companies, broadly supported by its membership. As a result, on 9 February the employers' delegation agreed to return to the negotiating table.
Dutch: NRC-Handelsblad, 8 February 2012 http://www.fnv-kiem.nl/nieuws/grafimedia-en-techniek/1458
The ver.di and IGBCE trade unions have negotiated a collective agreement with the E.ON energy company covering restructuring in Germany under the E.ON 2.0 restructuring programme. The agreement runs until 2016 and covers issues such as early retirement, severance payments and the setting up of a company to deal with employment and training. The aim of the agreement is to avoid compulsory redundancies. The E.ON 2.0 programme will involve around 6,000 job cuts in Germany out of a worldwide total of 11,000.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/458
German: http://www.verdi.de/themen/nachrichten ...
The Finnish-German telecom equipment maker, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), said on 7 February a previously announced global restructuring plan would entail 2,900 job cuts in Germany and 1,200 in Finland. The German IG Metall union and NSN works council have organised constant protests against the announced cuts. On 1 February, protests started in Munich with about 2,000 participants attracting significant media attention. The Finnish unions will start a round of negotiations inside the company between the management and shop stewards from the trade unions inside NSN which include Finnish Metalworkers' Union, Trade Union Pro, Union of Professional Engineers in Finland (UIL) and Tekniikan Akateemisten Liitto (TEK), signatories of the collective agreement with the company. Secondly, they will start tripartite negotiations between the management, involved unions and the Ministry of Employment and Economy on alternative jobs. Separate from the NSN announcement, Nokia announced to cut 2,300 jobs at a Hungarian plant (See message under heading Hungary).
English: http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=28851&l=2
The two main union confederations, UGT and CCOO, the employers` organisations and the government have reached an agreement on the sustainability of pensions and the restructuring of collective bargaining. The agreement includes clauses on the coverage of unemployment benefits, the pension age, the restoration of the social dialogue in the public sector, measures to improve transition into the labour market for young people and long term unemployed as well as a reference to further talks on industrial policies. Trade unions have announced they will oppose other aspects of the labour reforms announced by the government.
English / French / Spanish: http://www.eucoban.eu/EMF/Reports/Spain ...
On Tuesday 7 February, thousands of civil servants protested against cut backs by the Madrid local government, which they claim would jeopardize vital services like fire brigades and hospitals. The biggest objections to the local government's plans include the extension of the working week, expected to lead to layoffs in the near future, and the cut in sickness benefits.
English: http://www.euronews.net/2012/02/08/thousands-protest ...
Spanish: http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2012/02/06/madrid ...
The trade unions have signed a new national collective agreement for the banking sector (320,000 workers) that raises workers' salaries and will add at least 16,500 jobs to the sector in the next three years. The deal foresees an increase of the monthly salaries of €170 over 3 years, receiving a €50 euro increase in 2012, €50 increase in 2013 and the final €70 hike in 2014. At the moment, cooperative bank workers, who are not covered by this agreement, are negotiating their own national agreement.
English: http://www.uniglobalunion.org/Apps/uni.nsf/pages ...
By the end of January, Labour Minister Sotiroulla Charalambous had intensive meetings with both the unions and the employers' federation in an effort to avert widespread strikes. Her initiative was conducted amid an ongoing 24-hour strike by porters and dock workers at the Limassol and Larnaca ports. Construction workers and employees of soft drink companies have also announced 24-hour warning strikes for early February. The suggestion of the OEV employers' federation for a unilateral two-year wage freeze and other cutbacks in the private sector was met by staunch disapproval of the unions. The minister, a former union official herself, is expected to play a key role in mediating a deal between the two sides.
English: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/strikes/looming-threat-wider-strike-action ...; http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/ports-be-paralysed-new-strike/20120125
Both employers and trade unions seem unified in their resistance to the pressure of the Papademos government for a further reduction of private sector wages. In their talks of Wednesday 25 January, both parties agreed that the current minimum wage of €751 monthly and the two extra monthly salaries that many private sector workers receive each year should not be reduced or scrapped. Yiannis Panagopoulos, president of the private sector union confederation GSEE, criticized the government for suggesting that it might force a law through Parliament that adjusts salaries if it is not happy with the outcome of union and employer talks. Meanwhile, in a press interview Poul Thomsen, head of the delegation to Greece of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), indicated that the 13th and 14th salaries need not be cut if authorities would lower the minimum wage and move ahead with closing down state-backed entities, leading to job cuts in the broader civil service (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 February, March, April, May, June, September, October, November and December 2011).
English: http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_25/01/2012_424189; http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_16344_31/01/2012_425373
The JHL public services union has won a landmark ruling on the use of fixed-term contracts. The worker concerned had had eight consecutive fixed-term contracts over a period of six years and the employer had tried to argue that this was permissible because the job was related to dealing with annual applications to the European Union's structural funds. On 24 January, the High Court rejected the employers' argument and awarded compensation to the employee. The Court ruled that if there is not a motivated and objective reason for a job being temporary, it is permanent. The fact that a work agency client company assignment is time-limited is not a sufficient reason. The High Court decision clearly improves the status of agency labour, says Katarina Murto, a bargaining expert at the union confederation SAK.
English: http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=28676&l=2; http://www.epsu.org/cob/456; http://www.artto.kaapeli.fi/unions/T2012/p05