On 31 May, traffic wardens, car park maintenance engineers and bulk cash collectors employed by Southampton City Council started seven days of strike action: potentially a costly affair for the employer. On 23 May, thousands of workers employed by the same Council had already taken strike action in response to the Council's decision to sack 4,300 employees across a range of services and re-employ them on new contracts with considerable lower pay and poorer conditions. The unions involved, Unison and Unite, have attempted to negotiate with the Council and have offered talks using the ACAS conciliation service but the Council has rejected these moves. EPSU, the European Federation of Public Service Unions, has sent a message of solidarity to the union members, stressing that undermining social dialogue and imposing austerity measures are not a way out of the crisis.
English: http://www.epsu.org/a/7649; http://www.unitetheunion.org/news__events/latest_news/costly_strike_action ...
Search results
Find articles
In April, the government announced massive cuts in spending on sheltered workplaces (`Sociale Werkplaatsen') and related arrangements. The municipalities were supposed to take over most tasks in this field from the national government, and this was laid down in a so-called management accord between government and VNG, the association of municipalities. It soon became clear that this accord still implied large budget cuts, with 70,000 of 100,000 handicapped workers involved supposed to find jobs in the `regular market'. Also, negotiations for a new collective agreement for workers at the sheltered workplaces have been broken off. The unions have already undertaken quite some local actions, and now focus on 8 June, when the representatives of the municipalities will meet in a small town to discuss the management accord.
Dutch: http://www.abvakabofnv.nl/cao's/Alle-Cao's/sociale-werkvoorziening ... http://www.mijnvakbond.nl/Op-de-bres-voor-de-SW!?referrer=271
Prime Minister Emil Boc has indicated that public employees will eventually have their salaries restored to the levels they were at in June 2010, before the 25% cuts. He said this is most likely to happen during 2012 in two stages, on the condition that economic growth is ranging between 1.5 and 2% in 2011 and between 3.5 and 4% in 2012.
English: http://www.financiarul.ro/2011/05/30/pm-boc-public-employees-to-recoup ...
Staff at Tesco's 131 Irish stores will not receive pay rises outstanding since 2008, following a ruling by the Labour Court after a year-long dispute. Workers represented by SIPTU and Mandate had claimed pay rises equivalent to increases that were outlined in the Towards 2016 social partnership agreement. The unions argued that Tesco was the most profitable company in its sector and could afford to pay a wage increase. Tesco, which has more than 14,000 staff in Ireland, rejected the claim, arguing that a pay increase was unwarranted given the poor economic climate, and that it would put the retailer at a disadvantage to its competitors. After considering the arguments, the Labour Court said it did "not recommend concession of the unions' claim at this time".
English: http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/tesco-staff-to-lose-out ...
In a letter addressed to citizens, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has launched a `social consultation', with the official goal that, as the letter states, "we Hungarians find answers together on important questions of everyday life". Ten questions can be answered on pensions, job creation, education or in relation to foreign currency loans. According to the PM, his government is ready to have talks with trade unions after the social consultation process is completed. The letter says that no government measures will be introduced during the social consultation period that affect the issues brought up by the unions recently.
English: M t Komiljovics, union correspondent
Interior Minister Sandor Pinter has agreed to pay for extra hours worked by firefighters between 2004 and 2007. Pinter agreed with Budapest Mayor Istvan Tarlos, Zsolt Borkai of Gyor in northwestern Hungary and Karoly Szita of Kaposvar in southwestern Hungary that the three local councils and the ministry will start transferring unpaid wages. In the first step, 50% of the amount due, plus interest, will be transferred to those still in service. The remainder will be paid before the end of the year, the ministry said. The firefighters have been calling for years for the transfer of their unpaid wages for the period between 1 May in 2004, when Hungary joined the EU, and the end of 2007. They have filed for court cases and the Supreme Court ruled several times that their claims were justified. Pressure was added on 16 April, when around 10,000 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and customs officers took part in a national demonstration in Budapest in protest against the government's continuing austerity measures. A key focus was to defend pension rights but unions were also calling for wage increases after a lengthy period of pay freezes.
English: M t Komiljovics, union correspondent; http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/uk-hungary-demonstration ...
The major SIPTU union has warned that any attempt by the government to force through changes to the Joint Labour Committee/Employment Regulation Order (JLC/ERO) and Registered Employment Agreement (REA) wage setting mechanisms for the low paid could result in industrial action. SIPTU vice president Patricia King said the proposals, included in the `ERO/REAs: Outline Reform Agenda' released by Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton, "represent a serious assault on the most vulnerable, lowest paid workers in the country." She added: "Any attempt to enforce these proposals and cut the wages of up to 300,000 workers covered by these wage setting mechanisms will be resisted, including by industrial action. We are not opposed to negotiating a reform of the system but will not accept any proposals that will effectively dismantle it" (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 January, February and March 2010).
English: http://www.siptu.ie/media/pressreleases2011/mainnews/fullstory,14588,en.html;
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0525/1224297714624.html
On 26 May, over 6,000 military and civil staff of the Dutch armed forces held a `March for Esteem' to The Hague, followed by a rally, in a peaceful protest of the immense budget cuts the government has announced for the army. According to the plans of Minister of Defense, Hans Hillen, 12,000 army jobs are to disappear, half of these through forced dismissals. According to all unions involved, the Minister refuses to make decent arrangements for negotiating a new collective agreement and a social plan. AbvaKabo FNV union official, Marieke Manschot, argued that forced dismissals largely could be avoided by spreading out the army restructuring.
Dutch: http://www.abvakabofnv.nl/sectoren/overheid2/?OverviewType=Nieuws ...
On 24 May, Ilias Iliopoulos, General Secretary of the ADEDY public services union told a press agency that his union planned a 24-hours national strike to protest against the government's new package of austerity measures and planned privatisations, stating: "We want to block the new measures, prevent what has been decided. We will continue until we succeed." According to Iliopoulos, the most likely date for the nationwide strike is June 21, while he added that the private sector sister union GSEE would most likely also call a strike for the same day.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/24/greece-unions ... via http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Greece
The Federation of Slovak Train Engineers (FSSR) was set to hold a one-hour strike on 27 May. A FSSR spokesperson said that the aim of the strike is to make clear the union's dissatisfaction with the way the revitalisation of rail companies is carried out. However, the passenger railway company Zeleznicn Spolocnost Slovensko (ZSSK) spoke out against the action and employees of the railway infrastructure operator Zeleznice Slovenskej Republiky (ZSR) were not participating. That company and representatives of the Trade Union Association of Train Dispatchers and Traffic Controllers struck a deal after talks lasting for several hours, according to ZSR spokesperson Martina Pavl¡kov .
English: http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/42777/10/train_engineers_set_one_hour ...