Major strike activity put effective pressure on European paper and packaging giant SmurfitKappa to move up on a 2011 wage offer for 2,500 corrugated packaging workers. On 23 February, the CGT-FILPAC union succesfully staged a one-day strike in 18 SmurfitKappa plants all over France. The agreement subsequently reached by the end of February calls for a 2.35% wage increase spread across 2011. SmurfitKappa had offered only 1.4% prior to the strike, with half of that - 0.7% -- first due on 1 April. CGT-FILPAC won a one percent on 1 March, with the remainder due sooner this year than the company's now discarded proposal dates. The union also won an added increase for lower-salaried workers, effective 1 October 2011, and posted an increase in holiday pay as well.
English: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4270-24-Hour-Paper-Strike .
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On 14 and 15 February low-wage contract workers employed by OCS Group mounted a two-day strike at Tata Steel in Port Talbot (2,900 employed), in protest to the cleaning and catering multinational's miserly pay offer. Some 70 members of UK union Community, most taking their first industrial action, blocked two entrances to Tata's Corus Strip Products mill because a living wage has not been paid them since June 2010. Community calls on OCS to make a pay offer that exceeds the national minimum wage. OCS responded to the strike by bussing in managers and others to perform mill-site services, while unionised steelworkers at Tata were supporting the strike actions by not cooperating with scab cleaners.
English: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/4273-Contract-Workers ...
The proposed 2011-2012 national framework agreement for the private sector has been rejected by the socialist (FGTB/ABVV) and liberal (CGSLB/ACLVB) trade union confederations. Their concerns included the social security cuts, the limited room to negotiate (0.3%) over pay at sectoral level and the lack of a minimum wage increase. There were also concerns about negotiating against a European background, with increasing pressure to increase retirement ages and to end pay indexation. Following consultation of its membership the ACV/CSC confederation decided reluctantly to support the agreement although it was far from satisfied with the content. The FGTB/ABVV confederation has announced a national action day on 4 March in protest of the outgoing cabinet's decision of 25 February to carry out elements of the rejected agreement (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 December 2010 and Year 4 January 2011).
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/404
Dutch: http://www.abvv.be/web/guest/news-nl/-/article ... http://www.aclvb.be/publicaties/nieuws/nieuwsitem/detail/de ... http://www.acv-online.be/Actualiteit/Nieuws/Detail/Luc_Cortebeeck_over_ipa.asp
French: http://www.fgtb.be/web/guest/news-fr/-/article/129960/&p_l_id=10624 http://www.cgslb.be/publications/actualite/nouveaux/detail/la-cgslb ... http://www.csc-en-ligne.be/Actualite/Nouvelles/details/aip_approbation.asp
The hearing of the High Court injunction against the SIPTU union and members on strike at the O'Callaghan Davenport Hotel in Dublin over cuts in the minimum wage has been adjourned until March 1. Five SIPTU women members are in dispute with the company because it took them off the roster and told them they will lose their jobs if they do not accept lower rates of pay. When the national minimum wage (NMW) was lowered, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan gave assurances that the minimum wage for existing employees could not be reduced without their consent. However the workers concerned, all women from Eastern Europe, were brought into three meetings and told they must sign the new contracts. They refused, and were removed from the payroll.ÿSIPTU emphasizes that although the dispute involves only five people it has implications for over 300,000 workers affected by the new NMW legislation (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 January 2011).
English: http://www.siptu.ie/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2011/Name,12136,en.html http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/764
On 24 February contract cleaners organised in the SIPTU union would be handling in a petition signed by 2,000 of their colleagues and their supporters to the EROs Independent Review Committee, calling for the preservation of the Employment Regulation Order (ERO) which protects their pay and conditions of employment. They will be accompanied by the O'Callaghan Davenport Hotel strikers, who are not protected by an ERO. The forced reduction of their minimum wages would anyway not be possible if they were also covered by an ERO (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 4 January 2011).
English: http://www.siptu.ie/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2011/Name,12135,en.html
Poczta Polska (PP), the Polish post service, is to lay off 5,000 workers by the end of October, reports the Polish press agency PAP. In response to the announcement, the Solidarity trade union plans to picket government offices in Poznan on 2 March and in Warsaw on 16 March. "We hope that there will be real negotiations with the government, which is the owner of our firm," said Bogumil Nowicki, president of the National Communications Secretariat of Solidarity. The redundancies result from PP's plans to liquidate 3,000 post offices which are to be replaced with sales points located in gas stations and convenience stores. The changes are intended to make PP competitive before 2013, when the market will be opened to other postal firms from the European Union.
English: http://www.wbj.pl/article-53389-polish-post-to-lay-off-5000 ... via http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Poland
On 23 February paperworkers across the country, belonging to the two major trade union confederations, began strike action in frustration to futile year-long bargaining that has left them without a pay increase in 2010. They have announced to repeat their 24-hour action on 3 March. The bargaining between the FIA-UGT and FSC-CCOO unions and the employers' grouping, Aspapel, regards the 2010-2012 national sectoral agreement and covers 17,500 workers at some 120 mills and plants. The dispute is not just over salaries, but also over adverse salary structures that employers are trying to impose that will prove detrimental to workers in the long term and over Aspapel's aggressive methods to liberalise work rules.
English: http://www.icem.org/en/19-Pulp-Paper/4264-Pledge-Support ...
Service Union United PAM has issued a strike warning for the entire security industry (7,000 employees). If a new collective agreement will not be reached, the union board says a three-day nationwide strike will be called to start two weeks from Thursday 24 February. According to the union the action will not, however, affect emergency services or any jobs where a strike would endanger any activities of key importance to society. The major disagreement in the negotiations concerns the reform of the industry's pay system. Earlier PAM declared an overtime ban for the security industry as well as a three-day strike, to start Wednesday 2 March, at the security company Securitas. According to PAM president Ann Selin Securitas complicated collective bargaining: "The company put pressure on employees and shop stewards who have participated in industrial action. Securitas has also sent its employees a message where it urges them to leave PAM and to search for an alternative to it."
English: http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2011/02/threat_of_security_guards_strike ... http://www.artto.kaapeli.fi/unions/T2011/o05
On Wednesday 23 February, much of the country came to a standstill during the first general strike of 2011, against the government's austerity drive. Private and public sector trade unions held protest rallies in Athens and Thessaloniki. It was estimated that some 30,000 people took part in the rally in Athens, which was mostly peaceful. However, in the end violent clashes between some protesters and the police broke out that took away much of the attention for the union demands (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 September, October, November and December 2010; Year 4 January 2011).
English: http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles ... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/world/europe/24greece ...
After a two-hour stoppage on Tuesday 22 February between 6 to 8 am, the GDL train drivers' trade union has threatened further strike action to press for pay demands. Union president Claus Weselsky said Tuesday's strike, which delayed hundreds of thousands of passengers, was called after seven months of negotiations brought no results. GDL wants pay scales for drivers at six small rail firms brought into line with those at national operator Deutsche Bahn, as well as a higher wage offer from the state-owned national operator. In total wage demands cover 26,000 regional, long-haul and freight train drivers.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/22/germany-strikes ... http://www.thelocal.de/national/20110221-33237.html