The SETCA/BBTK services union reports that a majority of employers in the non-profit health care sector are refusing to sign agreements setting out provisions for early retirement. The union believes that these employers are following the example of the main FEB employers' organisation that has been calling for a hard line on early retirement. SETCA/BBTK argues that these provisions are very important for a sector that is characterised by difficult and stressful occupations and where pay levels are modest.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375;
French: http://www.setca.org/News/Pages/Communiquedepresse2082010soinsdesante.aspx ;
Dutch: http://www.bbtk.org/nieuws/Pages/Persbericht12082010gezondheidszorg.aspx
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The CCOO union confederation's public sector organisations in the Extremadura region of south west Spain have lodged over 450 appeals against the pay cuts being imposed by the public authorities. The appeals cover nearly 80,000 workers in the regional administration and local authorities as well as workers in universities. The actions challenge the pay cuts on the basis of the infringement of union rights to collective bargaining and the maintenance of pay and employment. Earlier, the CCOO confederation attacked the Socialist government for what is allegedly the biggest attack on workers' rights since the transition to democracy in the 1970s. CCOO general secretary Ignacio Fern ndez Toxo said that the change in the law gives too much flexibility to employers in terms of setting wages and working time and will undermine sectoral collective agreements leading to damaging wage competition.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375;
Spanish: http://www.fsc.ccoo.es/webfsc/menu.do?Inicio:95068
The SGB/USS trade union confederation has expressed its solidarity with the cleaners on strike against the ISS multinational that operates at Geneva airport. The company has ignored two collective agreements and reduced pay rates for the cleaners. The SGB/USS has underlined the importance of the dispute and its implications for defending pay and conditions and preventing a spread of wage dumping. The organising VPD-SSP union argues that the Geneva authorities, that own the airport, should insist on ISS to comply with the collective agreements or ban the company from operating at the airport. The cleaners have been involved for over five weeks in what VPD-SSP president, Katharina Prelicz-Huber, has called "a strike for and by women".
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375; http://www.epsu.org/cob/374
French: http://www.ssp-vpod.ch/actualites/nouvelles.html;
German: http://www.vpod.ch/aktuell/nachrichten.html
Services union ver.di has welcomed the fact that the promised minimum wage regulation for the 750,000 workers in the care sector came into force on 1 August. Workers are now entitled to a minimum hourly rate of Euro 8.50 in the West and Euro 7.50 in the East. The rates will be increased to Euro 8.75 and Euro 7.75 from 1 January 2012 and to Euro 9.00 and Euro 8.00 from 1 July 2013. Ver.di had called for a higher rate and remains disappointed that there are different rates for East and West Germany. The union set up a telephone hotline for employees to report problems of compliance. Evidence from calls indicates that employers were not complying with the new regulations as they included holiday pay, Christmas pay, shift allowances and bonuses in their calculation of pay when it should just be basic pay. Said ver.di board member Ellen Paschke, "Employers seem to try everything as to evade the minimum wage regulation" (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 March and May 2010).
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375; http://www.epsu.org/cob/374
German: http://presse.verdi.de/pressemitteilungen/showNews .
The Equal Treatment Commission has ruled that part-time workers should be fully paid for any work-related training they do. The case involved a part-time worker covered by the care sector agreement who worked 16 hours a week as a care assistant but who undertook a training course of 28.8 hours a week. The Commission agreed with the union that payment should be on the basis of the 28.8 hours and not on the basis of a special rate for trainees in the collective agreement. In this case it meant the monthly salary should be Euro 1,383 a month rather than Euro 1,060.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375
Dutch: http://www.cgb.nl/oordeel/2010-123
Majority of union members back pension agreement
July 2, 2010
The referendum in writing the FNV union confederation organised between 19 June and 1 July among the 1.2 million members of its affiliated unions on the basic national agreement on the pension age union negotiators agreed last May, produced an 80% majority of about 160,000 voters in favour of the agreement. The accord provides for lifting the current age from 65 to 66 years by 2020, with flexibility to retire earlier on a lower pension (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 May and June 2010).
Dutch: http://www.fnv.nl/publiek/themas/aow/nieuws/referendum .
English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2010/country/netherlands.htm
Members of the STAL union are taking strike action against the Resiestrela waste company that provides services to 13 municipalities. The union is calling for the right to negotiate a proper collective agreement and accuses the management of the company of adopting an anti-trade union stance.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375;
Portuguese: http://www.stal.pt/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=526&Itemid=1
The FOA public service union has won a key court case that states that part-time workers who suffer injuries at work can have their compensation based on a full-time worker's salary. The union has been pursuing this and similar cases on the basis that part-time work, particularly for many women workers, is only temporary, often coinciding with periods bringing up young children. Any injury compensation based on potential loss of earnings should therefore be based on the assumption that they would return to full-time employment.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375;
Danish: http://www.foa.dk/Forbund/Presse?newsid .
The SIPTU general union has negotiated a deal to ensure that the "Croke Park" national agreement provisions on outsourcing are applied to the waste sector in Dublin. The union had threatened strike action against Dun Laoghaire council because it had intended to outsource waste collection services to the private company, Panda, without any consultation. The "Croke Park" agreement makes clear that public sector employers can only outsource after full consultation with the trade unions. There will be some outsourcing but union members have also agreed a new redundancy and compensation package (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 April, May and June 2010).
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/375;
http://www.siptu.ie/PressRoom/NewsReleases/2010/Name,11822,en.html
The BFW employers' organisation has joined the trade unions' call for increased funding for the care sector and improved pay and conditions for care workers. The GPA-DJP and VIDA unions argue already for quite some time that care employees are underpaid and work excessive hours. Thus, the quality of care will suffer unless something is done to increase employment in the sector and improve the attractiveness of the caring professions.
German: http://www.gpa-djp.at/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=GPA ...;
http://www.vida.at/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=S03/Page .
In July, the Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI) presented its interim report on the 2010 collective bargaining round, evaluating agreements concluded in the first half of the year. These affected about 7.1 million employees or 37% of all employees covered by collective agreement. Calculated on an annual basis, the average pay increase in wages based on collective agreements will be 1.7%, well below the average increase of 2.6% in 2009. The average increase in eastern Germany was estimated to be 2.0%, bringing this average above that in western Germany (1.7%). In particular the eastern wage hikes were considerably higher in the food industry (3.9% against 2.3% in the western part) and in raw materials and production industries (3.4% against 2.1%). Overall, average collectively agreed pay in eastern Germany will amount to 96.2% of average western German pay levels in 2010, slightly above the 96.1% reached at the end of 2009. As the WSI notes, the effects of the economic crisis had an impact on bargaining in a number of important industries. In particular, in the metalworking and steel industries the bargaining parties were keen to conclude agreements which included measures to help maintain existing employment levels, most frequently through the extension of short-time arrangements (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 February 2010).
English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2010/07/articles/de1007029i.htm
German: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_ta_hjb_2010.pdf