The 3F union has called on an anti-union low cost carrier to enter into collective agreements or face industrial action. The union stated that Ryanair has to accept the Danish model of labour relations after it was revealed that the carrier had applied for room in the new low-cost terminal at Kastrup Copenhagen airport. 3F Kastrup, which represents a large proportion of Copenhagen's airport staff, is determined to make sure the employees will not pay for Ryanair's cheap service with their salaries and conditions. "Ryanair must follow the rules and agreements established for the Danish labour market. If it doesn't, we are ready to fight to secure our rights. We cannot accept that a company can practise social dumping, " said union chairman, Henrik Bay-Clausen.
English: http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/4683
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Earlier in June and July, the Kommunal union signed 10 two-year agreements with the KFS employers' organisation. KFS brings together 600 companies with around 35,000 employees providing a range of municipal services, such as consulting, museums, health, and education. Around 80% of the KFS member companies are owned by local authorities while the rest are partially or wholly privately owned. Kommunal believes the agreements are in line with the overall settlement in the municipal sector. They provide for increases of 1.1%-1.5% in 2010 rising to 2.2% to 2.6% in 2011. Some agreements express monthly increases in SEK, ranging from SEK 300 (Euro 31) to SEK 450 (Euro 47) in 2010 and from SEK 520 (Euro 54) to SEK 550 (Euro 57) in 2011.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/372
Swedish: http://www.kommunal.se/Kommunal/Nyheter/2010/Juli/Tio-nya-avtal-med-KFS/
The FOA public services union has criticised the labour and equality ministers for claiming that equal pay legislation does not need to be changed as men and women carrying out the same job and with the same training get the same pay. FOA points out that this narrow view of equal pay was left behind in the 1980s and the government-appointed wages commission reporting earlier in 2010 has confirmed that on average men are paid 18% more than women. The union believes legislation needs to be revised as it is not clear enough on the question of equal value.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/372;
Danish: http://www.foa.dk/Forbund/Presse?newsid .
The Postkom union has stepped up its fight against the proposed mail directive and wants to mobilise popular resistance. "We are launching the campaign website www.postdirektivet.no to inform about the directive and bring up our points," said Odd Christian Overland, union chairman. Postkom has long worked against the EU's third directive mail to be included in Norwegian law as they believe that will be against consumers' interests. In particular, the mail directive will affect communities outside the Oslo area in the form of poorer and more expensive postal services, according to the union.
English: http://www.uniglobalunion.org/Apps/UNINews.nsf ...
Private sector pay settlements are not keeping pace with inflation, according to data for May from the Labour Research Department (LRD). Also, earnings in the private sector may not be able to offset the effect of pay curbs in the public sector. The three-monthly median (midpoint) for May remained steady at 2%, the same as the previous month. LRD data available so far indicate that the median for new settlements in the public sector has fallen to 1%. In the private sector pay freezes affected 13% of settlements (19% of new settlements) in the three months to May, little changed from April but down on the higher proportion of freezes recorded earlier this year. Lewis Emery, LRD's pay and conditions researcher, said: "Although currently a degree of stability has emerged in wage deals, pay rises of less than half the rate of inflation spell cuts in living standards for workers in general, not just the public sector." (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 3 May 2010).
English: LRD Press Release http://www.lrd.org.uk/issue.php?pagid=1&issueid=1392
On Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 June, a two days' strike forced the closure of Madrid's metro system on the second day. While the announced public sector pay cuts were not originally aimed at public company workers such as transport, Madrid's regional conservative government extended the cuts to the metro employees. Under Spanish law workers are supposed to provide agreed minimum levels of services, which kept Madrid's underground rail service running about 50% of trains on the first day. On Monday evening, an assembly of workers decided to make Tuesday a total walkout, a union spokesman said, breaking minimum service agreements for the first time in the last two decades.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65S1E620100629
A day after the Constitutional Court blocked the government's plans to cut pensions by 15%, the government announced to raise the Value-Added-Tax (VAT) by 5%. From 1 July, VAT will go up to 24%, while the flat-rate income tax will remain at 16%. Till the very end, pensioners had fiercely protested the planned cuts, also outside Constitutional Court in Bucharest during the Court meeting. After the national strike of 31 May, trade unions continued their protests right up to the national mobilisation outside parliament on 15 June. On that day, over 20,000 workers and pensioners gathered for a human chain around the Romanian Parliament. The action on 15 June was to provide support to the vote of no confidence in the government. However, the government survived and pressed ahead with the cuts that were due to take effect from 1 July.
English: http://www.euronews.net/2010/06/26/romanian-government-raises-vat;
http://www.epsu.org/cob/369; http://www.epsu.org/a/6603
On 29 June, the day of the parliamentary treatment of the pension reforms, thousands of workers throughout the country walked off the job in a general strike that disrupted public transport, left hospitals operating on emergency staff and pulled all news broadcasts off the air. The fifth national strike day was in particular aimed against pension reforms, implying that most workers will have to work three to five years longer before retirement. Moreover, public sector unions in the ADEDY confederation continue to stress that cuts in public sector pay will see workers lose up to 35% of pay in real terms over the next four years. Jointly, unions oppose the wide range of other measures the government is pushing through including changes to labour law that will undermine collective agreements.
English: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXUJvBknZVGqsBenIus ...;
http://www.epsu.org/cob/369
Greek: http://www.adedy.gr/adedy/site/home/ws.csp
Negotiations between trade unions and management have failed at copper mining giant KGHM Polska Miedz, and a strike ballot is underway. Unions have demanded a guarantee of employment for up to 20 years and increases to 300 zloty (Euro 72) monthly, but management is in particular rejecting the employment guearantee demand. The results of the ballot will be known in August.
English: http://www.thenews.pl/business/artykul134445_kghm-workers-in-strike ...
The Industri Energi (IE) union has successfully negotiated a pay increase for its members at Statoil's offshore Gullfaks B and Gullfaks C fields, and at Shell's Draugen field, in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Talks between union officials and the Norwegian Oil Industry Association, mediated by the Norway's National Arbitration Tribunal, reached agreement that avoided strike action after extending a midnight deadline. "We feel relieved that we could avoid a strike," EI president Leif Sande stated, "We did not get everything, but we got a good wage increase and better compensation." The new agreement sees a NOK 10,000 (Euro 1,275) annual increase in general wages for some 6,700 workers. In addition, shift, conference and holiday supplements will be increased.
English: http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3887-Strike-Avoided ...