Local government employers have made a final offer of a 1% pay increase (1.25% for the lowest paid) for craft workers such as bricklayers, electricians and plumbers. The 40,000 workers covered by the negotiations are covered by a different agreement from the administrative and other council workers covered by the main local government services agreement. The craft trade unions involved (Unite, GMB and UCATT) are unhappy at the employers' offer. Moreover, they want to abolish the separate agreement and integrate all craft workers into the main local government agreement.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/315#a5519; http://www.unitetheunion.com/news__events/latest_news/unite_disgusted.
Search results
Find articles
8810 articles found.
The CGT public services federation is hopeful that draft legislation that would undermine employment rights in local and regional government will be defeated, also as a result of the union campaign. The proposal was introduced with a view to relaxing the rules on recruitment of workers to local and regional government. The union warned that the draft legislation would effectively mean the end to the statutory regulations that cover employees in the sector. Not only the Association of Mayors but also the Minister of the Interior have rejected the proposals and indicated their support for the maintenance of the statutory regulations.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/315#a5519;
French: http://www.spterritoriaux.cgt.fr/spip.php?article3319
Discussions over the economic crisis involving the government, the CCOO and UGT union confederations and the CEOE employers' association have broken down, after the CEOE set out a series of "clarifications" regarding the current negotiations. The unions reaffirmed their commitment to the social dialogue and the need to discuss how to deal with increasing unemployment. They said that the CEOE had undermined the negotiating process by trying to introduce a series of demands that were clearly unacceptable. These included reopening the debate on labour reform and the issue of the ease of dismissal, the conversion of recruitment agencies into for-profit agencies and the use of temporary employment in the public arena, cutting social security contributions, and separating the reduction of corporate tax from any requirement to maintain employment.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/315#a5519;
Spanish: http://www.ugt.es/actualidad/2009/julio/c23072009.html
According to data from the Labour Research Department (LRD) Payline database, wage freezes are not the only way employers have responded to the economic crisis. According to Payline, just 23% of wage settlements since January 2009 have included pay freezes. Only in a handful of cases there have been pay cuts. Yet, the level of pay increases has dropped to an overall median of 2.5% from January - June 2009. The median rise since January 2009 for long-term deals is 3.2%, compared to the median for new deals of 2%. "It is likely that employers that sign long-term deals with their unions favour stability and good industrial relations", said Lewis Emery, LRD's pay and conditions researcher.
English: press release Labour Research Department (LRD);
http://www.lrd.org.uk/index.php?pagid=18
The GPA-DJP trade union has called on the Red Cross to negotiate over how to pay wages owed to around 200 workers. For many years the Red Cross's blood donation service has made errors in its wage calculations, failing to pay correct overtime payments and other allowances. It is estimated that the 200 workers are owed around Euro 2 million. The union says that the Red Cross is trying to resolve the issue through individual discussions with workers, giving them a tight deadline to accept offers of payment below what they are really entitled to.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/314;
German: http://www.gpa-djp.at/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=GPA/Page/Index&n=GPA_0.a&cid=1246616837041
Public services union UNISON has won an equal pay tribunal case against the Bury Metropolitan Borough council in the North West of England. Around 1,200 low paid women workers - cleaners, cooks and support staff - are set benefit from new pay arrangements that will mean they can earn the same kind of bonus payments, worth 33.3% or 50% of hourly pay, as are paid in male-dominated jobs like in gardening and refuse collection.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/314;
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1483
The three unions, ABVAKABO FNV, CNV Publieke Zaak and NU'91 have negotiated a new 24-month collective agreement for the mental health care sector in a difficult bargaining environment, with the government willing to cut the health budget. There will be a 1% pay increase on 1 October 2009 and another 1% on 1 August 2010. The year-end bonus payment will be worth 5.25% of salary in 2009 and 5.75% of salary in 2010, while there will also be a 0.65% lump sum payment. New flexible working hours' arrangements will be introduced, along with improved work-life balance provisions that will allow employees to use or save an extra 35 hours of leave.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/314;
Dutch: http://www.abvakabofnv.nl/cao/bericht/op_de_valreep.
The Kommunal union has warned that the crisis has already spread from the private sector to the public sector as care workers have been losing their jobs. A survey carried out by the union suggests 7,500 care jobs have already been cut, while the SKL local and regional government employers' association predicts 15,000 job cuts this year and next. The union points out that those losing their jobs are invariably women on part-time and precarious contracts; it stresses that employers are finding it easy to cut jobs, particularly among fixed-term and agency workers. Kommunal wants to see increased funding for care services from the central government and rejects any notion of a pay cut for care workers.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/314;
Swedish: http://www.kommunal.se/Nyheter/2009/Mars/Absolut-nej-till-lonesankningar/
The PCS civil service union has organised an overtime ban in tax offices, in protest at the increase in overtime that is being used to maintain services after 19,000 jobs have been cut from the department. The union argues that the department should be hiring staff not relying on overtime and temporary workers, particularly in a recession when it is vital to try to collect the estimated Euro 30 billion in uncollected tax. A further 6,000 jobs are due to go by 2011.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/314;
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events.
The SAK blue-collar trade union confederation is aiming to secure a minimum wage of Euro 1,500 for all full-time workers covered by the agreements negotiated in co-ordination by its affiliates. The new president of SAK, Lauri Lyly, stated that the organisation will fight for this basic pay during the next round of wage negotiations. He added that employees should be able to survive on their earnings without having to resort to welfare benefits. There is no statutory minimum wage in Finland with minimum wages set in different sectoral collective agreements, and a Euro 1,500 minimum wage would mean a substantial increase for some groups of workers.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/314; http://www.artto.kaapeli.fi/unions/T2009/m26; http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2009/06/articles/fi0906039i.htm