Collective Bargaining

In publishing the new part-time unemployment scheme in the Official Gazette, Minister of Social Affairs Jan-Hein Donner suggested that the scheme was not meant to agree upon additional wage payments up to 100%. This provoked a strong reaction of the FNV union confederation, pointing out that during the negotiations on the new scheme government and social partners had agreed that specific arrangements at company level would be subject to decentral negotiations. The Minister has reacted in announcing to re-formulate the settlement for complaints on the application of the scheme in the direction indicated by the union confederation. According to Anja Jongbloed, collective bargaining co-ordinator of the largest private sector union, FNV Bondgenoten, in 87% of all company agreements in which her union participates 100% additional payments have been laid down (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 2 January, February, March and April).
Dutch: http://www.fnvbondgenoten.nl/nieuws/actueel/klachtregeling_deeltijdww/
http://www.fnvbondgenoten.nl/nieuws/actueel/bij_deeltijd_ww_vaak_goede/

On 20 May, over 20 trade union organizations reached an agreement on organizing protest actions over the implementation of the Labour Contract Act. The chairman of the Estonian Confederation of Trade Unions, Harri Taliga, noted that all affirmed the actions to be organized in June. "All participants in the meeting agreed that the government's unilateral plan to change the three-party agreement and cut back on employees' guarantees is not acceptable," Taliga said. The unions see three options for solving the crisis that has emerged - to postpone the Labour Contract Act, to fully implement it or to change it equally in the interests of employers and employees.
English: http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/analytics/?doc=13987
via http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Estonia

On 20 May, the five unions involved - EIS, GMB, UCU, UNISON and Unite - said that the UK higher education employers' organisation, the Universities, Colleges and Employers Association (UCEA), had made the worst pay offer in the public sector by increasing their offer from 0.3% to 0.4%. Besides rejecting this offer, the unions also expressed frustration at the unwillingness of the employers to jointly produce national materials on redundancy avoidance. Concerning the negotiations, UNISON head of higher education Jon Richards said: "We have made a few small steps but not enough for us to feel as if we are making significant progress."
English: http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=5355

On 16 May about 20,000 trade union members from the Czech Republic and other EU countries rallied in Prague to demand better protection for workers during the economic crisis and protested proposed measures against it. The participants in this demonstration, like others all over Europe organised by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), gathered outside Prague Castle. "We have to do the maximum, including staging demonstrations to prevent the economic crisis to be misused against those who are not responsible for it, that is common citizens," said Milan Stech, chairman of CMKOS, the major trade union confederation. The Czech speakers targeted recently proposed changes to the country's labor code, and claimed they were not acceptable for them as this reform would make it easier for employers to fire workers (See also this Collective Bargaining Newsletter Year 2 April 2009).
English: http://www.etuc.org/a/6189
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D987C2K81.htm

On 14 May, flights to and from Greece were grounded for several hours after air-traffic controllers joined a nationwide public sector strike to protest against the government's response to the financial crisis. The 24-hour strike, which also shut down ministries and public services, was called by public sector unions representing more than half a million workers. They are fighting a public sector wage freeze and pension reforms. "We paid for their profits, we must not pay for their crisis," the ADEDY union stated. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis's government launched a Euro 28 billion bank support package in January but a huge debt and fiscal problems have prevented the government from giving substantial relief to the poor, Reuters reports.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLE64875420090514 via
http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Greece

The IMPACT public services union has warned the Health Service Executive (HSE) that it needs to negotiate with the union to resolve conflicts over jobs, pay and pensions if it wants to avoid a major conflict. Longstanding dissatisfaction over HSE top management's treatment of staff and services could quickly lead to conflict unless an agreement can be reached to protect jobs, incomes and the value of pensions, according to the union's national secretary for health and welfare, Kevin Callinan. IMPACT has called on members not to co-operate with any HSE demands to freeze recruitment or cut allowances. It has already backed workers in ballots for industrial action in three hospitals.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/306#a5017
http://www.impact.ie/iopen24/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=229

On 29 April, thousands of railway workers marched through Bucharest in protest over proposals on job cuts. The workers, represented by a number of unions, were protesting outside the ministry of transport building. The government had announced that some 12,000 workers' jobs in the state railways would be axed, although officials later claimed only 4,000 jobs would be affected. It has been reported that the cuts are part of restructuring backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The trade unionists were also calling for salary levels to be raised to levels comparable with those in other European countries, job security and better working conditions.
English: http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/3300

Some 60 private-contracted workers at Durham hospital in the North East of England will be paid in line with National Health Service (NHS) pay rates, after their ballot of UNISON members for strike action helped persuade the employer to agree to the new rates. In 2006 health unions negotiated a nationwide deal that was aimed at ensuring that all private contractors working for the NHS would pay their employees in line with NHS rates. However, it has been a challenge to guarantee that this happens at local level, UNISON regional organiser Ian Daley said.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/306#a5017
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=5331

Under the Belgian scheme of temporary unemployment for economic reasons, employees will receive unemployment payment for any days not worked, be it fully only for a maximum of 4 weeks. Currently, the scheme is only available to blue collar workers. In October 2008, employers' organisations launched a proposal to extend the system of temporary unemployment to specific types of white-collar workers. Trade unions reacted reluctantly, and wanted a compromise to be linked to the long-discussed issue of harmonising the employment status of blue-collar and white-collar workers. In early April, a deadlock seemed at hand when the trade unions withdrew from the negotiations after being handed an ultimatum by the employers. Yet, on 30 April an agreement between government, unions and employers' associations was reached concerning "exceptional and temporary measures to avoid mass lay-offs". One of three measures focused exclusively on white-collar workers and implied the collective suspension of labour contracts without affecting worker's rights. Statistics of the ABVV/FGTB union confederation suggest that the number of workers under the temporary unemployment scheme in January-April 2009 nearly doubled compared to the last four months of 2008.
English: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2009/04/articles/be0904019i.htm
Dutch: http://www.fgtb.be/CODE/nl/fram001.htm; http://www.fgtb.be/CODE/nl/fram004.htm
French: http://www.fgtb.be/code/fr/fram001.htm; http://www.fgtb.be/CODE/fr/fram004.htm

On May 5, the G™D public service union has signed a new collective agreement covering all university employees from 1 October 2009. The agreement means that university workers will no longer be covered by the main public sector agreement and that university works councils will be able to negotiate certain changes to terms and conditions. The G™D believes that the agreement establishes a decent minimum wage and provides job security and a good career structure as well as career progression based on merit.
English: http://www.epsu.org/cob/306#a5017
German: http://www.goed.at/15219.html