Collective Bargaining

The national workforce benefits from the highest hourly rate of compensation of any region in the European Union, alongside Brussels. It came out on top of an EU ranking, with workers clocking up 44 euro an hour of pay and benefits in 2016 on average. It was also far above the EU average of 23 euro per hour. The latest figures from the European Union’s statistical office Eurostat include wages, salaries and employer’s social contributions. In contrast, workers were paid below 4 euro per hour in three regions in Bulgaria (Severe tsentralen, Severozapaden and Yuzhen tsentralen), and one region of Romania (Nord-Est).

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The workers of the sanitary transport of Galicia with 80.81% against 14.89% voted in favour of a new preliminary collective agreement with the employer's association. Following the vote they suspended a planned indefinite strike action that was scheduled to begin this month. Trade unions UGT, CIG and CC OO however warn that with the approval of this pre-agreement strike actions are only suspended and not called off in total. Whether new strike actions are to be expected is depended on the next part of the negotiations on the new collective agreement

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The Industrial Union accuses Lapwall, a company that has 3 factories in the country that produce prefabricated wooden wall, floor and roof elements, of discriminating on the grounds of union activity. According to the Industrial Union a 500 euro company bonus is paid to employees who leave the union, do not participate in strikes or do not put in for sick leave during the year. Therefore the union has declared an embargo on the company. The embargo is a legal measure in Finland which can be used when a company does not belong to the employers' association. With the embargo the employment office must inform jobseekers about the industrial dispute, and they are not allowed to break the embargo by guiding jobseekers in the company. The Industrial Union wants to negotiate with Lapwall but thus far the company has not shown any willingness to do that.

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French customs officers are in their third week of industrial action. The custom officers are not on strike but are carrying out longer and more thorough checks than normally which leads to severe delays and train cancellations. Besides a long standing conflict over working conditions they resorted to industrial action to warn that they are not ready for Brexit because there has not been sufficient preparation for a no-deal Brexit. It remains unclear how long the industrial action will continue to affect train traffic between the UK and France.

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The Elite Language Centre recently conducted an online survey to learn more about foreign language use for business purposes. Companies made it clear that the need for foreign workers will very probably increase in the near future, especially for people who speak languages other than Slovak. According to a recent report about every fourth new job position is currently filled by a foreigner. For individuals who seek employee or self-employed status, anecdotal and media-reported evidence indicates that the police has in recent years presented a discouraging obstacle for job seekers and workers. The survey also found that while many companies offer language training for their employees many courses are taught by people who are not suited for the job. There is a significant number of under-qualified teachers being hired at cheap rates by language companies that win contracts by offering the lowest bid. Training should be given more structure, the survey concludes.

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As negotiations on a pay rise hit a deadlock more than 420 workers of the Electrolux plant in Satu Mare, that produces gas cookers, started a general strike. The workers are also organising a protest march to make their demands clear. The workers asked for a wage increase of 75 euro a month in net terms while company management is offering not even half of the demanded wage increase. The union that represents the workers at Electrolux states that the workers are determined to fight for their wage demands but remain open for further negotiations. According to official data, in 2017 Electrolux Romania SRL had a turnover of 130 million euro.

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The emergence of non-standard forms of employment has created challenges for decent work, in particular when employment in non-standard arrangements is not voluntary. In 2014, 62% of European workers replied that they were in non-standard employment because they could not find a permanent job. These developments were discussed at a recent Conference "Automation, jobs and the future of work: understanding political and economic consequences" organized by the New Direction Foundation. ILO offers an extensive interview on the future of work in relation to the emergence of non-standard forms of work with a link to some policy recommendations and further reading material.

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Nestle is shutting down its Romanian plant by the end of May 2019 and this means that the current 388 workers will lose their jobs. The workers that will lose their jobs are angry with the companies’ management that refuses to give them the same kind of severance package that workers in other European countries receive when Nestle plants are closed down. The protesting workers are supported by the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotels, Restaurants, Catering and Tobacco Workers (IUF) that invited Nestle for an emergency meeting to discuss the topic of a general procedure for severance payment throughout Europe.

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The nurses' and midwives' dispute that centred on pay and staff shortages in the health service and resulted in industrial action (see our February newsletter) is still not over. Last month the labour court issued a recommendation aimed at settling the nurses and midwives dispute and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said there was enough in the recommendation to warrant suspending three days of back-to-back strike action which were due to start the following day. The labour court proposed a new higher paid Enhanced Nurse Practice grade which nurses could access within four years, as well as a significant extension in the entitlement to some valuable allowances. But the costs that lead to 50 million euro for 2019 and 2020 were to be part-funded by cost-offsetting productivity measures in a new contract. Unions argue that these measures would make nursing insecure, rejected the deal and threaten with further industrial action.

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The attack on a tram in Utrecht killing three and wounding several others caused the three organizing union federations to abort the national strike that started successfully in the early morning. Employees of various sectors were striking for better pensions and to freeze the retirement age at 66. The first and most disrupting strike was in public transit early at 6:00 a.m. Public transit employees were however not the only ones performing actions. Employees of the police, fire department, military and ambulance, among others, were driving from across the country to the Malieveld in The Hague at a speed of only a symbolic 66 kilometres per hour. There they would meet other employees such as dockworkers and construction workers. Already tens of thousands of people were in action when the news arrived about the attack on a tram in Utrecht. The attack had nothing to do with the pension action but still all actions were aborted out of respect for the victims.

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