epsucob@NEWS April 2005

Welcome to the latest issue of EPSU’s collective bargaining newsletter, EPSUCOB@NEWS. A two-year deal in Swedish local government is the main public sector agreement to be concluded in the last month. In contrast unions in Germany and Greece are finding it harder to win concessions in their negotiations. In Germany ver.di wants the agreement covering federal and local authority employees extended to the 900,000 workers in regional government but employers are pushing hard for concessions on working time.

EPSU - Collective bargaining working group
EPSU - Collective bargaining conference 12-13 December
EUROPE - General pay developments in 2004 and civil service pay
EUROPE - Working time developments in 2004 and working time in the civil service
FRANCE - public sector negotiations
SWEDEN - two-year agreement in local government
SWEDEN - government plans legislation to protect collective agreements
NORWAY - negotiations in the public sector
GREECE - 24-hour strike in public sector
GERMANY - hard bargaining with regional authorities
GERMANY - low pay and minimum pay debate continues
FINLAND - increase in outsourcing in health and social services
UK - unions submit national pay claim in civil service
UK - discrimination in performance-related pay scheme
UK - outsourcing and collective bargaining
UK - latest average earnings figures
PORTUGAL - 2.88% pay deal at EDP

EPSU - Collective bargaining working group

A working group met in early April to discuss EPSU’s work on collective bargaining during the coming year. The key issues agreed on were: Outsourcing - extend survey carried out in utilities sector to other EPSU sectors; Low pay - go ahead with drafting policy document for December conference; Annual report - produce 2005 annual report in format used for first report covering 2002-2004; and Conference - draft agenda agreed (see below). More detailed notes will be circulated to epsucob@ contacts shortly.

EPSU - Collective bargaining conference 12-13 December

The fourth EPSU collective bargaining conference will take place at ITUH in Brussels on 12 and 13 December. There will general discussions on social dialogue and collective bargaining with speakers from the ETUC (Deputy General Secretary Maria Elena Andre) and from the European trade union research institute ETUI-REHS (Maarten Keune). There will a round-up of developments in collective bargaining and social dialogue in the public services and specific discussions on low pay; outsourcing; recruitment and retention of young workers; policies on migrant workers; and how to improve access to information on collective bargaining. The conference will break into working groups on the second day to discuss working time.

EUROPE - General pay developments and civil service pay

The industrial relations observatory EIRO has just produced its annual round-up of pay developments in 2004. The report also focuses on civil service pay negotiations. The general trend, according to EIRO, was for pay deals in 2004 to be slightly lower than 2003, 4.0% on average compared to 4.2% in 2003. In real terms, the fall was sharper from 1.8% to 1.0%. EIRO points out that these averages conceal significant differences between countries. The EIRO analysis of pay deals in the civil service found that in 2004 the increase in the civil service was lower than the national average in 14 of the EU25, equal in two cases and higher than the national average in six countries. No comparison could be made for three countries,
Read more at > EIRO

EUROPE -Working time developments and working time in the civil service

EIRO’s round-up of developments in working time reported no major changes during 2004. It noted the high-profile company agreements in Germany where concessions on working time were made as part of job guarantee agreements. However, there was no evidence that this had begun a general trend. EIRO also reports few changes to working hours across the civil service where the average working week, at 37.1 hours, is below the overall average of 37.9 hours.
Read more at > EIRO

FRANCE - public sector

With the 1.8% pay increase agreed for 2005 unions in the public sector in France are trying to make progress on a number of other issues. They are looking for an early start to negotiations for 2006 and for compensation for the loss of purchasing power for public sector workers between 2000 and 2004. They also want reforms of the public sector pay structure.
Read more at > FO And at > CFDT And > CGT

SWEDEN - two-year agreement in local government

Kommunal, the municipal workers’ union, reports that it reached agreement with the Association of Local Authorities and Regions on 14 April 2005 after arbitrators had been called in two weeks earlier. The agreement is valid two years from 1 April 2005 for 400000 members employed by the municipalities and county councils. Local negotiations will now start.

In short the central agreement includes:
guaranteed increase SEK 175 (approx EUR 19) on monthly pay for everyone in 2005 and the same amount in 2006;
the minimum monthly wage for employees older than 19 years of age is raised by SEK 400 to 13400 (EUR 1431) in 2005 and from 2006 to SEK 13800 (EUR 1473). For employees with vocational training and one year working experience, the minimum wage is raised with SEK 1000 to 15 000 (EUR 1601) in 2006.
supplementary allowance for unsocial hours is raised by 5 per cent from 2006
introduction of an agreement for better working environment.

The local negotiations will now start. They are based on SEK 510 (EUR 54.50) per person in 2005 and SEK 500 (EUR 53.50) in 2006, but the increase of the monthly wage that each person gets will differ depending on the results of the local negotiations.

SWEDEN - government plans legislation to protect collective agreements

The Swedish government wants to introduce legislation which will require foreign companies to endorse collective agreements if they tender for contracts with public authorities. The move follows the decision recently by a Latvian company to pull out of building work after its sites were picketed by the Byggnads building union. The Latvian company had refused to abide by collective agreements covering the construction industry.
Read more at > Swedish English language news website And at > EU business website

NORWAY - negotiations in the public sector

The first phase of the pay adjustment negotiations for 2005 between the employers’ association NAVO and the Unions in Norway were concluded on the 5th of April.

The agreement covers the hospital sector, public enterprises, theatres and orchestras, and some of the state owned public utilities in Norway. The agreement contains a pay increase of EUR 239 per year (NOK 1950) effective from the 1st of April. The next step is negotiations on enterprise level. Attention in these negotiations shall be paid to low pay/equal pay/closing the gender pay gap and educational groups. The deadline for these negotiations is the end of April.

The negotiations for the local and regional authorities and for the state sector and will start on April the 20th.

GREECE - 24-hour strike in public sector

The European Industrial Relations Review magazine reports that public sector union ADEDY backed a 24-hour strike on 17 March, coinciding with a four-hour strike by private sector employees co-ordinated by the GSEE federation. Unions were protesting at the government’s demands for wage moderation.

GERMANY - hard bargaining with regional authorities

Negotiations between services union ver.di and the regional authorities have broken down. The regions were not involved in the negotiations with the federal and local council employers which recently led to a three-year agreement. Warning strikes have been organised by ver.di to put pressure on the regional authorities to join the main public sector agreement. The regions broke away from the main public sector agreement last year when they began to introduce longer working hours for civil servants and new employees.
Read more at > ver.di

GERMANY - low pay and minimum pay debate continues

The debate over low pay in Germany continues with unions demanding that the government extend posted workers’ regulations, which currently cover the building industry, to all sectors. At the moment the position of the DGB union federation is that minimum wage rates should be set by collective agreements and not by law. However, the debate is still open and some unions, particular ver.di and the NGG catering and hotel sector union, argue that a statutory minimum wage will be necessary to provide protection for workers in sectors which are not covered by collective agreements.
Read more at > DGB

FINLAND - increase in outsourcing in health and social services

The industrial relations observatory EIRO reports on an increasing trend to outsource welfare services in Finland. The share of social services contracted out doubled to 24% in the 12 years to 2002 while in health care it increased from 14% to nearly 17%. Municipal union KTV says that outsourcing has led to cuts in annual leave of up to two weeks for some workers. Maternity leave has also been cut and new workers start on lower pay. KTV is merging with other blue collar unions in the welfare sector to boost its bargaining power with private employers.
Read more at > EIRO

UK - unions submit national pay claim in civil service

The UK civil service unions, PCS and Prospect, have submitted a joint national pay claim for over 500,000 civil servants. The unions, which currently negotiate in over 200 bargaining units across the civil service, have been pushing for a national pay deal for some time. They are claiming a 4.6% increase across the board and action to deal with the different salary levels applied to similar jobs across different departments.
Read more at > PCS And at > Prospect

UK - discrimination in performance-related pay scheme

The PCS civil service union has uncovered evidence of discrimination in a performance-related pay scheme run by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) - the government agency that monitors company and consumer law. The union says that the OFT acknowledges problems with the scheme but that it continues to impose it on employees.
Read more at > PCS

UK - Outsourcing and collective bargaining

Public services union UNISON faces the challenge of trying to ensure that the national pay and conditions agreement in the National Health Service, known as Agenda for Change, is also implemented by private contractors in the sector. Below are the latest updates from the union on progress with two contracts where members had threatened industrial action to support their claims.

Company: Serco with contract at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital UNISON members at Norfolk and Norwich called off strike action in March after Serco agreed to pay a minimum wage of £5.35ph backdated to 1 October 2004 along with a further rise to £5.60 an hour from 1 April 2005. This will mean pay increases of up to 15% for those on the lowest rates. The company will enter into negotiations with the union over introduction of pay rates equivalent to those set in the Agenda for Change national agreement.

Company: Initial Healthcare with contract at Aintree Hospital Trust A series of joint trade union meetings have unanimously agreed to ballot for industrial action which would include two days’ strike action over their claim for parity with Agenda for Change in the health service. This is the third time union members have recently balloted for action against Initial Healthcare at different workplaces across the country.
Read more at > UNISON

UK - latest average earnings figures

UNISON has produced a bulletin summarising the latest figures from the government’s annual survey of hours and earnings. This includes figures for earnings increases by sector and shows that compared to an increase of 4.2% for average earnings across the whole economy, the increases in the public services were higher with 6.2% in public administration, 6.6% in health and social work, and 8.0% in electricity, gas and water supply.
Read more at > UNISON

PORTUGAL - 2.88% pay deal at EDP

The pay increase for 2005 at the main Portuguese electricity company EDP is 2.88% backdated to take effect from 1 January.
Read more at > SINDEL